Rodney Huddleston did a paper in a volume that I lent out and never got back and I'm blanking on the title--something like Studies in English? Anyway the paper was an analysis of traits of English verbs, and his major point was that categories like modal are a lot fuzzier than we generally believe them to be. The basic nine modals (can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, must) all behave alike in a lot of ways, although will/would is more consistent under sequence of tenses than, say, may/might or shall/should. "Must" is distinct in being a past form of "mote," an older modal that died out around the 16th c., and is a preterit present that has no modern past form since it is itself past in form. "Need" and "ought" share fewer properties of modals, and "let" and "make" still fewer although like modals they take the bare infinitive. The problem here lies with too strict an adherence to the notion "category," not with the facts of English. Categories are sets of properties, but the properties get defined on particular words and are not fully the same from word to word, so we're probably talking about arch-types here. The basic nine modals come close to forming an arch-typal category, but don't quite make it.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Robert Yates
Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2010 11:17 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: On English modals
Despite what Herb says, "Without adopting a particular theory" the following is very much a statement from a particular theory:
. . . . whether a verb is modal or not doesn't depend simply on whether it occurs without "to" or not. It is very much a semantic function.
Of course, if you think there are grammatical categories, based on formal properties, then defining modals in English is relatively simple.
Property 1: Modals never take do support.
1a) He can speak English.
b) *He does not can speak English
c) He cannot speak English
So need and ought are modals.
2) He ought not to speak English
3) He need not speak English
(I recognize that need as main verb does take do-support
4) He doesn't need to speak English.
Property 2: Modals never take the agreement s.
5) *He cans speak English.
See 1(a).
6) *He oughts to speak English.
7) *He needs speak English.
Property 3: Modals have tense, so they never occur in tenseless position.
This property is related to not taking the agreement-s.
You can say the following and I'm not sure how big the meaning difference is.
8) I am able to speak English.
9) I can speak English.
Note that 10 is possible, but 11 isn't.
10) I want to be able to speak English.
11) *I want to can speak English.
(You can make the same point with "must" and "have to."
I have no idea what "semantic explanation" explains why 10 is possible but 11 isn't.
Property 4: Only one modal can occur in a verb phrase.
There are some dialects of English that permit double modals, but they are not widespread.
12a) He should ought to speak English.
b) He might could speak English.
All speakers of English allow.
13a) He can hope to go.
b) It can tend to swerve.
c) It can appear to reflect light.
etc.
If modals are a category with a set of formal properties, deciding what is or isn't a modal is not that difficult.
Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
>>> "STAHLKE, HERBERT F" <[log in to unmask]> 09/04/10 6:48 PM >>>
Without adopting a particular theory, I suspect the choice of analysis depends in part on the presence or absence of "to." Many English verbs take infinitives without" to," verbs like "let," "make," and perception verbs like "see," "hear," "watch," etc. And, of course, the nine modal auxiliaries notably take infinitives without "to." There are a few verbs that behave both ways, like "need" and "ought." We can say "You need not do that" and "You ought not leave yet" but also "You need to do that" and "You ought to leave now," which is why "need" and "ought" are often called "semi-modals." So whether a verb is modal or not doesn't depend simply on whether it occurs without "to" or not. It is very much a semantic function.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brett Reynolds
Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2010 3:32 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: nominal use of prepositional phrases? prep phrase as direct object?
Importance: Low
On 2010-09-04, at 3:15 PM, J. Hill wrote:
> One suspicion I've harbored for years about the constructions like "I hope to improve," "tends to go," "decided to go," "appears to go," etc., is that the main verb is actually the infinitive and the first verb we see is actually a different kind of modal auxiliary verb. Here's my line of thinking:
>
> - like modals, the verbs "hope, tend, decided, appears" give information about the mood in which we should take the verb/actions "improve, go."
> - when normal modals are used in a verb phrase, they dictate that the verb coming after them must be in the base, or infinitive, form. Normally, this infinitive form elides the "to" (thus, "must go," "can eat"), but a different kind of modal might modify the type of infinitive needed. More specifically, if "hope," etc., above are another class of modals, it could be a more open set than the normal list of 8-10. Therefore, to avoid confusion, the full form of the infinitive may be needed.
> - in these constructions, thinking of the infinitive as a nominal instead of the actual main verb of the sentence doesn't seem to fit my natural sense of the sentence (something naturally open to interpretation). That is, I see "I hope to improve" more as a version of "I improve" than as a version of "I hope something." Maybe that's because verb phrases used as nominals will always inhabit that gray area between nouns and verbs, but I still see "improving" as the main point of the verb phrase.
>
> What do you all think about this possibility?
The same thing has occurred to me, and I find it an appealing notion. But I would say you need to be clear about what system you're working in. Syntactically, I think the analysis has serious problems. (In fact, syntactically, I would go so far as to say that auxiliaries typically function as the head of their own VP.) Semantically, I think the idea stands on firmer ground, but then I know very little about semantics, so I'm just speculating.
Best,
Brett
-----------------------
Brett Reynolds
English Language Centre
Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning Toronto, Ontario, Canada [log in to unmask]
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