MODALS AND SEMI-MODALS

Variation in the Verb Phrase

MODALSThere are nine central modal verbs in English: can, could, may, might, must, should, will, would and shall.

They do not make inflections to show agreement or tense.

She can get it - Chris Brown

“If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.” Buddha

They act as an auxiliary verb in verbs phrases.

Baby you can drive my car - The Beatles

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink - Proverb

They precede the subject in yes-no questions.

Can you hear me, can you hear me / thro' the dark night, far away… - Sailing - Rod Stewart

Can mike play soccer?

They precede the negative particle in not negation.

I Cannot Believe It's True - Phil Collins

"You cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs"- Proverb

They take a bare infinitive verb as the main verb in the verb phrase.

He Can Work It Out- Dottie Peoples

If She Can Make It Here... – The City

They express stance meanings, related to possibility, necessity, obligation, etc.In most dialects of English, only a single modal can be used in a verb phrase.However, certain regional dialects of English (such as southern AmE) allow some combination of modals. In standard English, it’s not grammatical(This construction is also often stigmatized, which means you would want to be especially careful before using it).

I might could do that. (=“ I might be able to do that.”)

I might should do that. (= "Maybe I should do that")

SEMI-MODALSAre multi word constructions that function like

modal verbs: (had) better, have to, (have) got to, ought to, be supposed to, be going to, used to. In orthographic representation of the spoken language, better, gotta and gonna often occur as the reduced forms of had better, have got to, and be going to.

Semi-modals express meanings that usually can be paraphrased with a central modal verb.

Tchau, I Have To Go NowTchau, I have to go now, I have to go now, tchau!Tchau, I have to go now, I have to go now, tchau! (Jammil e Uma Noites)Instead of – I must go now

Everything you are not supposed to be – Damien RiceInstead of – Everything you should not be

Some semi-modals are fixed expressions, which can not be inflected for tense or person. However, some of the semi-modals, like have to and be going to, can be marked for tense and person.

Past tense:

I had to live by myself

Third-person agreement:

He has to live his life.

Co-occurrence with a modal:

The patient seems to be getting worse. We might have to call the doctor.

When serious accidents occur these doctors will often have to perform complex operations.

Co-occurrence with another semi-modal:

10 Things You Ought to Know About Going to School (book)

There are also some lexical verbs an adjectives that have meanings similar to modal auxiliaries, in that they express instance meanings, but they are neither idiomatic nor fixed expressions. Rather, they express their core lexical meanings of desire, obligation, possibility, etc. Examples are : need to, dare to, want to, be able to, be likely to.

PERSONAL AND LOGICAL MEANINGS OF MODALS

LOGICAL POSSIBILITYCAN Used in academic prose and conversation.

Chandler: I can handle this. "Handle" is my middle name. Actually, "handle" is the middle of my first name. 

Chandler: Can you see my nipples through this shirt? 

Empathy: involves experiencing another person as a subject rather than just as an object among objects. In doing so, one can experiences oneself as seen by the Other, and the world in general.(Husserl: Ideas : General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology)

In some cases CAN is ambiguous and can be confused for ABILITY.

Rachel: Come on. You guys can pee standing up. 

LOGICAL POSSIBILITYMAYUsed in academic prose. Rarely used in conversation.

Imagine all the people / Living life in peace / You may say I’m a dreamer / But I’m not the only one(Imagine, John Lennon)

(…) students realized how they are processing or failing to process presented information and how their behavior is influencing that processing - they may be more apt to self-monitor. (Classroom Assessment Techniques, Thomas A. Angelo & K. Patricia Cross)

LOGICAL POSSIBILITYMIGHTUsed in academic prose and conversation.

Chandler: Condoms? Joey: We don't know how long we're gonna be stuck here. We might have to repopulate the world. 

What I should like to do in this short article is to consider a problem in the teaching of English which has come into particular prominence over the past fewyears, and to suggest a way in which it might be resolved. (The teaching of English as communication, HG Widdowson)

LOGICAL POSSIBILITYCOULDUsed in academic prose and conversation.

Phoebe: We could eat the wax. It's organic. 

Ross: Say something. Say anything. Nothing you say could make this situation worse.

Smart'polymers and what they could do in biotechnology and medicine, IY Galaev

* COULD shows a greatest degree of uncertainty.

PERMISSIONCAN/MAYCAN

Ross: Can I borrow your blue tie? Emma spit on mine. 

MAY (usually produced by parents and teachers talking to children)

Phoebe: Hello, my name is Clunkers. May I please stay with you nice people? 

PERSONAL OBLIGATIONMUST

Most common in academic prose.

In their full generality, Good's methods are applicable to certain problems in which one must multiply an JV-vector by an JV X N matrix which can be factored into m sparse matrices, where m is proportional to log JV.(An Algorithm for the Machine Calculation of Complex Fourier Series By James W. Cooley and John W. Tukey)

PERSONAL OBLIGATIONSHOULD/HAVE TOMost common in conversation (SHOULD and

HAVE TO are less threatening ways to express obligation).

Ross: Wow, you guys sure have a lot of books about being a lesbian. Susan: Well, you know, you have to take a course. Otherwise they don't let you do it. 

Joey: We might have to repopulate the world. he world. 

LOGICAL NECESSITYMUST/SHOULDMUST (academic prose and conversation)

Monica: Wow. That's great. Dad must really like you, he doesn't ask just anyone to play. 

Chandler: Too many jokes. Must mock Joey. 

SHOULD (academic prose)

“If the crop is to be harvested by machinery, varieties should be cultivated which do not readily shatter.”

VOLITION/PREDICTIONWILL/WOULDIn conversation, the distinction between

volition and prediction is not always clear. VOLITION is usually expressed with a first-person pronoun as subject, while PREDICTION is expressed with other subjects

* WOULD is more often hypothetical*The combination of first-person subject +

WOULD can also express advice.

PREDICTION WILL/WOULDUsed in academic prose and conversation.

Phoebe: Hey, if we were in prison, you guys would be like my bitches. 

This implies that in order to influence behavior, we have to expose people to information which will produce changes in their beliefs. (Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior)

VOLITION (PERSONAL INTENTION)WILL/WOULDUsed in conversation.

Phoebe: Joey, if you had to give up sex or food, which would you pick?

VOLITION (PERSONAL INTENTION)BE GOING TOUsed in conversation. Rare in academic

prose.

Ross: We were on a break! Chandler: Oh, my God! If you say that one more time, I'm going to break up with you! 

Chandler: Ok, I'm just going to go outside. 

VOLITION (PERSONAL INTENTION)SHALLUsed in conversation (especially BrE) and

academic prose.

Bessie Braddock: “Sir, you are drunk.” Churchill: “Madam, you are ugly. In the morning, I shall be sober.”

Dory: I shall call him 'Squishy,' and he shall be mine, and he shall be my Squishy.

In this paper we shall present one method of overcoming these dimensionality difficulties. (Dynamic programming and Lagrange multipliers, R Bellman)

VOLITION (PERSONAL INTENTION)SHALLIdea of offer or suggestion (used with I or

We).

Shall we buy a new guitar? Shall we drive a more powerful car? Shall we work straight through the night?Shall we get into fights? (What shall we do now – Pink Floyd)

PAST HABITUAL BEHAVIOR OR PAST STATEUSED TOUsed in conversation. Rare in academic

prose.

Chandler: You wanna tell secrets? Okay. In college, Ross used to wear leg warmers. 

Phoebe: My mom used to stick her head in the oven. Actually she only did it the once, but it was pretty weird. 

Different functions of USED TOAs an adjective + preposition, meaning ‘accustomed to’

(conversation)

I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow in the knee (Skyrim)

As a passive lexical verb (used) followed by a to-clause (academic prose)

Measurements of the momentum flux were made by the Reynolds flux and dissipation methods on a deep water stable tower operated by the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, A modified Gill propeller-vane anemometer was used to measure the velocity. (Open ocean momentum flux measurements in moderate to strong winds by W G Large, S Pond )

MODALS COMBINED WITH ASPECT OR VOICE

Modals cannot combine with tense, but they can combine with ASPECT or VOICE.

With Perfect Aspect (modal + have + participle)

With Progressive Aspect (modal + be + ing)With Passive Voice (modal + be +

participle)

WITH PERFECT ASPECT MUST and SHOULD : logical necessity (fiction, news, and conversation)

It must have been love but it's over nowIt must have been good but I lost it somehow

(It must have been love, Roxette)

Sometimes SHOULD + perfect aspect shows a past obligation (unfulfilled)

Greg Rutter's Definitive List of The 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced On The Internet Unless You're a Loser or Old or Something

(http://youshouldhaveseenthis.com/)

MAY and MIGHT : doubt about past events or situations

Joey: OK, I have no feelings for Rachel. No feelings at all. She's just a friend. I mean, I might have had some feelings for her, but now they're all gone.

WITH PROGRESSIVE ASPECTWILL, MUST, and HAVE TO (conversation and

fictional dialog)

You have to be jokingThey wouldn't do what you said

(You have to be joking, The Flaiming Lips)

SHALL

“We shall be meeting with all parties in the near future.”

WITH PASSIVE VOICECAN and COULD: to avoid identification of the agent of the

main verb – the possibility meaning is most common.

Ross: Should we all expect Christmas gifts that can be stolen from your office? 

MUST and SHOULD: express collective obligation (academic prose)

The Earth should have been hit with many more projectiles than the moon as it has more surface area and larger gravity. (Annihilation of ecosystems by large asteroid impacts on the early Earth, NH Sleep, KJ Zahnle, JF Kasting0)