Structural features of extrinsic modality

Modal auxiliaries expressing extrinsic meanings correlate with the following features:

Subject: _________________________	There may be trouble ahead.
Infinitive: _______________________	She might be waiting.
Main verb: ____________________ : ___________________	It might be cold.
	I might leave early.
Modality is expressed by: ______________________________	It might have to be abandoned.
Past reference by: _______________________________	He might have left by now.

Structural features of intrinsic modality

Modal auxiliaries expressing intrinsic meanings correlate with the following features:

Functionally, these modal meanings are used to establish and maintain social relations and interaction. Through them, speakers influence and control others, and commit them­selves to certain courses of action. They may bring about changes in their surroundings by obligations which are met, permissions given, promises kept and so on.

Semantically, the modal utterance forms part of the linguistic event, and the speaker intervenes in the action.

Subject: _________________________	We may / will help you.
Infinitive: ______________________	You may wait here.
Main verb: _____________________	I can run fast.
Modality is expressed by: _______________________________	You must reject the proposal!
Past reference by: _______________________________	I must go. – I had to go. They may go. – They were allowed to go.

Seminar 5.

Modality

Modality is a necessary component for representing events in discourse, together with other levels of information such as dictum etc.

Task 1.

Classify the following means of expressing modality into the means of subjective and objective modality.

Over the last fifteen years, linguists have concentrated on surveying a more or less comprehensive inventory of modal elements, a representative sampling of which can be said to include:

1. (rising) intonation (e.g. “I feel happy”), and so forth.

2. ……….. (e.g. “possible”, “necessary”, etc.),

3. ………. (e.g.“alleged”, “demanded”, etc.),

4. ……….. (e.g. “necessity”, “consideration”, etc.),

5. ………….. (e.g. “wonder”, “order”, etc.),

6. ……….. (e.g. “perhaps”, “obviousl y”, etc.),

7. ……………(e.g. “the”/ “a”, “some”/ “any”, etc.),

8. ………… (e.g. “I thought you in Paris”, “In 1492, Columbus discovers America”),

9. ……………. (e.g. “John is having a headache”),

10. …………… (e.g. “if”) and………………… (e.g. subject-verb inversion, putative “should”: “If you don’t like it / should you not like it, that’s your hard luck”),

11. ………………………………. (finite, non-finite or verbless clause: “They consider that John is intelligent/John to be intelligent/John intelligent”, etc.),

12. ………………………. (e.g. “She is a great scholar, I think”),

13. …………………….(e.g. “Do be getting sleepy!”),

14. ………………….(e.g. “He got elected Class President”),

15. ……………………(e.g. “You liked the movie, didn’t you?”),

16. …………………….(e.g. “Have you ever been to London?”),

Task 2.

Analyze examples featuring “might” from an extract from the film script of “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and other authentic examples of written and oral discourse, reproduced below, to illustrate the importance of the discourse based view of modality.

1) “Maybe I might miss something out because we are all human and I’ve overlooked it and you’ve remembered it”.

Example reasoning: Here the linguistic meaning of might is “remote possibility”, this being at first sight reinforced by the epistemic modal adverb maybe. However, as the message progressively unfolds, one finds that the modal meaning is made to contrast sharply with some non-modal forms (e.g. “are”, “have overlooked” and “have remembered”), thus providing insightful clues as to the intended “factual”-like contextual interpretation of the modal in question by the speaker-addressee. As for the second layer of meaning, one can easily see that the choice of the remote form here is motivated by face-saving factors, or more exactly, the speaker’s plea of sympathy from the audience for any mistake or inaccuracy on his/her part. The point to emphasize, however, is that the choice of the form “might miss out”, unlike any other feasible choice (e.g. “may have missed”, “might have missed” or even the non-modal expression “have missed”) allows the speaker to modulate successfully what is highly likely to be an actual mistake in terms of an eventual (possible) mistake (epistemic modality), while justifying his/her “wrong” course of action in terms of a general weakness of mankind (deontic modality).

2) “I might go back to Cambridge early or something because I’ ve got to write an extended essay”.

3) “(...) Yes, please, don’t bother for a moment because merely I wanted to know whether you disagree, as I think you might do from what you’ve been saying with the passage that I’ve quoted from Dr. Kendall’s evidence (...)” .

4) “You might wish to do this because, while you have it: any Class 1 contribution you pay at a reduced rate do not count for benefit; and you cannot get Home Responsibilities Protection; and you are not allowed to pay voluntary contributions, and if you are a married woman, you cannot get credits, and from October 1989 you could pay more in contribution than colleagues with the same earnings but paying standard rate contributions”

(Taken from a governmental leaflet on tax payment)

5)

Charles: “Tom, can you stop the car?”

Charles: “Sorry, I think I might stay in the pub after all”

Tom: “Why on earth?”

Charles: “Ahm...”

Charles: “No, seriously, I’ m doing some research into pubs with the name

“Boat” in the title. I hope to produce the definitive work”

(Four Weddings and a Funeral, Filmscript)

Task 3.