What Are The Different Types Of Modal Verbs And Their Functions

In English, modality is primarily conveyed through modal auxiliary verbs such as can, could, will, and must, among others. Certain modal verbs can serve several modality functions. For example, can is often used as an alternative to other modals to express ability (e.g. Dogs can swim), possibility (She could/can use the ladder to get up on the roof), and permission (You may/can go outside and play now) . English modals are not inflected for person or number agreement with the subject. In some instances, these distinctions correspond directly with events in time, as in can/could in I can run the mile in six minutes, but when I was younger I could run it in five minutes. However, the correspondence between formal tense and events in time is not straightforward, as we discuss below.

Our end-to-end longitudinal study has provided more detailed information and has captured more nuanced usage trends and changes over different time periods. Most crucially, we are also able to reconcile some of the discrepancies and provide possible explanations for the remaining inconsistencies between the two previous studies by Leech and Millar . Through the consideration of decade-to-decade trends in Tables 6 and 9, this study has shown that most modal verbs were decreasing. Based on the value assignments of modal verbs , would is assigned median value in the literature but could be assigned a low value according to the level of commitment interpretation we gave earlier in this paper.

In other words, the English language showed a clear trend of moving from modal verbs that require high-low power relations and demand high levels of obligations. The overall decrease of high and median value modal verbs is partially compensated by the increasing usage of low value modal verbs. In other words, the written discourse is moving from high value demands of obligations to low value non-committing peer perspectives. Following Leech's hypothesis that the language use trends reflect the societal move to more open and equal interaction, our dichotomy of low value versus high/median modals should provide an even more nuanced account.

In addition, in terms of functional compensation of linguistic changes and empowering the speakers, the increasing use of low value modal verbs is also predicted. Among the low value modal verbs, can and could can be argued to be more empowering than may and might according to their meaning. The ability meaning of can and could implies that addressees have the power to act volitionally. On the other hand, may and might have basic meaning of giving permissions and are often used in hypothetical and hedging contexts, thus leaving the volitional power of the addresses unspecified. In other words, our data is not only more reliable but also better aligned with theoretical predictions.

The general consensus on theoretical issues of the analysis of modal verbs and the correlation of their usages to social changes was formed after Leech's response and described earlier in this paper. The corpus choice and data sampling method issues, however, have important implications for our current study. In terms of corpus size and coverage, Millar pointed out the advantage of scaling up, which has been empirically verified by recent corpus-driven studies, many adopting the Web-as-Corpus approach . In addition, in studies of variations and changes, the density of sampling vs population is a critical issue as one can never be sure if the change between two sampling points is simple and monotonic, or complex and multi-dimensional.

This can be viewed as another constant source of Galton's problem; that is, we can never be sure if the change between two points of direct comparison is the result of a direct causal change or the sum of a series of changes. One possible solution to this issue is to have longitudinal continuous sampling for an end-to-end study. That is, one could design the study to examine all data based on fixed diachronic periods, thus ensuring that all data and all times are accounted for. The Google Books corpus is arguably the single most comprehensive corpus in the world and also supports longitudinal continuous sampling. The early version of the Google Books corpus contains 5,195,769 digitized books and over 500 billion words containing 4% of all books ever published. The 2012 version contains data from 8,116,746 books covering 6% of all books ever published .

Despite some limitations, such as the quality of metadata and occasional OCR errors, the Google Books corpus still offers new research potentials . This corpus also helps to solve the challenge of lacking large enough historical corpora for diachronic studies of low-frequency words . Several studies have been directed at English-speaking children's early use of modal verbs. According to the work of Wells , Kuczaj , and Richards , can seems to emerge earlier and is used more frequently than other modals, with the exception of its negative counterpart, can't. The modal can is often used in interrogatives to request permission.

In declaratives, can is used most frequently to express the notion of ability, though often this use falls somewhere on a continuum between ability and circumstantial possibility . It appears that can is the first modal to be used by children to express these notions, and each of these notions is expressed by age 2;6 . Papafragou has suggested that notions such as ability and permission are acquired earlier than functions that reflect epistemic modality because they do not require children to reflect on their own mental states. Palmer , states that modal auxiliary verbs help language users express 'what should be', 'what may be', 'what would be', and 'what is'. Thus, the authors of the articles make frequent use of modal verbs to show possibility, necessity and prediction in their writing.

As the results in the frequency table indicates, the authors of articles on covid-19 use more will to indicate prediction. Will accounts for 28.9% of the modal auxiliary used and this is the highest percentage. Modality involves the claims or assertions of a person assuming the position of authority and claiming or asserting to have the knowledge of what will happen in future. On this basis the results given the use of modal auxiliarywill indicates what will happen in future.

Following Labov , Leech initiated the data driven approach to investigate the effect of social changes on language uses, focusing on the attitudinal expression of modal verbs. Taking advantage of the availability of a larger corpus, as well as the ubiquity of language big data, this paper joins the emergent trend of using linguistic evidence to identify environmental and societal changes . In this study, we also improved the methodology of language big data based diachronic analysis of a language and established a robust and accessible way to monitor changes through modal verbs as social context specific linguistic devices. We showed that this kind of longitudinal tracking of changes in language use, especially in modal verbs, is a powerful tool to monitor social and cultural changes.

Our comparative analysis of English and Chinese firmly establishes the correlation between modal verb usages and societal changes. The availability of large-scale diachronic digitized corpora facilitates the corpus-based approach to the study of language changes [2–6]. Corpus-based approaches are not only typically based on strong empirical evidence, but also often rely on quantitative modeling . The availability of historical corpora also allows end-to-end longitudinal studies to focus on a particular period of interest.

In this context, historical corpora can be considered as perhaps the only continuous chronological databases of collective human behavior changes . As such, quantitative research of language changes can be a useful tool to explore the impacts of historical events and social evolution . However, such studies have focused on English and a few European languages, typically covering less than 100 years and focusing only on a few words, and rarely adopt end-to-end longitudinal approaches [14–17]. In Cantonese, modals usually appear before the main verb, as in English. The morphemes serving as modals are not marked for tense and do not change as a function of the present or past nature of the event.

In this study, we examined children's use of two modals, sik1 and ho2ji5. The modal sik1 expresses ability, and is similar to can when used in contexts meaning 'is able to' or 'knows how to'. The modal ho2ji5 is used in contexts pertaining to permission. Although Cantonese and English can convey essentially the same modality functions, Cantonese differs from English in how these functions are divided among the modals of the language. The modal ho2ji5, frequently used for permission, can be extended to the function of possibility. However, it does not convey the sense of ability, unlike English can which is applicable to ability as well as permission and possibility.

The data was analyzed manually with regard to different functions of the modal auxiliary verbs in question. Six categories of modal auxiliaries namely; Ability, possibility, prediction, obligation, intention and quasi-legal modals characterized the data. Findings indicate that the authors of the articles chose predictive auxiliary modals will, may, can and should in that order in the articles. The modals used presented the opinions of the article writers and the use of will reported the highest frequency.

Modal verbs are useful devices to evince the authors' stance concerning the propositional content (Biber et al., 1999; Palmer, 2001; Collins, 2009); therefore, these verbs can report on perspectivisation in introductions and conclusions. In this context, we expect that probability modal verbs entailing tentativeness will occur more frequently in introductions and necessity modals should appear more frequently in conclusions. Research on the use of modal verbs in these two sections of the research article has been conducted using corpus tools for text retrieval and analysis. Variation ratios will be evaluated using a log-likelihood test to determine the significance of variation according to whether specific modal meanings appear in the introductions or the conclusions. Our main research questions are 'How does the use of modal verbs vary in the introduction and conclusion sections of scientific tourism research articles in terms of form and meaning?

' and 'How does the use of modal verbs vary in the introduction and conclusion sections of scientific tourism research articles in terms of the functions they fulfil? We can think of three ways to examine modal use in a manner that separates modality and formal tense to the greatest extent possible. The first, pursued in Study 1, is to examine children's use of different modality functions that can be expressed using the same modal with the same tense value (non-past). The second, explored in Study 2, is to examine the use of modals by children with SLI when tense is clearly not involved. Notions of past time, for example, must be established by means other than by verb tense, such as by use of temporal adverbs. Therefore, unlike English modals, any difficulty that Cantonese-speaking children with SLI exhibit in the use of modals cannot be attributed to problems with tense.

The third way is to examine children's use of the same modality function in contexts that require either a modal with the formal tense value of past or a modal with the formal tense value of non-past . In all three studies, children with SLI are compared to a group of typically developing same-age peers and a group of typically developing children approximately two years younger. The present study examines modal verb meanings and variation in these verbs in a corpus of texts in the field of tourism. We use a compilation of article introductions and conclusions written in English and published in leading journals specialised in tourism studies. Modal verbs are important to evince the authors' stance concerning the propositional content (Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad & Finegan, 1999; Palmer, 2001).

Variation ratios will be evaluated using a log-likelihood test to determine differences in significance between occurrences in introductions and conclusions. Our conclusions will report, therefore, on the forms, meanings and functions of modal verbs in the sections analysed. Research has been conducted using corpus tools to obtain evidence from our sub-corpus of introductions and conclusions, as mentioned earlier. Direct visual inspection of the texts has also been vital to identify the meaning of the modal verbs in context. The fundamental role of the context in specifying the sense a particular modal verb entails has been mentioned in the literature (see Huschová, 2015; Alonso-Almeida, 2015a and the references therein). A modal verb may indicate an array of meanings, and therefore without these contextual cues, it would be unreasonable to expect an accurate categorisation of these verbal forms.

The plasticity of modal verbs makes them unique; however, it also challenges our ability to identify the meanings they involve each time. In addition to these senses of modal verbs, there is another aspect that cannot be achieved through an automatic interrogation of a computerised corpora, and this is the function these verbs fulfil in the texts in which they appear. All modal auxiliary verbs are followed by a main verb in its base form ; they can never be followed by other modal verbs, lone auxiliary verbs, or nouns. Our second research question deals with potential differences in usage trends of modal verbs according to their modality values of high, median, and low.

Note that our first study based on English showed that the frequency of low value modal verbs rises while the other two types fall in Table 6. We speculated that the rise of low value modal verbs is due to the exact reason that Leech suspected, i.e. the opening up of society. The Chinese data not only provide further support of correlation but also showed a more nuanced picture that challenges the somewhat simplistic view assumed by previous studies.

First, our data shows that in the 1940s, when China was at war and in turmoil, an authoritative turn did reverse the direction of change, with high value modal verbs increasing and the other two values decreasing. This result reinforces our hypothesis that high and low value modal verbs could move in opposite directions. However, modal verb frequency may also slowly decrease naturally over time after a drastic rise. Hence, how to predict the overall tendencies of modal verb usage changes remain an intriguing question.

As 可以 kěyǐ 'may' is from vernacular language and rarely used in classical Chinese, the switch to writing vernacular language certainly played a role in its increased usage, among other vernacular terms. However, the question of why 可以 kěyǐ 'may' had such a drastic increase remains unanswered. Refining Leech's original hypothesis and based on our elaboration of the value of modal verbs, we argue that 可以 kěyǐ 'may' marks empowering events. 可以 kěyǐ 'may' has a range of meaning slightly wider than the English may.

That is, in addition to granting permission, 可以 kěyǐ 'may' can also be used in affirmation of ability/potential (more like 'are able to'). As such, the giving of permission and the affirmation of ability are two crucial aspects of empowering individuals. This pattern of findings suggests a three-step process for intervention aimed at assisting children in their acquisition and use of modals.

First, clinicians might provide children with a modal form for each of the major modality functions served by modals in the child's language. (It is possible, for example, that in Study 1 and 2, a few children simply had no knowledge that modals can express ability.) Second, activities might be provided that acquaint children with the multi-functional nature of certain modals. Otherwise, children might unduly restrict their use of particular modal forms (e.g. can only in permission contexts, could only in possibility contexts). Finally, children may need assistance in learning and using two different modal forms when the same modality function (e.g. ability) must be used in past as well as non-past contexts. Determination of the procedures most appropriate for these intervention goals must be discovered through future research. However, given the general success shown by the OTD children in the present investigation, the types of contexts employed here might be considered as a useful starting point.

In Study 1, we found that English-speaking children with SLI were as proficient as YTD children though less proficient than OTD children in the use of the modal can to express the modality functions of ability and permission. In Study 2, the same modality functions were studied in the speech of SLI, YTD, and OTD groups who were speakers of Cantonese. In this language, tense is not employed, and therefore the modality function could be examined independent of formal tense. In Study 3, we again studied SLI, YTD, and OTD groups in English, to determine whether the children's expression of ability differed across past and non-past contexts.

The results for can replicated the findings from Study 1. However, the children with SLI were significantly more limited than both the YTD and OTD groups in their use of could. There is also a separate section on the Modal Auxiliaries, which divides these verbs into their various meanings of necessity, advice, ability, expectation, permission, possibility, etc., and provides sample sentences in various tenses. See the section on Conditional Verb Forms for help with the modal auxiliary would. The shades of meaning among modal auxiliaries are multifarious and complex. Most English-as-a-Second-Language textbooks will contain at least one chapter on their usage.

For more advanced students, A University Grammar of English, by Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum, contains an excellent, extensive analysis of modal auxiliaries. Modal auxiliary verbs are used to show a necessity, capability, willingness, or possibility. Unlike most verbs, there is only one form of these verbs.

What Are The Different Kinds Of Modals And Their Uses Typically, verb forms change to indicate whether the sentence's structure is singular or plural. Most verbs also indicate whether something happened in the past, present, or future. This is not the case with most modal auxiliary verbs, which makes them simpler to understand and use correctly.

This study is designed to reconcile the conflicting results of these two classical studies in order to underline the advantage of our new methodology driven by access to language big data. Theoretically, we also address the ongoing balance versus size debate in corpus linguistics, especially in the context of diachronic studies. By adopting the Google Books corpus, we show that the size and balance data can be optimized given sufficient sampling size. In addition, two additional facts corroborate the account. First, interestingly, the orthography reform did not seem to have a strong effect on the use of modal verbs.

A possible explanation is that the metalinguistic change does not directly affect interpersonal relations, hence there is no direct effect on the use of modality. This explanation can also be applied to other major historical events in the past century. Second, we also observed that in the decades without major change instigating events, the general usage tendency is a slow decrease with some fluctuations, of modal verbs overall, including the types that just changed. This pattern can be predicted by the hypothesis that the major changes were the consequences of major social-historical events. That is, once the memory and effect of the instigating event fade through time, the corresponding changes in modal verb usages will also fade slowly. Even though the study of English modal verbs has proven the correlation between social changes and language use, no such exploration has been conducted with Chinese.