Why French Modal Verbs Are not Polysemous, and Other Considerations on Conceptual and Procedural Meanings

2017 ◽  
pp. 281-296
Author(s):  
Louis de Saussure
Keyword(s):  
Modal Verbs

Eye Movements Reveal Processing Differences Between Modal Verbs Should and Must

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Huette ◽  
Teenie Matlock ◽  
Michael Spivey
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Modal Verbs ◽  
Processing Differences

Nollapersoona Kelan virkailijoiden direktiiveissä

Virittäjä ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 124 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anu Rouhikoski
Keyword(s):  
Social Insurance ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Application Form ◽  
Modal Verbs ◽  
Social Insurance Institution ◽  
Person Pronoun ◽  
The Social ◽  
Modal Verb

Artikkelissa tarkastellaan nollapersoonaisen modaaliverbirakenteen käyttöä direktiivinä (esim. tämä hakemus pitäs vielä täyttää). Aineistona on 11,5 tuntia Kansaneläkelaitoksen eli Kelan toimistoissa videolle tallennettuja aitoja asiakaspalvelutilanteita, 131 yksittäistä tilannetta. Aineistossa esiintyvät neljä virkailijaa ovat noin 30-vuotiaita; asiakkaiden ikä vaihtelee noin 18 ja 80 vuoden välillä. Analyysi osoittaa, että nollapersoonan referenssi on ainakin muodollisesti avoin ja Kelan tilanteissa se usein kattaa sekä paikalla olevan asiakkaan että muut samassa tilanteessa olevat ihmiset. Siten nollapersoonalla ilmaistaan eksplisiittisesti, että kaikkia kohdellaan samoin säännöin eikä asiakkaalta vaadita mitään poikkeuksellista. Se ikään kuin perustelee itse itsensä. Modaaliverbi (esim. kannattaa, pitää, täytyä, voida) puolestaan tuo lausumaan jonkin keskustelun ulkoisen velvoitteen. Aineistossa nollapersoonaisia modaaliverbidirektiivejä käytetään usein silloin, kun virkailija ei käsittele itsestään selvänä, että asiakas tulee noudattamaan saamaansa direktiiviä, vaan direktiiviin liittyy epävarmuustekijöitä. Näitä ovat arkaluonteisuus, erilinjaisuus, toiminnon aiheuttama vaiva tai toiminnon uutuus vuorovaikutustilanteessa. Nollapersoonainen modaaliverbidirektiivi ottaa hienovaraisesti huomioon toimintoon liittyvät epävarmuustekijät mutta osoittaa silti toiminnon olevan tilanteessa tarpeellinen. Nollapersoonalausumia verrataan artikkelissa toiseen direktiivityyppiin, 2. persoonan modaaliverbilausumiin (esim. tää sun pitäs kuitenki täyttää vielä). Niissäkin modaaliverbi välittää tilanteen ulkopuolelta tulevan käskyn, mutta lausuma rajataan koskemaan ainoastaan yhtä asiakasta ja hänen velvollisuutensa tehdään näkyviksi. 2. persoonan modaaliverbidirektiiveillä annetaan yleensä lisäohjeita jo meneillään olevassa prosessissa tai toistetaan jokin jo annettu direktiivi. Lisäksi niitä käytetään yleensä vain silloin, kun asiakas on virkailijaa nuorempi, kun taas nollapersoonadirektiivejä esitetään kaikenikäisille asiakkaille.   Zero-person subjects and modal verbs in directives: a study of employees at the Social Insurance Institution of Finland  The article analyses the directive use of a Finnish zero person + modal verb construction, e.g. tämä hakemus pitäs vielä täyttää (‘one should fill in this application form’). The data comprises 11.5 hours of service encounters videotaped at the offices of the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (in Finnish: Kansaneläkelaitos = Kela), 131 encounters in total. The four employees in these encounters are all in their thirties, while their clients are between 18–80 years of age. The referent of a zero-person construction is formally open, and in the service encounters analysed here its referent is often not only the client but anyone else who finds themselves in a similar situation. Therefore, the zero person explicitly expresses the notion that all clients are treated in an equal manner. The modal verb (e.g. pitää, täytyä ‘must, have to, should’; voida ‘be able to’; kannattaa ‘be worthwhile’) denotes an obligation that comes from outside the situation at hand. The analysis of the data indicates that a zero person + modal verb construction is often used when the directive involves contingencies, such as delicacy, disalignment, imposition, or a previously undiscussed action. The zero person + modal verb construction displays the speaker’s orientation towards contingencies but also indicates the necessity of the action in question. The zero-person construction stands in contrast to another directive construction, that of the 2nd-person subject + modal verb (e.g. tää sun pitäs kuitenki täyttää vielä ‘you should still fill in this one’). The modal verb conveys an external obligation, but the 2nd-person pronoun refers to one sole person and makes explicit his/her responsibilities. This construction is mainly used when reformulating a previous directive or giving additional advice. Moreover, it is usually only used when addressing younger clients, whereas the zero-person construction is suitable to clients of all ages.

A Review of Modal Verbs

1958 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 25-29
Author(s):  
John Thow
Keyword(s):  
Modal Verbs

scholarly journals Analyzing free variation with harmony – A case study of verb-cluster serialization

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-437
Author(s):  
Markus Bader
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Modal Verbs ◽  
Weighted Constraints ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Frequency Relationship ◽  
Zero Frequency ◽  
Free Variation

Abstract In German, a verb selected by another verb normally precedes the selecting verb. Modal verbs in the perfect tense provide an exception to this generalization because they require the perfective auxiliary to occur in cluster-initial position according to prescriptive grammars. Bader and Schmid (2009b) have shown, however, that native speakers accept the auxiliary in all positions except the cluster-final one. Experimental results as well as corpus data indicate that verb cluster serialization is a case of free variation. I discuss how this variation can be accounted for, focusing on two mismatches between acceptability and frequency: First, slight acceptability advantages can turn into strong frequency advantages. Second, syntactic variants with basically zero frequency can still vary substantially in acceptability. These mismatches remain unaccounted for if acceptability is related to frequency on the level of whole sentence structures, as in Stochastic OT (Boersma and Hayes2001). However, when the acceptability-frequency relationship is modeled on the level of individual weighted constraints, using harmony as link (see Pater2009, for different harmony based frameworks), the two mismatches follow given appropriate linking assumptions.

scholarly journals Modal verbs of strong obligation in Scottish Standard English

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
OLE SCHÜTZLER ◽  
JENNY HERZKY
Keyword(s):  
General Pattern ◽  
Standard English ◽  
Multinomial Regression ◽  
Internal Factors ◽  
Mixed Effect ◽  
Modal Verbs ◽  
Grammatical Subject ◽  
Multinomial Regression Model ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Mode Of Production

This article investigates differences between Scottish Standard English (SSE) and Southern British Standard English (SBSE) in the semantic domain of strong obligation. Focusing on the modal verbs must, have to, need to and (have) got to, we use new corpus material from nineteen written and spoken genres in the Scottish component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-SCO) and corresponding texts from ICE-GB. Data are analysed using a mixed-effect multinomial regression model to predict the choice of verb. Language-internal factors include mode of production (written/spoken), grammatical subject (first/second/third person) and source of obligation (objective/subjective). Our results show that, as previous research suggests, SSE is much more likely to employ need to for the expression of strong obligation, and less likely to employ must and (have) got to. This general pattern remains essentially unaffected by language-internal factors. To account for our findings, we draw on the sociologically motivated process of democratisation and the language-internal process of grammaticalisation.

scholarly journals Arab EFL Learners’ Acquisition of Modals

2009 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 75-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aziz Thabit Saeed
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Modal Verbs ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
English Major ◽  
Overall Performance

This paper investigates Arab EFL learners’ acquisition of modal verbs. The study used a questionnaire, which comprises two versions, testing students’ mastery of modals at the levels of both recognition and production. The questionnaire was distributed to 50 English major university students who had studied English for 12-14 years and who had scored 500 or more on the TOEFL. The findings of the study show that the overall performance of the subjects in the study was quite low. The study established a hierarchy of difficulty and identified the major causes of difficulty in the use of modals.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document