Write about uses and types of modals in 300 words
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A modal verb is a type of verb that is used to indicate modality – that is: likelihood, ability, permission, request, capacity, suggestions, order and obligation, advice, etc. Modal verbs always accompany the base (infinitive) form of another verb having semantic content.[1] In English the modal verbs are can / could, may / might, must, will / would, shall / should / ought to, had better, and sometimes need and dare. In English and other Germanic languages, modal verbs are often distinguished as a class based on certain grammatical properties.A modal auxiliary verb gives information about the function of the main verb that it governs. Modals have a wide variety of communicative functions, but these functions can generally be related to a scale ranging from possibility ("may") to necessity ("must"), in terms of one of the following types of modality:
epistemic modality, concerned with the theoretical possibility of propositions being true or not true (including likelihood and certainty)
deontic modality, concerned with possibility and necessity in terms of freedom to act (including permission and duty)
dynamic modality,[2] which may be distinguished from deontic modality in that, with dynamic modality, the conditioning factors are internal – the subject's own ability or willingness to act[3]
The following sentences illustrate epistemic and deontic uses of the English modal verb must:
epistemic: You must be starving. ("It is necessarily the case that you are starving.")
deontic: You must leave now. ("You are required to leave now.")
An ambiguous case is You must speak Spanish. The primary meaning would be the deontic meaning ("You are required to speak Spanish.") but this may be intended epistemically ("It is surely the case that you speak Spanish.") Epistemic modals can be analyzed as raising verbs, while deontic modals can be analyzed as control verbs.
Epistemic usages of modals tend to develop from deontic usages.[4] For example, the inferred certainty sense of English must developed after the strong obligation sense; the probabilistic sense of should developed after the weak obligation sense; and the possibility senses of may and can developed later than the permission or ability sense. Two typical sequences of evolution of modal meanings are:
internal mental ability → internal ability → root possibility (internal or external ability) → permission and epistemic possibility
obligation → probability
The following table lists the modal auxiliary verbs of standard English and various senses in which they are used:
Modal auxiliary Epistemic sense Deontic sense Dynamic sense
can That can indeed hinder. You can sing underwater.
could That could happen soon.
may That may be a problem. May I stay? -
might The weather might improve. - -
must It must be hot outside. Sam must go to school. -
shall - You shall not pass. -
should That should be surprising. You should stop that. -
will She will try to lie. I will meet you later. -
would Nothing would accomplish that. - We would eat out on Sundays.
The verbs in this list all have the following characteristics:
They are auxiliary verbs, which means they allow subject-auxiliary inversion and can take the negation not,
They convey functional meaning,
They are defective insofar as they cannot be inflected, nor do they appear in non-finite form (i.e. not as infinitives, gerunds, or participles),
They are nevertheless always finite and thus appear as the root verb in their clause, and
They subcategorize for an infinitive, i.e. they take an infinitive as their complement
The verbs/expressions dare, ought to, had better, and need not behave like modal auxiliaries to a large extent, although they are not productive (in linguistics, the extent commonly or frequently used) in the role to the same extent as those listed here. Furthermore, there are numerous other verbs that can be viewed as modal verbs insofar as they clearly express modality in the same way that the verbs in this list do, e.g. appear, have to, seem etc. In the strict sense, though, these other verbs do not qualify as modal verbs in English because they do not allow subject-auxiliary inversion, nor do they allow negation with not. Verbs such as be able to and be about to allow subject-auxiliary inversion and do not require do support in negatives but these are rarely classified as modal verbs because they inflect and are a modal construction involving the verb to be which itself is not a modal verb. If, however, one defines modal verb entirely in terms of meaning contribution, then these other verbs would also be modals and so the list here would have to be greatly expanded.