Chapter 6 - Modality

• Some views on modality

• Types of modality

• Manifestation of modality

• Modality in subordinate clauses

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 Some views on modality
• Bybee (1985): defines modality in broad terms.
According to him, modality is what the speaker is doing
with the whole proposition.
e.g. This room is untidy.
• Palmer (1986): Modality is the semantic information
associated with the speaker’s attitude or opinion about
what is said. Modality concerns the factual status of the
proposition.
e.g. Your house is beautiful.
I wish my house were beautiful.
It’s necessary that you be on time. 2
 Some views on modality
• Jasper (1924) distinguishes between mood and modality.
According to him, modality is some sort of a semantic issue
as it reflects the speaker’s attitude or knowledge about the
factual status of a proposition, but mood is a grammatical
phenomenon in that this knowledge or attitude is expressed
morphologically, i.e. by opposite forms of words in English.
• In English, the indicative and subjunctive moods express
epistemic modality because they are concerned with the
factual status of the content of the proposition. The
imperative, on the other hand, denotes deontic modality as
it deals with obligation, i.e. someone has to do something.

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 Some views on modality
• Jespersen (1940) distinguishes two kinds of modality, the
first of which contains an element of will, and the second
contains no element of will. This distinction now
corresponds to what we call deontic and epistemic
modality.
• Searl’s (1969) speech act theory provides a useful
framework for the discussion of modality. Representatives,
Declaratives and Expressives are connected to epistemic
modality, while Directives and Commissives are connected
to deontic modality.
e.g. John got married last week
I’ll give you a hand with this bag
Would you mind opening the door? 4
 The common views
• The meaning of a sentence consists of two parts: the
propositional content and the non-propositional content
which expresses the speaker’s attitude and opinion
toward the content of the proposition. This basically is the
distinction between proposition and modality.
• Palmer (1986) observes that this distinction between
proposition and modality is close to that of the locutionary
and illocutionary acts as proposed by Austin (1962).
Proposition is about what we want to say, and modality is
then about what we want to do with what we say:
thanking, promising, complaining, apologising...
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 Types of modality

• Epistemic modality

• Deontic modality

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 Epistemic Modality
• Epistemic modality is the type that indicates the degree
of commitment by the speaker to what he says - the
extent to which the truth of a proposition is possible. In
other words, epistemic modality can be described as
possibility-based.
• Epistemic modality is concerned with the speaker’s
judgement of the truth of the proposition embedded in
the statement.
e.g. She must be in love with him.
She may be in love with him.
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 Types of Epistemic Commitment
1. Judgements.
Judgements are more subjective than Evidentials as
the commitment comes from the speaker’s
knowledge or beliefs.
e.g. She is likely to be late.
She may be working on the report now.
They must have done the work by now.

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 Types of Epistemic Commitment
2. Evidentials: encodes the grounds on which a speaker
makes an overtly qualified assertion. Evidentials fall into
two categories
a. Direct evidentials: show the speaker’s first hand
experience with sensory evidence carrying the main
weight.
e.g. I heard that you are not coming.
b. Indirect evidentials: are about second-hand facts
e.g. I was informed that she had resigned.
• The use of evidentials makes it possible for the speaker to
represent the proposition more “objectively” without
committing himself to an unwise representation. 9
 Deontic Modality
• Deontic modality is modality that connotes the speaker's
degree of requirement of, desire for, or commitment to
the realization of the proposition expressed by the
utterance.
e.g. You must do it now.
I have to work harder on math.
I’ll help you with your homework.
• Deontic modality contains an element of will; as such it
is concerned with actions rather than with beliefs,
knowledge or truth.
• Deontic modality can be characterized as necessity-
based. 10
 Deontic Modality
• Deontic modality can be expressed by means of verbs
or adjectives
e.g. You need to leave now.
You ought to help him.
It’s necessary that he pass this exam.
It’s vital that everybody know the news.
• In terms of grammatical types, deontic modality can be
either imperatives (or directives) or declaratives
(commissive)
e.g. Get out of here.
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I’ll give you a hand.
 Personal modality
• Personal modality is considered a subcomponent of the
interpersonal meaning. It is related to those features
involving the speaker’s own contribution to the
representational meaning of the sentence. There are
two types:
1. Form modality: the speaker can participate by offering
his comment on the form of what he is saying, defining
under what condition he is speaking. This can be
achieved by the use of modal adverbs:
e.g. Seriously, do you love her?
Frankly (speaking), it is an unwise move.
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(confidentially, generally, honestly, candidly)
 Personal modality
2. Content modality: the speaker can get involved by
offering a comment on the content of what he is saying.
e.g. Obviously, nobody expected it to happen.
To our surprise, they arrived home early.
• This type of modality markers fall into two subgroups
a. Those that express comment on the extent to which the
speaker believes that what he is saying is true.
 Those that express primarily a subjective view on the
truth of what is said: certainly, admittedly, surely,
undeniably, undoubtedly, unquestionably.
e.g. Certainly, they can do it if they like.
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 Personal modality
 Markers of degrees of convictions as open to objective
evidence: clearly, evidently, obviously, plainly.
e.g. Obviously, they can do it if they like.
 Markers of reality or lack of reality in what is said: actually,
officially, technically, theoretically.
e.g. Actually, they can do it if they like.
b. Those that express comments on the attitude of the speaker
rather than on the truth-value of what is said. They can
convey the attitude of the speaker with or without the
implication that the judgment applies to the subject of the
sentence, or indeed to the speaker.
e.g. Fortunately, Mary called the police.
Wisely, Mary called the police.
(curiously, happily, hopefully, naturally, luckily, rightly) 14
 Modality manifestation
• Grammaticalization: in the form of mood
(indicative mood, imperative mood,
subjunctive mood).

• Lexicalization: by means of lexical items:

modal verbs, nouns, adjectives,
prepositional phrase.

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 Mood as modality
• A part of the modality spectrum is formalized in the
grammatical category of mood, which deals only with the
syntactic structure of the sentence and not necessarily
with what the speaker is doing.
• In English a process may be represented by the speaker
as a fact (expressed by the indicative mood), a request or
command (expressed by the imperative mood), or a non-
fact or improbability (indicated by the subjunctive mood)
e.g. The dog is chasing the cat.
Do it now.
I wish she were here now.
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 Mood as modality
• Declaratives express epistemic modality whereas
imperatives and subjunctives serve as expressions of
deontic modality. This subcomponent corresponds
roughly to what is called “interactional meaning” in
Halliday’s term.
e.g. The sun is shining.
Close the door please.
It’s urgent that he be informed of the news.

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 Grammaticalization: Mood
Mood Examples Speaker’s attitude/
functions

Indicative It rained very hard Proposition as a fact

last night.

Imperative Come on in. Proposition as

command

Subjunctive If I were you, … Proposition as non-

fact
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 Lexicalization: Lexical items

• Verbs • Adverbs
• Modal auxiliary
verbs • Adjectives

• Modal lexical verbs • Nouns

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 Modal auxiliary verbs
• They include: can, could, may, might, shall, should,
will, would, ought to, must, need
• Each may have different meaning:
e.g. You must like fish.
You must do the exercise now.
She may come later.
We can do it now.

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 Adverbs, Adjectives and Nouns
• Adverbs: maybe, possibly, perhaps, probably, certainly,
obviously, etc.

e.g. He will probably win the race.

• Adjectives: necessary, imperative, sure, certain,
probable, possible, likely

e.g. You are likely to win.

• Nouns: possibility, likelihood, chance, probability

e.g. There is a likelihood that he will win.

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 Modal lexical verbs
• In English, there exist some “modal lexical verbs” which
require a subordinate clause functioning as Object.
These verbs are mostly used performatively with a first
person subject (where the speaker and the subject of
the sentence are identical) to indicate the attitudes or
opinions of the speaker.
e.g. I think she is the most beautiful girl in our
class.
I ask you to get it done as soon as
possible.
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Modality in subordinate clauses
• Nominal clause
I hope that I will get married to a rich man in the future.

It’s strange that she should have taken the book away.

• Adverbial clause
He wore a false beard so that nobody could recognise him.

• Relative clause
He came back to the park where she said goodbye to him.

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 Modality in subordinate clauses
• Although together with the main clause, these
subordinate clauses syntactically form complex
sentences, the meaning may not signal that we have
complex meaning. The subordinate clauses simply
present the proposition while the main clause or the
main lexical verb indicates modality.
e.g. I believe that she did the right thing.
• In other words, as Palmer remarks, modality in these
subordinate clauses do not indicate the attitudes and
opinions of the actual speakers.
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