The general grammatical meaning conveyed by the modal auxiliary category is that the speaker sees the event as stand-ing in a potential relation to reality (BOUMA, 1975: Abstract, http//www.sciencedirect.com/science/article, Oct 30, 2006)
1. The present study sets out to give a synthetic overview of the recent ap-proaches to modality in natural language, confronted with the notions “mood”
and “modals” (or “modal verbs”). It is also to establish a possible correlation between the particular, general or specific, categories of modality and, by tak-ing a prototypical view, their sense relations which are represented in the spe-cific stretches of discourse. The poetic discourse analysed is based on Robert Burns. Selected Poems, published by Penguin Books (1996, first published in 1946). It is to be understood, then, that the language data are treated as a corpus representation of an isolated dialect — consequently, and hypothetically, an idiolect in synchronic terms.
It follows from the above that the corpus in question (121 pieces) would be treated as a discourse representation. It is worth stating some of the properties of discourse, in the context of its synchronic abstraction, as suggested above.
The “discourse” orientation is to be taken with some reservations, of course, in-cluding such notions as theme-rheme relations, the cohesion/coherence machin-ery or any macro-patterns of English communicative competence of community members, which will not be dealt with. On the other hand, the feasibility of the
definitional criteria for “discourse community” (SWALES, 2002: 24—27) is more appealing: a set of common “public goals” of the community (e.g. certain agreed norms, imagery, emotional, intellectual and moral attitudes); the acquisi-tion and use of “specific lexis” by members with a certain “degree of relevant content or discoursal expertise”; and, above all, the utilising and furtherance of specific genres (in the present case, these would be analogous to literary sub-classes or genres such as epic or lyric poem, epistle, ballad, song, elegy or lul-laby).
The present approach is mostly generative and typological rather than cog-nitive-pragmatic (in accordance with HOYE’S, 2005 a, review of the mood/mo-dality schools). It focuses on the analysis of the semantic aspects of modality-mood meaning clusters in discoursal “utterance” chunks. This involves the alternative ways of encoding modality, rather than modals, the former un-derstood along the lines of semantically encoded categories.
2. In the analysis, of special interest appear to be the “specific lexis”, as well as the norms or patterns of expression in the modality “domain”, which is understood in terms of “language modularity” (ELSABBAGH and K ARMI-LOFF-SMITH, 2006: 218), rather than conceptual structures of metaphor mapping.
The categorial approach — with its built-in safeguards against the dogmatic ri-gidity of fixed sense distributions in the (1) — (10) functional areas below — brings back the model of semantic prototype-categories (TAYLOR, 1989) with fuzzy borderlines. Thus the definitional characteristics of modality are extended from the semantics of modal verbs. The former is assumed to be the “modus”
of expressing an attitude, deduction, direction, necessity, commitment or voli-tion by means of verbal elements, rather than the lexically represented state-ment or directive itself.
On universal grounds, the how of modality, rather than the lexico-gram-matical notion of modals is indicated by a modernised taxonomy used by IWASAKI and INGKAPHIROM (2005) for Standard Thai reference grammar. Their evidential modality indicates how the speaker has received some information, in addition to which epistemic modalities include deontic and conjectural. More-over, the predicate serialisation phenomenon in Thai (IWASAKI and INGKAPHIROM, 2005: 162) is a non-auxiliary (and non-anomalous) modality grammar. Serialisation, with modal auxiliaries, particles, etc., following head verbs is also significant in the syntax of Burmese (WATKINS, 2006: 163). In Haruai, modality is hardly a syntactic category, either. Unlike the monomorphemic languages (as in the South-Asian families above) this High-land Papuan language has a lot of verbal inflection (for person, number, mood), where the clusters in the area of obligation, permission or possibility are ex-pressed with morphological (suffixal) indicators for a “future” tense, tentatively interpreted as a sort of irrealis mood. The interpretation of verb forms with
“Should auld acquaintance be forgot...”. On modality... 85
such affixes used in the Imperative or Hortative moods is often determined by pragmatic and socio-cultural contexts. In Japanese, the “secondary” modal functions of lexical words are realised in specific functional sentence patterns to convey obligation, permission, or possibility (the data collected and in-terpreted by COMRIE, 1991). All in all, expression of modality in Asian and Papuan tongues often relies on pragmatic factors.
3. The notion of the low degree of homogeneity of the “verb phrase” or
“verb” within the notion of modal predicate in general allows for the English sentence being “typically characterised by a dispersal of verbal elements over various parts of the predicate” (HOPPER, 1997: 93). The syntactic structures for modal meaning clusters represent syntactic units, constituted by verb groups with more than one lexical morph, in an extended, non-homogeneous sense, if only because of their relation to various forms of the grammatical mode (syn-tactic restrictions on the functionally determined patterns), even outside of pragmatic considerations or the nature of discourse processing.
Implicit in the notion of verbal grammar is the grammatical mood. PALMER’S
(2001) principal categories: the deontic and epistemic modalities are, in fact, modal functions of sentence form (the deontic are: commissive, directive, volitive). As a matter of fact, the evidentiality in Thai modalities mentioned should be tied to the grammatical “mood” (speaker-attitude-determined main verb form), within the functional notion of modality.
PALMER’S (1990) classical approach to coding particular epistemic, deontic and dynamic clusters via specific auxiliaries can be seen as a case of the ambi-guity-based views on modality expressed by sets of lexical units. This is akin to SWEETSER’S (1990) “polysemic” motivation in metaphor mappings, or the en-coding of concrete experience by specific root modals. Still, verbal modality is understood, rather narrowly, as “modal auxiliaries” modality. In the
“monosemy” views (PAPAFRAGOU, 1998: 8; KRATZER, 1981), there was said to be a “modal base” for each modality (or modal auxiliary), which, in addition to
“modal relation” (possibility or necessity), provided a set of assumptions on which given modal sentences could be understood: as the speaker’s certainty on what in known (epistemic) or on deontic bases (e.g. commandments). DUFFLEY
(1994), by contrasting “core modals” with peripheral ones (need, dare), shows that the morpho-syntax of modal auxiliaries is conditioned by the meaning function and not by syntactic rule.
Within the “propositional operators” model, PAPAFRAGOU (1998: 2, 12—13) stipulates that the specific “propositions” belong to domains: “factual” and
“regulatory” ones comprise propositions conditioned by the actual real world(s), whereas such domains as “moral beliefs” or “desirability” (the individual’s or someone else’s) rest on descriptions of stereotypical or “desirable” worlds or states of affairs. Finally, “abstract representations” of “some source” are in the
domains of “interpretive use”, after relevance theory. L.F. HOYE (2005 a) con-trasts propositional modality (epistemic, evidential) with event modality (deontic, dynamic).
With more theoretical build-up on truth conditions, the model of epistemic modality is developed into the subjective (speaker’s personal evidence) and the objective-deduction readings (based on “scientific data”, etc.), exemplified in: It may rain tomorrow (PAPAFRAGOU, 2006: 1691). Paradoxically enough, this seems to have gone a full circle from the ambiguity modalities with dis-course-context conditioning. VERSTRAETE (2001) admits that if there exists a “subjective-objective” modality distinction, it is generally poorly understood.
He proposes that, given the performative-nonperformative status of modals, di-vergent behaviours and meanings are accounted for with respect to tense, inter-rogation and conditionality.
In the following passages, modal categories within the generative framework will be recounted, with some answers to how they have recently been, or can be, revalued. Evidence from the world languages shown above bears out the generativist treatment of modality rather than modal verbs per se.
That epistemic notions can be part of the widely conceptualized deontic gra-dient (including obligation, permission, demand) is seen in their common se-mantic base. More than a quarter of a century ago, TREGIDGO(1982), discussing the English must and may, disputed the isolation of deontic functions and pointed out that they could be detected in the epistemic uses of modals.
Epistemic modal verbs can be taken as grammaticalisations of “earlier”
deontic meanings — permission, volition (ZIEGELER, 2000), as in will and would sentences. In particular, the omnitemporal or timeless classifications ap-pear in earlier studies by BOYDand THORNE (1969: 68—69) and PALMER(1990).
In the latter, “timeless truths” are referred to by the inductive or characteristic will, the latter overlapping with the sporadic or characteristic can; notice also that in The new hall will not seat 2.000 people, the timeless characteristic or
“capacity” extends over the dynamic or epistemic. The following investigation into the poetic dialect in statu nascendi purports to show such omnitemporalness to have given rise to both the predictive or epistemic encodings and the volitive or obligative uses.
4. The “verbal” (as distinct from logical and pragmatic) modality is viewed through contextualised sentence patterns. Hence, the present approach is fo-cused on the functional structure (f-structure) of the sentence or utterance (here, a contextualised chunk of poetic verse). An f-structure is understood as a semanto-syntactic construct realising an abstract grammar of e.g. the sub-ject-speaker roles or subject-predication functional relations, as well as the realis/irrealis aspects of the semantic clusters of propositional and event modali-ties.
“Should auld acquaintance be forgot...”. On modality... 87
The extending gradients of overlapping categories will be shown within au-tonomous but interrelated “areas of sense” similar to the propositional domains for modality as a major category of meaning. Yet, as the present approach is more syntax-centred, the grammatical manifestations will make the structure of domains less abstract.
The subjectification and the blurring of sense-related category borderlines is seen, for example, in the possible epistemic markers of otherwise non-epistemic expressions; the root modality of the must phrase (the common dialectal form:
maun) is subject to “alethic” interpretations: “it is metaphysically necessary (or impossible) for something to be the case” (CRYSTAL, 2004: 18). What can be in-ferred is a putative epistemic metarepresentation:
But now what else for me remains But tales of woe?
And frae my een the draping rains Maun ever flow.
(“Elegy on Capt. Matthew Henderson”, ll. 63—66)
The present framework for modality should, in my understanding, take ac-count of the two angles from which particular syntactic patterns of auxiliary usage are viewed. Firstly, within the stated areas of sense, the specific gram-matical categories have no fixed membership. Particular realisations of modal auxiliaries will be recursive in description or determined by the discourse func-tions, e.g. the subjectification factor. Along these lines, the temporal character-istics of might in the context below can be perceived as “historical past”, in contrast to the standard restrictions on either “factual possibility” or concessive usage:
The storm without might rair or rustle, Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.
(“Tam o’Shanter”, ll. 51—52)
The vague distribution for the “potential” sense or dynamic modality is seen in the following uses of the may forms, as well as the concessive shown above:
I jouk beneath misfortune’s blows As well’s I may;
Sworn foe to sorrow, care, and prose, I rhyme away.
(“To James Smith”, ll. 147—150)
There seems to be more inconsistency in such vague classical distinctions as the status of the “alethic” (metaphysically conditioned truth modality) or the obligative in contrast with the epistemic. This has been noted for many in-stances of modality in conditional sentence patterns, as well as the usage of maun/must (to be shown below).
The second material aspect is the problem of the morphological features of the formal manifestations of modals. Whether the non-standard forms of auxil-iaries or their contractions (shown in Figure 1, with the standardised transcrip-tions and the stated number of occurrences in the corpus) are to be considered regionally dialectal or as evidence of historical language change is not the ques-tion addressed in the present paper.
5. The following (1) to (10) major aspects of modal functional structure are to be seen as interrelated and mutually definable fields (the quotations had to be reduced to a minimum):
(1) Within the framework proposed, the SUBJUNCTIVE is defined as a verb group/sentence pattern grammaticalising, through its strictly formal prop-erties, the f-structure of the semantic field (or interrelated concepts) of the postulative speaker-stance. This is understood apart from the temporal or aspec-tual values of such forms on the one hand, and lexical characteristics on the other. The following surface structure patterns are included:
(a) the present infinitive of the verb group equivalent to the base form of the verb or the passive auxiliary in the “if + Subject + Verb” formulaic pat-tern:
[...] Quoth I, ‘if that thae news be true!’
(“Death and Doctor Hornbook”, l. 134),
(b) the present infinitive of the verb/auxiliary equivalent to the base form of be or a lexical verb in the subordinate clause introduced with the wh-_, if/though_, or lest_ conditional, concessional, circumstantial, or purpose moods (see also the second quote in (d)):
Lest in temptation’s path ye gang astray, Implore His counsel and assisting might [...]
(“The Cotter’s Saturday Night”, ll. 52—53),
(c) the quasi-imperative (base) form let complemented catenatively with a noun phrase and a following infinitive clause; formulaic patterns also include the lexical verb fronting:
“Should auld acquaintance be forgot...”. On modality... 89
And, in the narrow house o’death Let winter round me rave [...]
(“Lament of Mary Queen of Scots...”, ll. 53—54)
But fare you weel, auld Nickie Ben!
(“Address to the Deil”, l. 121),
(d) the may-Subject inversion (a “may SUBJUNCTIVE”?) with the infini-tive verb group, parallel to Subject-fronting in formulaic phrasemes, with the may ellipted:
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh [...]!
(“On Seeing a Wounded Hare Limp by me”, l. 3)
Heav’n rest his soul, where’er he be!
(“Tam Samson’s Elegy”, l. 85),
(e) adjective/adverb fronting, with formulaic phraseme variants; the base verb form:
Hale be your heart! Hale be your fiddle!
Lang may your elbuck jink and diddle [...]
(“Epistle to Major Logan”, ll. 13—14),
(f) the past subjunctive irrealis or the tentative-past might, would, followed with the base infinitive of the verb in that- or if-clauses, not necessarily com-plementing the main verb; the following passage is a closed stanza from a po-etic “epistle” genre with political reflection:
O that my een were flowing burns!
My voice a lioness that mourns Her darling cubs’ undoing;
That I might greet, that I might cry, While Tories fall, while Tories fly,
And furious Whigs pursuing!
(“Epistle to Robert Graham, Esq., of Fintry”, ll. 133—138),
(g) a variety of forms, including present infinitives as above, occasionally modalised with may or should, in that-clauses complementing a class of lexical verbs (such as pray), known as “mandatory” verbs or clauses.
(2) In the INTENTIONAL functional semantic area there is a range of extra metarepresentation of widely meant deontic marking, e.g. with will (‘ll), shall, should in both the grammar of past condition (unrealised intention) and real tense modes:
And we’ll tak a right guid-willie waught, For auld lang syne.
(“Auld Lang Syne”, ll. 19—20)
(3) In the DEONTIC, distinguished from the f-structures of necessity under (6), the deon includes both the speaker stance and the speaker’s meaning stor-age e.g. of duty or obligation predicated for the Subject NP referent. Thus, in conceptual terms, “(moral) duty”, “demand”, “ethical responsibility”, “permis-sion”, “prohibition”, “autonomous refusal”, “challenge” (as in daur — dare and the deontic should and ought) can be encoded:
I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;
What then? Poor beastie, thou maun live!
(“To a Mouse, on Turning her up..., ll. 13—14)
Ye little skelpie-limmer’s face!
I daur you try sic sportin’ [...]
(“Halloween”, ll. 118—119)
(4) In the essential f-structures interpreted within COMMITMENT/prom-ise/threat, the speaker’s semantic (sentential) and pragmatic roles, as well as style-marking factors, affect the grammaticalisation, which should not be re-duced to the rhetorical shall/shalt (not):
Yet, by my faith, ye’re no unwrought for!
That I shall swear!
(“The Poet’s Welcome to his Love-begotten Daughter”, ll. 23—24)
(5) The PUTATIVE-ATTITUDINAL class of f-structures in subordinate, coordinate or main clauses shows a considerable functional and semantic over-lap with the second of the subjunctive aspects above and with the adjective/ad-verb fronting pattern or the may-inversions in [(1), (e)]. In those subjunctive grammars, the verb group can also be modalised with should, may, shall. Be-sides, what is encoded in the conditional sentence mode, or in clauses of pur-pose, for that matter, are also speaker’s attitudes towards the probability or obligative aspects of the proposition (hence epistemic or deontic
metarepre-“Should auld acquaintance be forgot...”. On modality... 91
sentation). The “putative” realisations with should/sud or may include the con-cessive pattern in coordination, a direct question mode, as in the first stanza of the classic “Auld Lang Syne”, or:
Then how should I for Heavenly mercy pray, Who act so counter Heavenly mercy’s plan?
(“Stanzas on the Same Occasion”, ll. 16—17)
(6) Within the NECESSITY area, some epistemic marking is also present and the speaker’s or propositional (Subject-related) orientations of necessity en-compass the metaphysical (volition-independent) senses, including alethic mo-dality. All of those are grammaticalised through a variety of modal verb groups, such as the negative canst(not) or need(na), where the maun/must in dialectal or standard forms is by far the most frequent. Necessity distinct from that deter-mined through proposition or by an “external source” can be compared with the speaker-orientation of the necessity constitutive of a commissive or obligative speech act, respectively:
Folk maun do something for their bread, An’ sae maun Death.
(“Death and Doctor Hornbook”, ll. 71—72)
Fine architecture, trowth, I needs must say’t o’t [...]
(“The Brigs of Ayr”, l. 129)
(7) The functional structures of POSSIBILITY (including negative possibil-ity or conclusion to the contrary) are contrasted with a strong relation to the speaker storage of “factual” — conclusive or assertive — possibility encoded in specific auxiliary constructions. This area covers part of the uses of may, might, can(not), could, must, should, or semi-modals in various, but highly specific, grammatical sentence modes. The epistemic truth of the statement (or the indic-ative value) is regarded as contingent upon the speaker’s attitude (knowledge or belief) to the degree of likelihood of the proposition. We must bear in mind the strong interdependence, on the plane of expression, of the specific f-structure and the sentence mode paradigms (as in the Can_ interrogatives, the negative interrogative, etc.), as well as time reference. The second quote represents a more alethic conclusion:
The like has been that you may wear A noble head of horns.
(“The Calf”, ll. 15—16)
Here, firm, I rest — they must be best, Because they are thy will!
(“Winter”, ll. 19—20)
(8) The POTENTIAL area may be regarded within the scope of dynamic root modality, where the descriptive factor is at the centre of the meaning schema. The regular grammatical paradigms are represented by the negative past realis of couldna, cou’dna in “Death and Doctor Hornbook” or the unreal conditional could hae flown, could hae gane in “The Auld Farmer’s New-Year Morning Salutation to his Auld Mare Maggie”, l. 5, 17), or:
Ah, helpless nurslings! who will now provide That life a mother only can bestow?
(“On Seeing a Wounded Hare Limp by me”, ll. 15—16)
(9) In the description of the CONTINGENCY area, emphasis should be laid on conditional sentence paradigms, especially the contrary-to-fact patterns and the past-time-reference “speculative” aspect of modal grammar. Owing to the semantic overlap between (1)—(9), a good degree of subjective metarep-resentation is involved in the semantics of this modality concept. In addition to the intentional or volitional marking primarily expressed with the wad/would-modalised verb groups, the epistemic metarepresentation refers to
(9) In the description of the CONTINGENCY area, emphasis should be laid on conditional sentence paradigms, especially the contrary-to-fact patterns and the past-time-reference “speculative” aspect of modal grammar. Owing to the semantic overlap between (1)—(9), a good degree of subjective metarep-resentation is involved in the semantics of this modality concept. In addition to the intentional or volitional marking primarily expressed with the wad/would-modalised verb groups, the epistemic metarepresentation refers to