LING 2P10 Lecture 6: 6
15 Jan 2016
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Ling 2p10: verbs to indicate meanings like ability, possibility, necessity, or conditionality. *modals are crucial for creating hedges (good ex. of how grammar subtly supports meaning) Pure modal auxiliaries: should, must, can, could, would, may, might, will. Some related constructions (ought to, be able to) resemble pure modals but are not one single word and may show normal subject-verb agreement: semi-modals. Modal auxiliaries: 1) do not inflect for subject verb agreement intended. 3) don"t give grammatical information; give semantic info: different. Firsten and killian say semi-auxiliaries: be able/unable to, have to, have got to, had better, had best, need, dare, used to, would rather, would sooner. Master sidesteps the issue by referring to modal equivalents (paraphrases for pure modals) Brief tabular overview of common pure and semi-modals: Can could inflection is an exception, but only available for ability meaning of. Combine with primary auxiliaries and main verb as in: | i should have cooked my supper now.
