Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals But Were Afraid To Ask

Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’Idiomes

Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals But Were Afraid To Ask

Introduction

During this brief presentation, I will try to keep my focuson two key points: 1) the linguistics of modal verbs in native speech that all teachers of English should know and 2) the teaching of modal verbs in the EFL classroom. These two pointsmay at first seem very similar, but the main idea I will try constantly to reinforce is that instructors need an understanding of the English system of modal verbs on which to base their actual classroom activities that is much more profound than what is given in most student textbooks and theircorresponding teacher editions. It is always of utmost importance for teachers of English to have much more knowledge of a facet of the language at their disposal than what they impart to students.

What is Modality?

As teachers of English, we continually run into modal verbsin textbooks written for every level student. Normally, it seems that, from perusing the textbooks, publishers assume thatteachers have a clear idea about the system of modals, about modality, and what may be worse, that it is a fixed system. On the contrary, the modal system is one area where linguists have opened large debates about language use, and it is clear that the English modal system, perhaps more than any other grammatical feature, is and has been in a state of flux as usedby native speakers, though not in its forms so much as in its meanings.

Simply stated, modality is what we use when we speak about almost anything that is not a fact. Modality can be described as all the modes of expression for states and actions which arenot happening now or weren't happening in the past. It is as if the language of modality places real-world happenings in a type of linguistic suspended animation. Modality is expressed in most languages by the language's lexis, in many by verbal inflections, and may even be expressed by tone of voice and intonation. Modality also has a lot to do with pragmatics. Thefact is that in English, modality and modal expressions as a

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’Idiomeswhole enable native speakers to nuance statements out of real world experience and place actions into a zone of potentiality.And even this type of definition of modality is an oversimplification. The project of F. R. Palmer in Mood and Modality is to examine not only English, but many languages, including some non-Indo-European languages, to see if modality can be equated with formal grammatical constituents, such as aspect, tense, person, number, voice, and mood. He concludes, basically, that modality defies grammatical categorization, andthat it is interwoven into most, if not all, communicative contexts.

Mood, on the other hand, is a strictly grammatical categorywhich is only one of the many ways to express modality in many human languages. In English, we have three moods: indicative, imperative, and subjunctive. Although the subjunctive in English, linguists tell us, is disappearing and has been diminishing in importance for centuries, I suspect that in educated writing (known as "edited English"), the subjunctive will hang on for a long time to come. In most European languages, there is a strong and vital subjunctive mood, and Greek even has an optative mood.

It is generally agreed that English modality, however defined, encompasses two broad areas: Epistemic modes and Deontic modes, and I will refer only to these two modalities, following Palmer, though von Wright's table of four types (the two previously mentioned plus alethic and existential, which may be valid for English as well, especially his alethic modes of necessary, possible, contingent and impossible (cf. Palmer, p. 10-11)).

The word "epistemic" derives from the philosophy of "epistemology" or the way we know the world, that is, how we perceive and receive information. Epistemic modality, therefore, expresses various degrees of our commitment to the truth of a statement (Berk, p. 130). In a way, its can be seenas the manner with which language is used to distance the speaker from 100% factuality of what is said. In English thereare many strategies for expressing epistemic modality: we use lexical verbs (think, feel, hear, seem, bet, etc.), adverbs (maybe, only, probably, most likely, etc.) , the passive voice, especially without an

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’Idiomesagent (It is believed, etc.), among other strategies, and of course modal auxiliaries.

Deontic modality, on the other hand, is mainly concerned with directing ourselves and the world around us. The term "deontic" is derived from the ancient Greek science of duty, and deontic modes are used to somehow affect the world around us, or ourselves. Unlike epistemic modality, which can be seenas non-volitional, the common thread in all expressions of deontic modality necessarily involve some form of the individual speaker's or listener's will (voluntad). The most important deontic modes in English are directives; they are used to get things done. Deontic modality is also known in theliterature as root modality, as it appears to be the historicalsource of epistemic modes of expression, at least in Indo-European languages.

Perhaps an example or two can give a better picture of the two types of modality:

(a) The children may be in the room now.(b) The children must be in the room now.

Each of these sentences, out of context, is ambiguous preciselybecause each of them expresses either epistemic or deontic modality. Epistemically, (a) expresses the possibility that the children are in the room but we don't know, and (b) expresses the much more likely logical conclusion that they are in the room, perhaps because they are supposed to be there, but again we arenot 100% sure. The modals may and must remove the statement from the realm of fact or truth, positioning the action into the realm of conjecture. By contrast, (a) deontically expresses permission; the children are allowed to be in the room,perhaps to play or watch TV, now that the floor which was wet has dried, for example, and (b) deontically expresses the strong obligation for the children to be in the room, perhaps for their own safety or because of their parents' rules or the school's rules. It should be noted that the negation of epistemic (a) changes the meaning only slightly, if at all, while the negation of deontic (a) radically changes permission to prohibition. In neither case is a contraction (-n't) possible for may in most, if not all, varieties of Present Day English. Also, note that the negation of (b) must normally functions onlydeontically, can be contracted (mustn't) and expresses an even

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’Idiomesstronger prohibition than the negative deontic may (a). Epistemic negation in (b) is always expressed as "can't," according to the literature, but I would caution that tone of voice and/or regional variations of English would sometimes allow must not and even mustn't epistemically in this non-perfective example.

Functions of Modality

The following list of functions expressed by the English modals and modal expressions is in no way meant to be exhaustive or comprehensive, simple illustrative. Some of the individual functions are often considered subsumed under another. For example, the Promise and Threat functions of the Deontic list can be considered manifestations of Volition (Berk, p. 136). Furthermore, the negative function is sometimes not listed; for example, though Ability appears belowin the Epistemic list, Inability does not, while Impossibility does. Also, the language function Ability is not strictly speaking epistemic, though I include it here since expressions like Sue can prepare Japanese food or Mary can type very fast seem to express the speaker's knowledge of the world, and are certainlynot attempting to affect the world in any way.

Table 1.EPISTEMIC MODALITY DEONTIC (ROOT) MODALITY

possibility appropriatenessimpossibility exhortationprobability adviceability obligation

impossibility prohibitionlikelihood permissioncertainty commandconclusion suggestionjudgment recommendationlogical necessity preferabilityattitude desirabilitybelief threatdoubt requestevidentiality reprimandspeculation promisededuction volitionassumption offer

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inference causalityallegation commitmentsense wishprediction hopehedge need

etc. etc.

Even a casual glance at the above lists gives a good idea of the very real difference between epistemic and deontic modality. While in English we cannot always express the above language functions by simply choosing the right modal verb (we often combine modals with appropriate intonation and lexical items), the modal system in English allows us to express very fine and subtle distinctions, and it is obviously necessary forour students to have good command of the modal system if they are to approach anything resembling fluency.

Summary of Auxiliary Verb Forms in English

One of the most important features of the English verb phrase is the use of auxiliaries. Examine any corpus of the English language and it quickly becomes clear that without auxiliaries the verb phrase is very meaning-poor. It also becomes clear that the vast majority of verb phrases in Englishcontain at least one auxiliary and many contain more than one. However, if we survey student textbooks for learning English, we realize that no matter how well written, there is inevitablyinadequate teaching of the verb phrase. As stated by Lynn Berk(p. 130): "Examples in grammar books do not constitute a representative sample of actual human speech. Textbook examples tend to reflect statements of fact--The girl threw the ball over the wall; The cat chased the rat; Ella gave the dog a bone" (italics in the original). The focus of this paper will now shift toward the teaching of one of the most important semantic tools at the disposal of English speakers--modal verbs.

Table 2.ENGLISH AUXILIARY VERBS:

I. PERIPATETIC: do, does, did

II. BASIC: am, is, are, was, were (be)have, has, had

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III. MODAL: can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, must

(ought to)

IV. SEMI-AUXILIARIES: -------> be able to, be supposed to, be about to, be going

to, be bound to, be sure to, be certain to, be (un)likelyto

------->seem to, appear to------->have to, have got to------->had better, had best ------->used to

V. DEFECTIVE VERBS: dare, need

As can be seen from the above chart, Modal auxiliaries constitute a very small subset of auxiliaries--a small subset, but very powerful. Unlike the Basic and Peripatetic auxiliaries, Modals and Semi-auxiliaries carry a lot of semantic weight in the verb phrase. Therefore, most of the rest of this presentation will be restricted to comments on thenine single-word Modals, as the scope of Semi-auxiliaries is such that they warrant full-blown studies on their own, in partbecause they presently constitute a very real point of contention among linguists (and I imagine will continue to do so for some time).

Some History

I will follow Millward (p. 13) in classifying the various stages of English:

Old English (henceforward OE)................... 450 to 1100 A.D.

Middle English (ME).................................... 1100 to 1500 A.D.

Early Modern English (EMnE).................... 1500 to 1800 A.D.

Present-Day English (PDE).......................... since 1800 A.D.

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This division helps to remind us of the non-linguistic influences that greatly helped to shape the English language. For example, modal auxiliaries predate OE, as can be seen in the parallel development of cognates in other languages in the Teutonic family of Indo-European languages to which English belongs. Many, if not most, of the semi-auxiliaries came into English in the ME period, which has as a rough mid-point the introduction of the printing press into England by Caxton (1321A.D.) Also, in ME the Great Vowel Shift began and the meter ofChaucer's verse gives us a good idea of pre-shifted phonology in English, while in the EMnE period, Shakespeare could rhyme words such as "prove" and "love" (Sonnet 116), though in all probability neither contained the PDE vowel sounds, / / and / /, respectively. Remember, too, that in Shakespeare's day there was still a difference between formal and familiar second-person address. Furthermore, Shakespeare was able to use both the peripatetic do-form and the older subject-main verbinversion for questions.

So, where do the nine (or ten) PDE modal auxiliaries come from? There is evidence from extant texts in OE that they werefull verbs then, which means they were, like other verbs of thetime, inflected for tense, person, number, and/or mood. But they underwent change, sometimes dramatic change, throughout OEand ME times, and for the most part lost some or all of their inflections. Shall, can, may, dare, and must (along with ought) are all descendents of what are known as OE "preterite-present" verbs and should, could, might, and must (along with ought, which was originally a past tense form of the verb that gives us PDE owe) were once weak-verb (regular) past tense forms (Millward, p. 89). The latter verbs basically became present forms by the end of the OE period. It is interesting to note that OE verbs were inflected only for present and past (preterit) tense. There has never been a future tense in English, not even in thelanguage's earliest period! What is often touted as the futuretense in the books we use to teach the language is a purely a prescriptive grammarian's invention and has no basis in diachronic linguistic reality. OE used the present tense form to talk about future time. The OE verb that later gave rise toour PDE will and its then preterit form would was willan which meant want or wish. As will be seen below, there still exists a

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’Idiomesstrong volitional aspect to the modal auxiliary will we use today.

The gradual, very gradual, change of the verbs that gave rise to our PDE single-word modals is clearly seen in EMnE. Shakespeare, without posing any comprehension problem for his contemporary audiences, could use these single-word modals withor without a following main verb. Thus, as late as the 17th century we still witness full verb status among the PDE modals:

I must away this night toward Padua. (MV 4.1.403)it will out at the casement (AYL 4.1.162)thou shalt to prison (LLL 1.2.158)

(Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, and Love's Labour's Lost, respectively (quoted in Millward, p. 234) underlining added). Of course, inPDE all modal auxiliaries must be accompanied by an unmarked infinitive of a main (semantic) verb, either explicitly or encoded in discourse.

NICE Properties

Today, all first-word auxiliaries--whether they are Peripatetic, Basic, Modal, a first word of Semi-auxiliaries, and even the modal use of the Defective verbs--exhibit identical syntactic properties, which to my mind have never been given fair treatment in any English language student-oriented textbook. And this surprises me a great deal, given the frequency of auxiliaries in native speech and the possibility for instructing students about an important, overarching, and rather unifying perspective of the English verb phrase. Let's for a moment leave aside the Semi-auxiliaries and the Defective verbs and consider only Peripatetic, Basic, and Modal auxiliaries (except ought to). That is, let's consider twenty words which have very high frequency in English discourse: do, does, did, am, is, are, was, were, have, has, had, can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, and must. Remember, we are considering here the forms of be, do and have that are auxiliaries, not semantic (main) verbs.

These first-word auxiliaries are all used in four principalways (Palmer, p. 91):

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’IdiomesTable 3.

NICE Properties of First-Word Auxiliaries

Negation: I can't go; He isn't going to be there; They haven't come;

You mustn't run; He didn'tsay; She may not tell us, etc.

Inversion: Will you go?; Does he like it?; Had I known, I would

have gone; Shall we dance?; Should you come to London, call me; Not only has he won the match, he's won the tournament as well; etc.

"Code": I visited Italy, and so did they; Have a seat, won't you?;

Give me that, will you?; I can't swim and neither can he; etc.

Emphatic Affirmation: You will eat your vegetables; That does sound interesting;

I do hope that's all right; But I have washed the dishes; etc.

Interestingly, the first word of the Semi-auxiliary group sometimes does and sometimes does not have all of these four NICE properties: *Have you to go?, *?It seems not to be raining, *??He used notto be a teacher (* is the conventional sign for an ungrammatical example, and in this paper I will use *? (doubtful grammaticality) and *?? (very doubtful grammaticality). But Am I supposed to eat that? They aren't able to come; etc. are quite all right. The Defective verbs, dare and need, and the modal ought to all appear to have some of the NICE properties, but not all the time, and to varying degrees depending on the regional variety of English we encounter. Incidentally, the Defective verbs seem to be at the stage of language evolution that the other modals were going through during Shakespeare's time--that is, they can operate like the other first-word modals (e.g. He dare not eat salt without the doctor's permission) or take the peripatetic do (e.g. In Eliot's "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock": Do I dare toeat a peach?(l. 122)) or even with a modal (Would he dare to show his

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’Idiomesface at the meeting?)--, and it is likely that only in very conservative varieties of English (including edited English) will the so-called Defective verbs retain their roles as modals. Lastly, the Negative and Inversion properties of ought to are all but anachronisms in American English, yet have currency in British English; the "Code" property of this modal functions with the "to" attached (John--He should get a new car. Anne--Yes, he ought to) at least in my American variety of English.

Teaching the Modals: Syntax

For most of the rest of this paper, only the nine modals (can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, and must) will concern us, since they share, without exception, all the NICE properties mentioned above.

We can make some very important generalizations about thesenine modals for English learners, even for absolute beginners. It would be great if we could instill in our EFL students rightfrom the start that these nine verbs form a very special class in English and share common syntactic "rules." We can unequivocally state that these nine verbs (I am a firm believerthat the word modal itself should be scratched from all textbooks below the Upper-Intermediate levels) share the following features:

1. They are invariable in form. That is, they never carryan -s, -ed, or -ing ending (inflection). Could, might, would, should, and must are past tense forms historically and are used in reported speech as such. Furthermore, they are often discoursemarkers of politeness. However, I personally think it is a mistake to tell our students that these modal verbs are past tenses, and I absolutely rage against student textbooks (including some best-selling series) that call any of these five modal verbs "past tenses." Obviously, any of the nine modal verbs under consideration here used deontically (including the five historical past forms just mentioned) refernecessarily to future time when not in the perfective aspect;

At this point, it should be noted, and it is extremely importantfor our students to know from the very beginning of their English education, that TENSE DOES NOT EQUAL TIME. This can notbe emphasized enough. "Tense" is a matter of form,

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’Idiomeslinguistically and perhaps grammatically, but certainly not of "time" in the real world.

2. They are never immediately preceded or followed by the word "to" (Note again that I am not including in this class of nine words ought or any of the Semi-auxiliaries.);

3. They are always used with a main (lexical, semantic) verb explicitly stated or where the main verb is understood (encoded) in the context of the discourse;

4. They are mutually exclusive for the following verb. Only at later stages of a student's development should the compound modal verb be taught: You can and should read more often. Emphasizing the rule of non-co-occurrence of these nine verbs can help early on in avoiding the *will must and *will can constructions that lower level learners of English seem fond oftrying. An exception to this mutual exclusivity is found in native speech in US Southern varieties of English (see below), but unless you are teaching in the Southern US, there is absolutely no need to bring this native example into the classroom.;

5. They are followed by a verb always in its base form (known linguistically as the unmarked infinitive), never by a past tense, -s inflected form, or an -ing form. This even holds true when these nine words are followed be a Basic modal when forming the so-called past modals (perfect aspect) or in the progressive (continuous) aspect, or when using the passive voice: He could have brought his CD's to the party; You should be cleaning your room; The hotel might be overbooked. This also holds for combinationsin which a modal precedes a Semi-auxiliary: They should be able to travel; John will have to find a new job; The robbery would appear to be an inside job.

6. They are always the first word in the verb string of words.

Finally, common adverbial adjuncts of frequency and other adverbial adjuncts find a very rather natural place (though notthe only possible place in an utterance) immediately following the first word in the verb phrase: You may often find that...; He could never see my point; We can always speak to each other again later; You must surely bejoking; They can of course pay by check; He has never been able to arrive on time, etc.

Table 4.

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’IdiomesSummary of Syntactic Features ofcan, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, must

invariable in form

never preceded or followed by the word "to"

always used with a main (lexical, semantic) verb

mutually exclusive

followed by a verb always in its base form

always the first word in the verb string

Teaching the Modals: Semantics

Unlike the Peripatetic (do, does, did) and the Basic (am, is, are, was, were, have, has, had) first-word auxiliaries, the modals normallycarry a lot of meaning in discourse. While the Peripatetic and Basic first-word auxiliaries give tense to the verb phrase, andhelp form the verb's aspect, voice and/or mood, their semantic content is almost nil. Not so, the modal verbs. It is in the field of semantics where the real difficulty lies for our students in learning how to use the modals. Incidentally, modals are at the heart of some of the hairiest linguistic conundrums, including the field of artificial intelligence, andthroughout their history have shown an uncanny propensity to shift in their usage and function among native speakers. For example, people of my age can still remember being corrected byour teachers for asking Can I go to the toilet? Our teachers, and our parents as well, being the grammatical prescriptivists that they were, would invariably correct us with May I go to the toilet?

What all modality does and also what the modals (including ought to) do semantically is, first and foremost, take the actionout of time. Think about it. No matter which of the modals weuse, we are invariably concerned with conveying an idea,

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’Idiomesfeeling, attitude, etc. rather than an accomplished feat. The modals therefore, place the state, condition, or action of the main verb into a state of atemporalilty.

Teachers of EFL often attempt to give students a facile translation in L1. However, the difference between using the marked and unmarked infinitive wreaks havoc on our students linguistic performance precisely because at low levels they do not have the necessary linguistic competence for translating. While Quiero tocar la guitarra = I want to play the guitar, a similar example which may seem perfectly analogous to our students simply will not work, and so for Juan puede tocar la guitarra we often get the ungrammatical *John can to play the guitar . The trap, as we all know,is that in Spanish the verb poder can often function with full semantic verb status (e.g. Barça no pudo con Málaga) and that the marked and unmarked infinitives of English invariably translateto the same single lexical item in Romance languages. However,as Michael Lewis states in The English Verb (p. 164) :

" . . . foreign language courses should begin by drawing tostudents' attention

the fact that they must never expect the foreign language to be like their own.

Teachers should not just tell students this, but discuss it,heightening their

awareness both of usage in their own language, and of the difference of the

foreign language (italics in the original).

While I find this to be very good advice for language teachers,we and our students are all psychological beings and trying to find an equivalent in our own language for a single lexical item, phrase, or sentence is perhaps a natural, human desire. For this reason, we cannot emphasize enough the second rule of Modal verb syntax in Table 4 above. Furthermore, becoming a good translator takes years of study and practice, and we should never expect nor ask our students to translate between L1

and L2. Lastly, it should be noted that sociologically, we live in a time and place where the traditional distinction between the EFL and ESL classroom is rather rapidly breaking down, and we may soon no longer find a group of students in a classroom in Spain which exhibits linguistic homogeneity; that is, immigration is soon going to make it practically impossible to

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’Idiomesuse L1 in the classroom, except to the detriment of our immigrant learners of English.

Another important idea highlighted throughout Lewis' book (cf. p. 42) is the fact that grammar is a matter of choice, nota matter of right versus wrong. I would add that grammar is a matter of choice precisely because it does not strictly concernsyntax, but concerns syntax in use, or to put it another way, grammar shows us just how intertwined syntax and semantics are.This is not to say that all utterances by a native speaker will, therefore, necessarily be judged grammatical, but that native speakers use a particular grammatical choice at the moment of speaking for innate reasons. Perhaps at first glancethe statement that grammar is choice seems heretical, but the following invented conversation with lots of Modal verbs illustrates just how much choice there is in a given situation and/or with a given interlocutor(s):

Table 5. A Telephone Conversation:

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’IdiomesAnn: John?John: Yes? Oh, hi Anne. How are you?Ann: Fine, thanks. Listen, the reason I'm calling is that it turns out I can come to your party after all.John: That's great. I'm so glad. So then you could find a sitter, after all.Ann: Yeah, I finally was able to. I can't wait. It'll be so much fun. And I can come by early if you like.John: You can come anytime after seven-thirty, and Anne, could you bring along something to drink?Ann: Ok. No problem. I may even decide to bring a bottle of champagne, and I just might bring two.John: But you may not bring more, you party animal you. Might Isuggest a Spanish cava?Ann: Sure. That won't be hard to find, now will it?John: You would be the one to know, wouldn't you?Ann: Ha, ha, very funny. And John, will there be caviar?John: I was thinking of oysters if you're bringing cava.Ann: er. . . John, I'm not asking any longer. You will have caviar.John: Ok, ok. Anything else you'd like me to have on hand?Ann: Well, shall we be dancing?John: Gee, I should hope so.Ann: Yes, good. Remember the 1st commandment: Thou shalt have music.John: You should bring along some CD's if there's anything in particular you want to dance to.Ann: Ok, I will. Oh, you simply must listen to the new Manu Chao CD I picked up last week. It'll get people up and moving.John: It must be great the way you're raving about it.Ann: I can't believe you haven't heard it yet.John: Listen, Anne. I've got to run--someone's at the door.Ann: Ok see you Saturday. Bye.John: Yes, see you then. Bye.

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’IdiomesRelated Modal Verbs

I. Can/Could/May/Might

Can and could are most usually the first Modal verbs which our students encounter, and with good reason. They are probably the most frequent of the modals in everyday discourse among native speakers. May, on the other hand, is losing ground to the Modal verb can as used to ask for and to give permission, and is losing ground to might to express the idea of"maybe." Of course in edited English, may is still very usefulfor stating possibilities without sounding dogmatic, especiallyin the literature of the natural sciences.

The following examples are adapted from Lewis (p.112 & ff.)with the classification into Epistemic (E) or Deontic (D) modesadded and/or restated.

Table 6. A Sample of Possible/Plausible ModesCan you swim? Ability Always Possible (E)I can't lift this. Objective impossibility (E)You can't smoke in here. Prohibited possibility (D)Can you remind me tomorrow, please? Request for Possible Help (D)Can I give you a lift? Offer of Possible Help (D)He can't be French. Deduction of Impossibility (E)I couldn't get tickets last week. Past Time Impossibility (E)I'm afraid I couldn't get the tickets unlessyou pay for them in advance. Future Conditioned (Im)possibility (E)Could you repeat that please? Polite Request for Possible Help (D)You could have left it home. Logical PossibilityIt may be too late. Possibility (E)He may have gone to the office. Past Time Possibility (E)You might have to look that up. Possible Polite Obligation (D)Might I have another cup of coffee? Polite Request for Possible Desire (D)

The semantic key to all four of these Modal verbs, in both their many Epistemic and Deontic manifestations, is the idea ofPOSSIBILITY or, perhaps better said, is the idea of PLAUSIBILITY. All of the above examples can be paraphrased It is (im)possible/(im)plausible that . . . or Is it possible/plausible that . . .? even when

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’Idiomesmanifested as deontic permission mode, since asking for or giving permission is still in the realm of possibility rather than duty or obligation.

Although Lewis concurs with Palmer in He can't be French that such a deduction is always stated with can't, I would hesitate togo along here; some varieties of English in some situations would allow the use of must not (uncontracted form) as in He must not be French if he pronounces his R's that way. Moreover, it should be noted that despite the claim that the epistemic use of can't in the perfect aspect (Quirk et al, quoted in Collins, p. 156) as used in His absence can't have been noticed is "increasingly accepted and used, especially in AmE" is to my mind an overstatement. Intuitively, as a native speaker of American English, I have always found the epistemic uses of can't in the perfective, as presented in most student texts, to be rare or at least jarringwhen heard in normal discourse (though not in edited English); I would venture to say that we Americans prefer the use of couldin the negative perfect aspect (e.g. It couldn't have been John at the door) and, concurring with Collins (p. 156), that must not have and even mustn't have are increasingly used in everyday discourse in their epistemic mode to express the logical impossibility ofan event in the past.

Now that we have considered the unifying semantic property of can, could, may, and might (POSSILBILITY/PLAUSIBLITY), we shouldconsider for a moment the question--if grammar is really a matter of choice--of why native speakers would choose to use one and not another of these four. Look at the following set of examples taken from Lewis, (p. 113):

Table 7. Possibility/Plausibility: A Matter of Choice IWhy choose one but not the other?

1. He can be French. 5. Can I smoke?2. He could be French. 6. Could I smoke?3. He may be French. 7. May I smoke?4. He might be French. 8. Might I smoke?

Why use one from # 1-4 and not another? It is easy to see thatall of these four involve the idea of possibility/plausibility.The difference at the moment of choosing one may very well

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’Idiomesinvolve the situation and/or the person we are speaking to. Could and might suppose more distance, in some way, and this distance may involve a temporal distance as when we report thisidea or it may involve a social distance, that is, the idea ofpoliteness, or even how likely the idea is. The distant terms are could be and might be. We can see this distancing (temporal or social) or remoteness in likelihood rather more startlingly in the negative: He can't be French (I'm sure); He couldn't be French (the way he dresses); He may not be French (despite what he says); He mightnot be French (although he has a French passport). Both the positive and negative statements express varying degrees of commitment to the truth, # 1 being the surest likelihood we areright while # 4 expresses the least likelihood that we are right.

The idea of politeness involves distancing ourselves as speakers from our listener for social or other reasons: # 5 isused with friends and family, that is, our peers, #7 is used inspeaking to someone who has some authority over the situation at hand; that is, we are in someone else's domain, the office of a superior or the house of an acquaintance we do not know very well. In all four examples, # 5-8, we are asking for permission, asking to be granted the possibility of carrying out an action. While # 5 Can I smoke? really asks Is it allowed?, # 7May I smoke? more precisely means Am I permitted? (Lewis, p.113). Aswith # 2 and 4, # 6 and 8 could implicate a distance in time, as would be the case if we were reporting these utterances afterwards, or the difference could imply a social distance by using a polite expression (distant or formal relationship of speaker to listener) . Contrasting the pairs can/could and may/might, we see the nuance between the speaker's perception ofthe existence of the possibility (can/could) and the speaker's volitional involvement in the creation of the plausibility, that is, the "space" for the possibility (may/might).

One final note about pronunciation: in most regional varieties of English, even to some extent in the variety of British English which uses the so-called "broad /a:/" pronunciation, the distinguishing feature of the positive possibility can and the negative possibility can't is more often a vowel feature rather than the final /t/ in the negative. Thus, especially in American English, the // is heard much more strongly (a matter of vowel length, perhaps) in the

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’Idiomesnegation whereas in the affirmation it is nearly always reducedto //.

II. Will/Would/Shall/Should/Must

Perhaps the most abused modal verb is will. To repeat: There has never been a future tense in English, not even in thelanguage's earliest period! Why then do we as teachers and why do textbook publishers insist on defining this modal as thething to use for future time? It cannot be based on linguisticreality as the language is used by native speakers today simplybecause native speakers have a variety of elocutions to use when talking about future time. Look at the following list of different ways to express future time (Lewis, p. 139):

Table 8. Future Time: A Matter of Choice IIWhy choose one and not the other?

1. I'm going to leave tomorrow. 2. I'm leaving tomorrow.3. I leave tomorrow. 4. I am to leave

tomorrow.5. I'll leave tomorrow. 6. I'll be leaving tomorrow.

First, it should be noted that in the case in most expressions that indicate future time, the adverb that indicates when the action is to take place is indicated, and on many occasions it is indicated explicitly. In English, such redundancy is ratherthe norm, not the exception. Secondly, according to Lewis (p. 140), we cannot rate the above six sentences by the degree of certainty. How then do native speakers decide which of the future forms to use? Is it only a personal decision of the native speaker at the moment of speech taken rather willy-nilly? Lewis' conclusion is that the form chosen to express future time events in native speech "is the nature of the speaker's conceptualisation of the future act or event" (p. 140). Very well and good for native speakers, but how is this supposed to help our EFL students?

Student textbooks have lately done a better job than in thepast in differentiating the available expressions used to referto future time. Perhaps one exercise that would be a good ideato practice in the classroom is what Lewis calls a "sorting"

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’Idiomesexercise. If we give our students the above six sentences and ask them to divide them into two groups, we would probably get various groupings, which is fine, as long as we follow up the sorting by eliciting the students' reasons. One grouping that may come out (and if it doesn't, we can suggest it) is the grouping of # 5 with # 6 for the obvious reason that they both use the contracted form of will. This is good, for it can lead to us focussing on will and its underlying semantics. Now ask the students to look up will in the dictionary, and they will find that will in English, besides the modal verb, is also a nounmeaning volition (voluntad) and a written document (testamento). We then point out that this last meaning also has a volitional aspect to it as in His last will and testament, giving the student more clues as to the semantics of the modal verb.

Moreover, although the modal verb will is used to make predictions (e.g. in conditional sentences), this is not its sole function. Here then is a sample list of expressions with the contracted and negative forms of the modal verb will and theirdeontic modes, all involving volition in some way (adapted fromBerk, p. 136):

Table 9. Volitional Will

Strong Volition He will play with matches [even though I punish him].(NICE property of You will clean your room [or else]. Emphatic Affirmation) Boys will be boys [no matter what we do to them].

Willingness and I'll carry those groceries for you.Unwillingness I'll bring you some ice cream after work.

I'll have the clam chowder, please.She won't help me wash my car.He won't sit still.

Promises I'll take you to the zoo tomorrow.We'll fix your computer when we get the parts.

Threats I'll break your arm [if you touch me].I'll scream [if you come any closer].

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Though the action in the above examples technically may take place (or not) after the statement is made in the above examples, in a future time, the primary semantic function has much more to do with volition. Remember that the action did not take place and is not taking place at the moment of speaking, and just as all the deontic modes necessarily involvefuture time, the semantic value of the modal verb will (and as weshall see below, the deontic modes of shall and must) is primarily an expression of volition at the moment of speaking.

Parallel to the distancing factors (seen above) in the usesof could and might for POSSIBILTY/PLAUSIBILITY, the semantics of would involve the same distancing factors for volition. In other words, in reported speech we may change will to would to express remoteness or temporal distance from the event (He said hewould clean his room but I haven't checked yet; He wouldn't help me with my homework yesterday), to express social remoteness as a politeness marker, especially for wishes and wants (Would you look at this report for me?; It would be all right if you left a half-hour early today) or as a way to say that something is less likely to happen (I would go shopping for you, but I'm all tied up as opposed to I'll go shopping if I finish this by noon). The idea of less likely would is clearly seen in its use in the so-called 2nd conditional type sentences where it expresses a hypothesis rather than a 1st conditional prediction with will.

Moving on to shall, then, we often come across in student textbooks a "rule" for its use which states something like the following: Use shall for first-person singular and plural (i.e. I and we) and will for all others. The fact is of the matter is that the use of shall is dying out in all varieties of spoken English. It has much higher frequency in British English than in American English where it has all but disappeared in spoken discourse, and is retained quite strongly in legal documents, especially contractual arrangements in business, and in religious or liturgical discourse. What is more, in those areas where shall still is somewhat frequent (liturgy, contracts)there is absolutely no restriction as to person (I, we) in its use and in these areas shall can be seen used with all person/number combinations. What it has in common with will is its volitional value, though perhaps expressing a stronger, more binding obligation on a party or person than will in contractual arrangements. Although shall is still often used by native speakers for making spontaneous suggestions in question

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’Idiomesform (Shall we dance?; Shall we go to the cinema?), the negative contractedform shan't has fallen into profound disuse in PDE but may on occasion still be heard in conservative varieties of English. However, our students do not have any need to use shall at all inspeaking, and it does not warrant extensive teaching. It may be better taught, perhaps, within the skill area of reading comprehension.

Incidentally, the modal verb contracted as 'll has almost always been assumed to derive from will, but there is no reason that it can not be a derivation of shall. In effect, there is little difference in most circumstances. However, I personallyfavor the speculation that in sentences of willingness (I'll do it; [phone ringing:] I'll get it; I'll have the steak) 'll is a derivation of shall as if there were a tacit social contract at work.

The modal verb should is a bit more problematic. According to Lewis (p. 123), the following list of various manifestationsof should do not have one single underlying meaning and can not be paraphrased using any one expression. I have added parenthetically whether the example uses should epistemically (E)or deontically (D).

Table 10. The Problems of Should

1. Should it rain, the game will be postponed until Saturday. (E) 2a. It doesn't seem fair that he should get away without paying. (D) 2b. It's funny you should say that. (E) 3. How should I know! (E) 4a. It's about five miles, I should think. (E) 4b. It must be about a quarter past four, I should say. (E) 5a. If you should bump into him, please tell him I'm looking for him. (E) 5b. If one green bottle should accidentally fall . . . (a popular song). (E) 6. We were just talking about it when who should come along but Sandra. (E) 7a. You should have taken your coat. (D) 7b. I don't think he should have done that. (D)

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It is my personal conclusion that the majority the semanticproblems of the modal verb should (as in the examples above) havea tendency to appear in its epistemic use. It should perhaps be underscored that Deontic uses of Modal verbs far outnumber epistemic uses. Deontically, should seems much simpler, and moststudent textbooks do a good job of illustrating why should is very often called the advice modal. In 2a, 7a and 7b above, should is clearly expressing advisability. We can easily paraphrase both 7a and 7b: It was advisable that you take your coat and It wasn't advisable for him to do that. The example 2b is perhaps a case where advisability does not seem to work. But what if we use the paraphrase It is/was (not) appropriate that . . . in all three cases? Then 2b (taking into account the negative raising feature) becomes It doesn't seem appropriate that he get(s) away with that and this seems a fair enough paraphrase. In 7a and 7b the paraphrase may even be better than what we previously tried before: It was appropriate for you to have taken your coat (but you didn't) and I don't think it was appropriate for him to have done that (but he did) and both of these seem fairly accurate.

In the other examples, I would agree that, as Lewis states (p. 123) that there seems to be "a different should" at work. However, just as the volitional feature of will/would often holds the key to their semantics, perhaps the appropriateness featureof should can help us with the semantics of epistemic examples ofshould above and of others. In 3 above. a rather cynical, rhetoric exclamation is made which can perhaps be paraphrased as How is it appropriate for me to know? (It isn't and I don't). Likewise, 2b can perhaps be paraphrased as It's funny/odd that you think it is appropriate to say that just now. In 6, we see an element of surprise in the useof should, and perhaps we need to add some irony in the paraphrase: We were just talking about it when who was the most ironically appropriate person to come along at that moment but Sandra. I admit that in this example, the "it is appropriate that . . ." paraphrase is rather strained. Moreover, in 4a and 4b the paraphrase appearsto break down altogether: It's five miles, which is appropriate for me to think (*?) and It must be about a quarter past four, which is appropriate for me to say (*?). It may be that should in these cases reduces the non-factive quality of the modality posited by think and say alone (opinions). At the same time should mitigates the statement of afact (It is five miles) and of a logical conclusion (It must be a quarter past four) to arrive at appropriately informed judgments. Lewis (p. 124) contends that these are better treated as fixed

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’Idiomesexpressions meaning "to the best of my knowledge." Notice thatshould in each of the cases in question can easily be substitutedby would: the hypotheses, I would think and I would say, appear to have more non-factivity and be closer to guesses than their should counterparts. Again, however, we see that both would and should are used epistemically as devices or strategies by the speakers to distance themselves from a 100% commitment to factual statements; the Modal verbs act in conjunction with thinkand say to posit various degrees of likelihood.

However, while Lewis mentions "a different should" which canappear only in subordinate that-clauses (p. 124), he fails to note that in such sentences (e.g. I was delighted that he should recogniseme after so long and The lawyers recommended that we should take no further action (Lewis' examples)) this "different should" is related to a long lost historical Subjunctive mood in English. Also, simpledeletion of should in this type of sentence (even without the necessity to edit the first of these for the -s inflection) yields a discourse feature that is not only possible, but that has certain currency for American speakers of English.

Perhaps our attempt to find "a single central meaning" for should does indeed result in what Swan calls "special pleading" (Lewis, p. 123). In the remaining examples in Table 10 (1, 5a,5b), we see a feature of English that still has currency in British English varieties, but which has mostly been lost in everyday spoken discourse in most varieties of American English, though it does persist in edited English, especially formal letters. In sentence 1 above we see the Inversion (NICE) property of first-word auxiliaries where the inversion allows the deletion of the conjunction if; sentence 1 can be paraphrased as If it should rain . . . . Conversely, sentences 5a and 5b could each be restated with the if-deleting Inversion: Should you bump into him . . . and Should one green bottle accidentally fall . . . . But the replacement of should-inversion for a straightforward if-contingency seems to have nothing to do with appropriateness. The semantics may very well be a vestige of some historically earlier meaning of should; at any rate the use of should in these types of sentences seems, at least intuitively, to posit less non-factivity on the contingency than its corresponding if-clausevariation.

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To recapitulate briefly: Should defies our giving it one grand, central underlying meaning, but only in its epistemic modes. In all of its deontic uses, should posits the idea of appropriateness (which here is meant to subsume the deontic modes of advisability, and mild to strong obligation), and thiscould be useful to bring into our classroom activities, especially if we bear in mind that deontic modes have generallyhigher frequencies than epistemic modes for Modal verbs. Lastly, all student textbooks seem fond of presenting ought to along with should. While the semantics of both items are basically equal, their syntax is not. It seems that we and thetextbook may be doing a disservice to our students since only in conservative varieties of English are we going to find the question inversion and negative (NICE properties) with ought to.

We now turn our attention to the characteristics of the Modal verb must. It is perhaps the clearest, most unequivocal Modal verb: epistemically, must posits a logical conclusion or necessity for the following semantic verb (He must be in his office; He must have gone to lunch) and deontically it posits a very strong obligation or prohibition (You must drive on the left side of the road in Britain; She's running because she must get to the bank before it closes; He mustn't play with matches). Furthermore, deontic must does not have a perfect aspect (past modal), though epistemic must does.

In its deontic mode, must is comparable in force with the Semi-auxiliaries have to and have got to, and this is why we can express the strong obligation deontic mode in the past (She was running because she had to get to the bank before it closed yesterday; He had to do his homework before he went out to play). Perhaps this is most useful for reporting speech, but it certainly is not the only use. Interestingly, the prohibition deontic mode with the negative Modal verb (They must not smoke in here) will not find an equivalent by substituting the Semi-auxiliary. They don't have to smoke in here andThey didn't have to smoke in here do not express a prohibition deontic mode but simply a lack of obligation in present and past time, respectively. In addition, to express prohibition in past timewe would have to resort to They weren't allowed to smoke in here or someother "wordier" expression.

Though student textbooks appear to do a decent job with must as just mentioned, I am still trying to find a textbook that does not say something like Use have to when the obligation comes

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’Idiomesfrom an external source and use must when the obligation is internal. Hogwash! Not only is there practically no difference in the semantic values for the deontic modes of must, have to and have got to, but Ialso find it quite natural to say I have to study; I'm starving--I've got to get some lunch soon; I have to go to the toilet. While perhaps the source ofthe obligation to study is external, there could be an inner compulsion for this activity; moreover, there can be no doubt that the source of hunger or the urge to urinate is anything but internal.

Lastly, there is an interesting study by Peter Collins (1991) which examines the usage of several Modal verbs (must, should, ought), Semi-auxiliaries (have to, have got to) and one of the Defective verbs (need) in Australian English (AusE). He collects data from several corpora and reaches some conclusionsthat may seem surprising at first. For one thing, the total number of instances of deontic or root modes of these verbs which posit various degrees of necessity and obligation far outnumber the corresponding epistemic modes when looked at collectively. Perhaps more startling, however, is the following (italics in the original):

While must, have (got) to, should and ought all express both root and epistemic meanings, must is the only form inwhich epistemic meaning dominates (the root--epistemic proportions being: must 0.6:1; should 8.3:1;ought 10:1; have (got) to 33.3:1) . . . . Whereas shouldis generally (in 75.0 per cent of cases) subjective--typically used to express the speaker's advice or recommendation--have (got) to is generally objective (in78.9 per cent of cases; 85.2 per cent for have to, and75.5 per cent for have (got) to)--typically used to express an obligation or duty which is binding on thesubject and derives from a source other than the speaker. (p. 164)

This clearly suggests that the authors of textbooks, especially the grammar sections that deal with Modals, Semi-Auxiliaries, etc., need to take a hard look at emerging linguistic data on native discourses (spoken, written, formal, informal, etc.), need to re-examine the role of traditional grammar texts or text sections for teaching non-native speakershow to communicate in English, and perhaps most importantly

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’Idiomesshift the basis of their work away from their "home" versions of the language to a broader, international version of English.

To summarize this section, I would like to propose a general division of degrees of factivity of the nine Modal verbs (can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, and must). If we look at Table 11, we see two axes that can help to illustrate the very general ways in which the Modal verbs help to nuance the action of its corresponding main semantic verb. The horizontal arrow points in the direction from left to right to show the increase from "zero" action, which is negation of the semantic verb, "off the scale to the left," through a range ofmodes which we use ordinarily in normal English discourse, to the most inevitable action, and finally "off the scale" once again, which would be action (or state or condition, etc.) as fact. The vertical arrow illustrates the general "remote" characteristic of the historically past modal forms, which would incidentally correspond to the usted(es) forms in Spanish and their counterparts in other Romance languages.

Table 11. A Modest Proposal

POTENTIAL INEVITABLEACTION >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ACTION

More Immediacy

Ability/Possibility/ Plausibility

CAN MAY

Predictability/Appropriateness/Obligation

WILL SHALL MUST

COULD MIGHT

WOULD SHOULD

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More Distance:--temporal--politeness--likelihood

POTENTIAL INEVITABLE ACTION >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ACTION

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Combining Modals and Semi-Auxiliaries

Though the combinations of the nine single-word Modal verbswith a Semi-auxiliary is quite common in native speech, it unfortunately receives rather poor treatment in most student texts. It is probably not wise to get into these combinations until the development of our students general English learners'fluency has reached a comparatively solid intermediate stage; that is, when a student exhibits most of the characteristics ofwhat the Council of Europe calls "an independent user" of the language. However, in the receptive skills of reading and listening, a lot of exposure to these combinations even before the independent-user stage is advisable. The following paragraphs illustrate some common combinations.

Be able to: substitutes the ability Modal can in combination with other Modal verbs. He could be able to go; He may be able to go; He might be able to go; He will be able to go; He would be able to go; He shall be able to go; He should be able to go; He must be able to go are all possible in normal English discourse. The last of these examples seems clearly epistemic. And while one might claim that the first of these examples might seem to have dubious grammaticality, it may be that could be able to has the value of anadverbial maybe or perhaps be able to go and so indeed reflects the modal’s distancing feature. In the second of the above examples, may be able to seems a bit redundant but certainly seems to make more sense if we consider hypothetical situations and tone of voice. Furthermore, could expresses both was/were able to (do)and would be able to (do) when combined with only a semantic verb, asshown in the pair, If I could fly, I could beat the traffic = If I was/were able to fly, I would be able to beat the traffic.

Be going to: can substitute will, as in She can't be going to do that; She could be going to do that; She may be going to do that; She might be going to do that; She shall be going to do that; She should be going to do that; She would begoing to do that; She must be going to do that are possible, but they are all fairly weak epistemic modes and are combined with the progressive of the main verb to express the idea of intention (compare She may be working late tomorrow with She may be going to work late tomorrow).

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Have to: substitutes must frequently. Thus, They may have to hurry; They might have to hurry; They will have to hurry; They would have to hurry; They shall have to hurry do not pose any problem for a native speaker such as myself. One the other hand, (*) They can have to hurry; (*?) They could have to hurry; (*?) They should have to hurry all are usually judged tobe ungrammatical to many, if not most, native speakers.

Used to: cannot be combined with any of the nine single-word Modal verbs in question, although it can combine with another Semi-Auxiliary as in I used to be able to run five miles.

What Should Not Enter EFL Classrooms

This last section will refer to some oddities of Modal verbs that native speakers of English illustrate in their speech, but which should not enter to EFL classroom.

1. In the southern region of the United States the rule of thumb of non-co-occurrence of Modal verbs does not hold. Thus a native speaker of this variety of English does not find multiple Modals problematic. The very common He might could do thathas the value of Maybe he could do that, and one very rare example of a speaker from North Carolina (Berk, p. 138) includes quite a string: If she might should ought to have to go to the hospital, she's worried about what she'll do with her children. But again, while this may have a place in a linguistics classroom, it certainly should not come up in our EFL classrooms.

2. In some varieties of British English there seems to be a double "code" auxiliary (NICE property) in short answer responses. Thus, people who come from Manchester, at least, will seamlessly combine Modal verbs with the Peripatetic do auxiliary. The following is typical of dialogue I have personally heard many times in the teachers' room:

A: You should give them more practice in this.B: Yes, I suppose I should do.A: And you might want to take a look at this for testing ideas.B: Yes, I will do.

In most regional varieties of English, and what the traditional, prescriptivist grammar texts tell us is that B's

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’Idiomesshort answer responses above should be Yes, I suppose I should and Yes,I will. At this point in time there seems to be too little information available to draw any firm conclusions about this type of double auxiliary use. Curious, but once again, it should probably not to be brought into our EFL classrooms.

3. In many areas of the US, there seems to be an inexplicable loss of the past participle for verbs that have three distinct forms for strong (irregular) verbs. This seems to happen only in the so-called past modal form (perfect aspect) and in very, very casual speech (e.g. I could've went last night; I shouldn't've ate so much). This to my knowledge has never been documented, even in books by linguists with a very descriptivist bent. It must be a fairly recent development though I personally noticed it more than fifteen years ago in New York. I recently have had the chance to talk to a former colleague who is now a university professor; she brought it up,I did not inquire about it. She absolutely rails against it, and I must admit that it sounds like it is clearly non-standard. I suspect that it is due to the phonological reduction of the middle Basic modal have to 've and further to //. A clue as to why this may be happening comes from American authors such as Mark Twain and William Faulkner, who use various strategies in the writing of their characters' dialogue to show the phonetic reduction of have after a Modal. Faulkner often used of after Modal verb in place of 've in the mouths of his characters. This phenomenon may be an indicationof a future loss of certain past participle forms, after Modal verbs at least, or it may be just a facet of very casual American English that may never be acceptable and will eventually fade away. We don't know and we should not rule outeither possibility at this point, but again I want to emphasize that the mention of this phenomenon has no place in the EFL classroom.

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals. . . But Were Afraid ToAsk James Miele Scialabba Escola Oficial d’IdiomesClosing

In this presentation I have tried to direct the audience's attention to some of the characteristics of Modal verbs as theyare used today. Hopefully, the information imparted herein hasat least added to the depth of knowledge of the system of auxiliaries in general and the use of Modal verbs in Present Day English. Obviously, much more can be added to what has been said here, and I dare say that some of the points made here can be debated. We should never forget that a living language is always evolving, and in the singular case of English the evolution is likely to be directed from non-native variations toward native variations of English—after all, whilethere are estimates of up to one and a half billion speakers of English who do not have the language as their mother tongue (but are at least Independent Users of the language), there arejust under half a billion speakers of English in the world who do have the language as their mother tongue —a ratio of 3 to 1 !

All this draws attention to the fact that the broader ELT profession is no longer dominated by speakers of native variations of English, and textbook writers and publishing houses should probably not narrowly look to any one single variety of English as a standard, but should base their products on an international standard that is at the same time flexible and useful for non-native speakers of English and that, most importantly, takes into account the realities of language use by English speakers wherever they come from. As ELT professionals, it behooves us all to look at the materials on which our schools and students spend so much money with a critical eye.

Finally, I do hope that this presentation has been as engaging for the audience as it has been for its author. Thank you.

Bibliography

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Berk, Lynn M. English Syntax: From Word to Discourse. New York (USA): Oxford

University Press, 1999.

Collins, Peter. "The Modals of Obligation and Necessity in Australian English." English

Corpus Linguistics: Studies in honour of Jan Svartik. KarenAijmer and Bengt

Altenberg, Eds. Essex, England (UK): Longman Group UK Limited, 1991.

Lewis, Michael. The English Verb. Hove, England (UK): Language Teaching

Publications, 1986.

Millward, C. M. A Biography of the English Language. New York (USA): Holt,

Reinhart and Winston, Inc., 1989.

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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Modals But Were Afraid To Ask

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