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Two modal verbs of German are regularly used to express deontic possibility: können (‘can’) and dürfen (‘may’). We examine how speakers select between them, focusing on modal inquiries for permission to carry out some action (darf/kann ich das machen, ‘may/can I do this’). Our data are video-recordings of everyday face-to-face interaction, which we analyze sequentially, drawing on interactional-linguistic methods. We find that local sequential context and aspects of visible turn-design systematically enter into the accomplishment of deontic meaning. (1) Position of the modal inquiry within a course of action informs verb selection: speakers select kann to nominate an action as coming “out of the blue” and initiating a new course of action; darf to nominate an action as sequentially occasioned: a solution to an already known-in-common problem. (2) Bodily behavior (gaze, body posture) guides the interpretation of modal flavor, moving a kann-inquiry towards a deontic or a circumstantial interpretation, and moving a darf-inquiry towards a deontic or a bouletic interpretation. Overall, the study demonstrates the systematic contributions of sequential position and body behavior in the accomplishment of modal meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reportative evidential markers are – in contrast to other evidential markers – compatible with distancing interpretations, in which the speaker denies the truth of what is being reported. This exceptional behaviour of reportatives is termed 'reportative exceptionality' (AnderBois 2014). In this paper, which addresses French, Dutch and German reportative markers, we argue that they differ with respect to the frequency with which such distancing interpretations actually arise. The French reportative conditionnel most frequently occurs with distancing interpretations, whereas German sollen hardly occurs with this function. Dutch zou takes up an intermediate position. It is claimed that the higher compatibility of the conditionnel with distancing interpretations can be accounted for by a number of factors: its general preference for contexts in which other perspectives than the speaker's are highly salient; the fact that it has past tense morphology; and its general semantic make-up in which the marking of hypotheticality is a key function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the widespread view that the diachronic processes of grammaticalization and of subjectification go hand in hand, and that highly subjectivized meanings typically correlate with highly grammaticalized forms, should be revised. The point is made on the basis of the case of the diachrony of the Dutch modal verbs. Corpus data show that four of these verbs recently got involved in a process of collective re-autonomization, while the two other modals in the language do not. This correlates with differences in the semantic development of the verbs: the four re-autonomizing verbs do, but the two outliers do not show a regular process of (inter)subjectification. The paper unravels through which mechanisms the grammatical and the semantic developments may correlate, hence why highly subjectivized meanings do not necessarily like a grammatical status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Italo-Greek is characterized by a general retreat of infinitival complementation, it partly preserves the infinitive in restructuring contexts: a handful of functional auxiliaries—in an overt or covert form—allow for infinitival complements, with which they enter in a monoclausal union. Such a preservation also triggers consequences for finite complementation. Indeed, those predicates that still select for infinitival complements may lack finite complementation, resulting in only the lexical embedded verb surfacing instead of the complex sentence AUX + na + finite verb: δen du ékame típote 'he could not do anything to him' (lit. 'he did not do anything to him'). I claim that such an absence—which gives rise to a semantic or even a syntactic gap—depends on the effects of the restructuring rule, which creates a high level of dependency and interlacing between the matrix and embedded verbs. When finite complements gradually replaced infinitival ones, though only sporadically, some predicates stopped selecting for finite complements, ultimately depriving the sentence of modal and other functional specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Настоящая статья посвящена исследованию одного из базовых категорий текста – категории модальности, с точки зрения антропоцентрического подхода, согласно которому человек со своим внутренним миром, чувствами, эмоциями, отношением к окружающему миру становится центральным звеном высказывания. В фокусе внимания находится субъективная модальность как коммуникативно-семантическая категория художественного текста, выражающая целый спектр модальных значений. Одним из наиболее продуктивных, придающих тексту особую модальную окраску, средств являются модальные глаголы. Модальный глагол – это тип вспомогательного глагола, который используется для обозначения модальности, то есть вероятности, способности, разрешения, запрета, сомнения, возможности, невероятности, обязательства и т.д. В рамках данной работы анализ модальных значений производился на материале английского языка.

The article presents a corpus-based study that aims at establishing how modality is used in climate change-related discourse by King Charles III of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the UK). The study involved a corpus of speeches on the topic of climate change delivered by King Charles III from 2005 to 2023. The corpus was analysed in the computer software AntConc (Anthony) in order to compute the frequency of the occurrence of the central modal verbs. Thereafter, they were analysed qualitatively to establish the types of modality associated with them. The analysis revealed that climate change-related discourse by King Charles III was marked by a high frequency of the occurrence of the modal verbs will and can. Their frequency, pragmatic roles, and association with the different types of modality are further discussed in the article.

Modifying and hedging one's claims appropriately is an important characteristic of academic writing. This study focuses on the three main English modal verbs used to express "epistemic possibility" to avoid making strong statements, viz., may, might, and could. The purpose of this corpus-based study is to explore modal verb usage by Japanese EFL undergraduate students and consider pedagogical implications of our findings. Our analysis suggests that the Japanese students' use of these modal verbs, especially could, has a tendency to be informal and insufficiently academic. While the Japanese students use could very frequently, they do not use it sufficiently in the sense of "epistemic possibility", and some of their use is inappropriate not just in academic English but in English more generally. The observed high frequency of could may be related to topics and may also be due to the influence of L1. We discuss different factors that may explain the findings, based mainly on the overview of factors impacting on EFL learners' use of academic English offered by Gilquin and Paquot (2008). Too chatty: Learner academic writing and register variation. English Text Construction 1(1). 41–61), suggest several additions to this overview, and discuss implications for the instruction of these modal verbs in academic writing and in order to improve relevant teaching materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Chinese as a Second Language Research is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The issue of climate change poses a serious challenge to the world we live in. People's concerns with the issue of climate change and environmental agenda are echoed by a number of nongovernmental organisations, for instance, Greenpeace Australia Pacific (GAP), which communicates its views on the matter to the public and selected target groups on Social Networking Sites (SNSs), such as Facebook. Currently, however, there is insufficient scholarship on GAP's communication on SNSs. In particular, little is known about the role of modality in GAP's climate change and environmental discourse on Facebook. The article presents a mixed-methods study that investigates how modality, which is often associated with modal verbs, is used by GAP in its communication on Facebook. The study involves a corpus of GAP's status updates on Facebook that are investigated for the frequency of the occurrence of modal verbs and their pragmatic roles. The results of the analysis reveal that the most frequently occurring modal verbs in the corpus are can, will, and would, which perform a range of pragmatic roles that are further discussed in the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modal verbs of necessity and obligation, a testing ground of grammatical change, have been shown to exhibit change and variation in world Englishes. Previous studies have primarily concentrated on English as a native language (ENL) and English as a second language (ESL) varieties. The present study extends this line of research and explores variation in modal verbs of necessity and obligation in English use as a Lingua Franca (ELF). Descriptive statistics indicate that ELF resembles American English and also shares similarities with ESL varieties. In addition, ELF further exhibits divergence from both ENL and ESL varieties that arises in multilingual interactions. The multivariate analysis of this study employs mixed-effects logistic regression on the use of must and have to. Integrating social and linguistic factors, this analysis exploits metadata gathered from the VOICE corpus, which has thus far been underused. The results of the inferential statistics indicate that the same sociolinguistic factors that influence the variation in ENL and ESL varieties also shape ELF grammar. These findings not only bring ELF closer to other English varieties but also demonstrate the advantage of studying ELF from a variationist sociolinguistic perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we examine how support workers produce requests for concrete actions and, in this way, manage client participation in mental health rehabilitation. Drawing on Finnish rehabilitation group meetings as data and on conversation analysis, we examine how support workers design their requests for concrete action from clients, how clients respond, and how support workers deal with clients' responses. The results reveal that support workers tend to use verbs indicating willingness when implementing their requests, whereas clients resort to the modality of possibility. By orienting to willingness, the support workers invoke clients' sense of responsibility to contribute to group activities and simultaneously avoid questioning their capabilities. On the other hand, clients orient toward the underlying assumptions of social responsibility rather than to their own personal preferences. To conclude, our study demonstrates how support workers address the dilemma of increasing client participation and showing respect for client self-determination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present contribution examines the use of modal verbs in specialised tourism discourse, with a focus on the Verona Corpus. Modal verbs play a crucial role in expressing modality and conveying information about necessity, possibility, and permission (Maci 2020; Palmer 1990). Through a comprehensive analysis of the Verona Corpus, a corpus of websites promoting the city of Verona (Italy) as a destination, this study categorises modal verbs into epistemic, deontic, and dynamic modalities (see Palmer 1990) and investigates their relative frequencies. Non-parametric statistical tests (Kruskal-Wallis) are employed to determine the significance of differences in modal verb usage, followed by a qualitative analysis. The results show statistically significant differences among the three categories of modality used in the texts: epistemic, deontic, and dynamic, whereas there are no differences between the verb groups (e.g., can, could, may, might, etc.) within the same type of modality. In addition, the use of pronouns shows an attempt at establishing an empathic relationship with the tourists but risks coming across as too artificial and persuasive.

The introduction of modal verbs in English textbooks across levels in China was surveyed and compared with Chinese learners' use in writing to explore the potential impact of textbook introduction on learners' real use. The results have revealed (1) divergences between the sequence of modal verb presentation in textbooks and their frequency order in native speakers' use, the unusual lower coverage of WOULD and early introduction of SHALL in particular; (2) the imbalanced coverage of different forms and senses of modal verbs in textbooks, notwithstanding that learners deploy some senses or forms in writing even if these usages have not been introduced; and (3) the constrained way of introduction--English to Chinese translation in vocabulary, simple explanation and exemplification in sentence context. Core senses and fundamental forms introduced early in textbooks are used most frequently in learners' writing. Modal verbs with the perfect aspect structure and their associated senses introduced in textbooks at university levels rarely occur in learners' writing even at advanced levels. Limited agreement between textbook introduction and learners' use has been detected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Srbski Jezik is the property of University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Although Italo-Greek is characterized by a general retreat of infinitival complementation, it partly preserves the infinitive in restructuring contexts: a handful of functional auxiliaries—in an overt or covert form—allow for infinitival complements, with which they enter in a monoclausal union. Such a preservation also triggers consequences for finite complementation. Indeed, those predicates that still select for infinitival complements may lack finite complementation, resulting in only the lexical embedded verb surfacing instead of the complex sentence AUX + na + finite verb: δen du ékame típote ‘he could not do anything to him’ (lit. ‘he did not do anything to him’). I claim that such an absence—which gives rise to a semantic or even a syntactic gap—depends on the effects of the restructuring rule, which creates a high level of dependency and interlacing between the matrix and embedded verbs. When finite complements gradually replaced infinitival ones, though only sporadically, some predicates stopped selecting for finite complements, ultimately depriving the sentence of modal and other functional specifications.

Modal verbs are well-known to license ellipsis of their complements under certain conditions. In the literature on Spanish, such sequences, which I refer to as Modal Ellipsis (ME), have been traditionally argued to involve a null pronoun. These analyses therefore treat ME simply as an instance of Null Complement Anaphora (NCA). In this article, I scrutinize the data adduced in the literature on Spanish and defend that (i) ME in this language is different from NCA, and (ii) ME must involve PF-deletion of a TP node. Even though these claims are not new, I provide novel data in an attempt to clarify some of the controversial facts and claims that exist in the Spanish literature. In doing so, I strengthen the recent view of ME as a PF-deletion phenomenon.

This article presents the problem of modal verbs in Spanish from the perspective of Langacker’s cognitive grammar. Langacker defines modal verbs as grounding elements that can express implicit meanings and thus increase the degree of subjectivity of the utterance. Unlike English modal verbs, which are completely unanchored and fully grammaticalized, Spanish modal verbs exhibit verb inflection. The aim of this article is to compare the construals with and without a modal verb and to point out the differences between the positions of conceptualizers (speaker and addressee). For these purposes several graphical representations are proposed throughout the article. As the proposed schemes show, the position of conceptualizers plays a key role in the conception of any construal. It is concluded that a construal with a modal verb has a more subjectively anchored interaction between the two conceptualizers and that the speaker is always a completely implicit part of the utterance.

This paper offers a corpus-based investigation of the diachronic evolution of the Dutch modal verbs zullen 'shall/will' and willen 'want'. Although they show considerable differences in their developments, neither of these verbs participates in the marked tendency to regain grammatical autonomy characterizing the 'central' modals kunnen 'can', mogen 'may', moeten 'must' and hoeven 'need'. While the latter verbs from New Dutch onwards occur increasingly often without an additional main verb in the clause, this evolution is largely absent in zullen and willen. The paper attempts to offer an explanation on the basis of the developments in the semantic profile of the modal verbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces a quantitative study that examines how modality, which is associated with modal verbs (e.g., must, would, etc.), is represented in English-medium research articles (henceforth – RAs) that are published in specialised scientific journals that focus on the intersection of climate change-related research and health. The aim of the study was to collect a corpus of RAs published in the international peer-reviewed journals Eco-Environment and Health and The Journal of Climate Change and Health and examine the frequency of the occurrence of modal verbs in order to determine the most frequent modals in the corpus. To that end, the corpus was analysed in the software program AntConc (Antony, 2022) in order to establish the frequency of the central modal verbs in English, such as can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will and would. The results of the quantitative investigation revealed that can and may were the most frequent modal verbs in the corpus. The findings were discussed through the lens of the discourse on climate change and health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main modal verbs of the English language (can, could, may, must, should, need, will, would) in media texts have been studied, namely the ways of their translation into Russian. Using the method of continuous sampling, 50 concordances were selected and analyzed for each of the 8 modal verbs. The material of the study was examples in the field of journalism from the National Corpus of the Russian Language, namely, a parallel subcorpus composed of original texts and their translations. Additionally, a ranking was carried out according to the frequency of modal verbs in the parallel corpus NKRYA (language pair Russian-English) and the English web corpus WebCorp. When comparing, the absolute frequencies of modal verbs were used, since the first corpus is static, and the second is dynamic (replenished daily). The need to supplement the parallel corpus was revealed, since the sorting results were not identical. Based on the analysis of translation transformations, the following was found: literal translation, grammatical substitutions and omission were most often used in the translation of modal verbs in media texts. It has been established that impersonal constructions were often used, and modality was transmitted using linguistic means of another level.

This article examines the Zoroastian Middle Persian modal verbs in terms of typology. The type of research is qualitative and its method is descriptive-analytical. The framework in this study is adapted from Nauze. The Middle Persian modal verbs are: abāyēd, šāyēd, tuwān, sazēd and kāmistan. The data is collected through the Zoroastian Middle Persian texts. After collecting data, the type of modal verbs in the data was determined and then the semantic mapping of each verb was specified on the conceptual space. The results showed that Nauze framework is not suitable for covering the meaning of Zoroastian Middle Persian modal verbs. So, the probability axis was added on the vertical axis of the conceptual space. Also, this research showed that the Middle Persian data contradicts the typology that Nauze had presented.

Copyright of Studia Germanica Gedanensia is the property of University of Gdansk / Uniwersytet Gdanskim and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Studia Germanica Gedanensia is the property of University of Gdansk / Uniwersytet Gdanskim and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Studia Germanica Gedanensia is the property of University of Gdansk / Uniwersytet Gdanskim and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Modality plays an important part in verbal communication, as it can reveal the speaker's views and perspectives. The modal verb, as an essential component of the modality system, has been a hot research topic and a challenge in academic circles in recent years. Analyzing the modal verbs in a text may indicate the context produced by the translator in the translation and the identity difference between the translator and the reader. In this study, three representative English translations of Shih chi are selected for comparative analysis with the original text. With the help of corpus techniques, the paper investigates the differences in the use of modal verbs by various translators, the distribution of quantitative changes and their influence on translations, as well as the historical and cultural backgrounds and identities of the translators that led to these differences. It is found that owing to the different professional identities of the translators and historical and cultural contexts in which they live, the choice of modal verbs and the shifts of modality values in the three translations are distinct, leading to different translation styles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

В связи с активным сотрудничеством стран в разных сферах жизни существует постоянная востребованность в переводе нормативных документов, в том числе международных договоров, регламентирующих порядок взаимодействия стран – сторон договора. Международный договор представляет собой юридический документ и относится к официально-деловому стилю. Язык международных договоров должен соответствовать требованиям точности, ясности, отсутствием двусмысленности. Характерной чертой стиля в английском языке является наличие большого количества модальных глаголов, которые обладают несколькими значениями. Данные значения не всегда могут быть переданы модальными глаголами русского языка. Перед переводчиком возникает сложная задача выбора единиц перевода, подходящих для адекватной передачи значения модального глагола текста оригинала. Цель исследования – определить способы перевода модальных глаголов с английского языка на русский в юридических текстах. Для этого нам необходимо выявить факторы, по которым переводчик может определить значение модального глагола в конкретном контексте и соотнести их с закономерными вариантами перевода на русский язык. Исследование проводится на материале международного договора между Российской Федерацией и Республикой Индонезией в правоохранительной сфере посредством таких методов лингвистического анализа, как описательный, сопоставительный, количественный. Наиболее частотным модальным глаголом в англоязычном тексте международного договора является глагол shall, на втором месте – may, другие модальные глаголы встречаются, но крайне редко. На русский язык модальные глаголы переводятся: глаголом в настоящем времени; глаголом «может»; кратким прилагательным «должен»; наречием «необходимо». Некоторые глаголы, относящиеся к категории модальных, реализуются в тексте оригинала в других функциях, например, should – как показатель условного предложения с оттенком гипотетичности, will – как показатель будущего времени с оттенком обещания. При переводе модальных глаголов на русский язык необходимо учитывать множество факторов: требования функционального стиля речи; оттенки значений модальных глаголов и их функцию в предложении; контекст, конкретизирующий значение модального глагола; нормы языка перевода.

The article investigates an overlooked development in the history of the English modals, namely the regularization of their plural inflection in Middle English (e.g. prs.ind.pl shulleþ for expected shullen). Using the LAEME and eLALME atlases and a number of electronic corpora, I document the frequency and dialectal distribution of such regularized modal verbs. It is shown that regularized shall was fairly common in Late Middle English, regularized can less so, and regularized may only very sporadically attested. The distribution of these forms shows a clear areal pattern, being most numerous in manuscripts from the southwest Midlands. I suggest that the most likely explanation for the observed patterns is interparadigmatic analogy with the 'anomalous' verb will, which in some dialects had developed the same stem vowel as plural shall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the Zoroastian Middle Persian modal verbs in terms of typology. The type of research is qualitative and its method is descriptive-analytical. The framework in this study is adapted from Nauze. The Middle Persian modal verbs are: abāyēd, šāyēd, tuwãn, sazēd and kāmistan The data is collected through the Zoroastian Middle Persian texts. After collecting data, the type of modal verbs in the data was determined and then the semantic mapping of each verb was specified on the conceptual space. The results showed that Nauze framework is not suitable for covering the meaning of Zoroastian Middle Persian modal verbs. So, the probability axis was added on the vertical axis of the conceptual space. Also, this research showed that the Middle Persian data contradicts the typology that Nauze had presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Целью исследования представляется изучение функционального значения и лексико-семантических характеристик рекуррентных модальных глаголов английского языка must/have to/should/ought to в медиадискурсе. Научная новизна исследования обусловлена обращением к изучению манипулятивного потенциала и разного вида модальности, транслируемой рассматриваемыми глаголами в ирландских газетных изданиях. В результате исследования определено, что дискурсивное медиапространство обладает высоким уровнем имплицитности, экспрессивности и оценочности, в котором особое место отводится выражению модальности как средству манипуляции посткоммуникативным поведением адресата, а представленные модальные глаголы взаимозаменяемы в зависимости от прагматических интенций авторов газетных сообщений.

In this study, the use of epistemic modality in the category of modal verbs was comparatively examined in the results and conclusions sections of journal articles written in the discipline of Humanities & Social Sciences. For this purpose, the Corpus of Journal Articles (CJA) 2014, which is a collection of 760 articles from high-impact journals in 38 disciplines, was used. The articles written in the discipline of Humanities & Social Sciences have further been divided into three sub-corpora: Research articles, Review articles and Theoretical articles. The CJA 2014 corpus consists of 6,015,063 words in total. The aim of the study was to explore professional academic writers’ versatility and overall rhetorical awareness with regards to the use of epistemic modal verbs for academic argumentation in the three sub-corpora. In line with this aim, this study investigated in quantitative terms the frequency analysis of the modal verbs “could, may, might, should, will, would, couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t” for the above-stated three sub-corpora in the Humanities & Social Sciences discipline. Log-likelihood tests were also performed to determine any significant differences among the three sub-corpora. Findings of the study indicated that the most frequently used modal verbs in the results and conclusions section of the Research Articles sub-corpus are “may, would, could”, respectively; while the most frequently used modal verbs in the Theoretical sub-corpus are “will, would, may”, respectively. Lastly, the most frequently used modal verbs in the Review Articles sub-corpus are “may, will, would”. Qualitative examples from the corpora were also provided in the manuscript. This study is expected to have important implications for academic writing in English for different research disciplines and different types of articles.

Concept‐based language instruction (C‐BLI) is a pedagogy guided by sociocultural theory, which has been shown to be effective in facilitating second language learning. Typical activities include materialization by using a schema for a complete orienting basis of an action (SCOBA) and languaging, through which learners' internalization of scientific knowledge can be observed. However, previous studies have mainly used languaging as an assessment tool to examine the outcome of the internalization of concepts. Few studies have integrated SCOBAs (visual) and languaging (oral or written) in their investigation of the internalization process. This 5‐week study involved 53 Chinese English‐as‐a‐foreign‐language learners in a university who were all taught with the C‐BLI approach to learn English modal verbs. Among them, there were 26 lower proficiency students and 27 higher proficiency students. Visual, oral, and written data were collected to examine the participants' internalization of the modal verb concepts. All 53 learners participated in SCOBA drawing and written‐languaging tasks. Twelve students (6 per group) volunteered to participate in oral languaging. The results showed that in the SCOBA drawing activity, higher level learners produced more abstract, systematic, and imitated visualizations of the concepts, while lower level learners produced more concrete, disconnected, and emulated visualizations. With regard to oral languaging, both groups largely abandoned their previously learned "rule of thumb" after the C‐BLI intervention, and there were no obvious differences in oral‐languaging performance between the two groups, except that the higher group produced more languaging units. Finally, we also found that the changes between pre‐ and post‐written‐languaging tasks for lower level students were more obvious, especially in the appropriation of SCOBAs in written languaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review paper focuses on modality in Croatian, with a special emphasis on Croatian modal verbs, and covers various recent topics that occupy an important place in modality research. The paper presents different approaches to modality in Croatian literature, as well as some of the most important questions in modality research and their significance for the Croatian language. The topics covered in the paper include the main semantic characteristics of modal verbs, such as modal force and flavour, syntax of modal verbs, and layered modal structures. Finally, the paper concludes with reflections on possible future research topics in the field of modality in Croatian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender is a social construction that determines how we behave and, consequently, how we communicate. Even though scientific writing is characterized by its objectivity, it is undeniable that authors use some strategies, consciously or unconsciously, that express their attitude towards their texts. Such strategies include, among others, the use of modal verbs. This paper analyses their use, modality and meaning in eighteenth-century English scientific writing and establishes a comparison between male and female philosophy texts to discover to what extent women contribute to or react against the canon. The data for this small-scale study are taken from the Coruña Corpus of English Scientific Writing, in particular, from the Corpus of English Philosophy Texts. Quantitative and qualitative techniques have been considered for the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehending English verb tenses (EVT) and modal verbs (MV) is crucial for L2 academic writing. This study aims to analyse EVT and MV occurrences from a significant corpus, The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The field of study's primary focus comprises social and humanities disciplines, primarily language, literature, and education. This study also explores how EVT and MV are generated from the corpora presented inside and outside Coxhead's Academic Word List (AWL). Corpus linguistics was employed as the methodology of this study. COCA data were retrieved following the determined academic texts. The academic text results were annotated using CLAWS Free Tagger. Further, the annotated data were inputted into the AntConc software. C7 tagsets were entered alternately to make the desired tenses accessible from the corpus. The findings revealed that each discipline comprised the base form of the lexical verb, past tense of the lexical verb, -ing participle of the lexical verb, infinitive, past participle of the lexical verb, -s form of the lexical verb, and modal verb. However, the frequencies of EVT and MV were different in each discipline. When compared against Coxhread's AWL, some of the EVT came from the most frequent of 1 sublist to the least frequent of 10 sublists. Meanwhile, EVT outside the existing AWL could be the new academic word list for each discipline. Furthermore, theoretical and practical implications are further elaborated in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents and discusses a mixed-method study whose aim is to find out how Harrods and Liberty, two luxury department stores in London (the United Kingdom) that are referred to as British cultural icons (visitbritain.com 2023), use modality that is expressed by modal verbs (e.g., can) in their discourse on sustainability. Methodologically, the study is based upon the literature (Aiezza 2015; Bu et al. 2020; Garzone & Catenaccio 2022; Kranich & Bicsar 2012), which argues that modal verbs play a number of important pragmatic roles in corporate discourse. Following the literature, it is hypothesised in the study that modal verbs in sustainability discourses by Harrods and Liberty are employed in a pragmatically similar manner. In order to verify the hypothesis, a corpus of Harrods' and Liberty's sustainability discourses is collected and analysed quantitatively in the computer program AntConc (Anthony 2022) to compute the frequency of the occurrence of modal verbs. Thereafter, the most frequent modal verbs in the corpus are examined qualitatively to establish their pragmatic roles in Harrods' and Liberty's sustainability discourses. The findings indicate that these discourses make use of the modal verbs will and can as boosters that contribute to a positive corporate image-building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the problem of modal verbs in Spanish from the perspective of Langacker's cognitive grammar. Langacker defines modal verbs as grounding elements that can express implicit meanings and thus increase the degree of subjectivity of the utterance. Unlike English modal verbs, which are completely unanchored and fully grammaticalized, Spanish modal verbs exhibit verb inflection. The aim of this article is to compare the construals with and without a modal verb and to point out the differences between the positions of conceptualizers (speaker and addressee). For these purposes several graphical representations are proposed throughout the article. As the proposed schemes show, the position of conceptualizers plays a key role in the conception of any construal. It is concluded that a construal with a modal verb has a more subjectively anchored interaction between the two conceptualizers and that the speaker is always a completely implicit part of the utterance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cuadernos de Filología Italiana is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Prilozi Proucavanju Jezika is the property of Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article introduces and discusses a computer-assisted study that seeks to shed light on the frequency and use of the central modal verbs (can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would) in research article (further: RA) abstracts in applied linguistics published in the Inner and Outer Circles of English, respectively. The study is informed by the construal of the Circles of English that are comprised of the Inner Circle, where English is spoken as the mother tongue (for example, the United Kingdom), the Outer Circle, where it is used as a second language in the former British colonies (for instance, Hong Kong, Malaysia, etc.), and the Expanding Circle (e.g., Japan), where English is spoken and taught as a foreign language (Kachru 48). In the construal of the Circles of English, the Outer Circle is regarded as a heterogeneous sociolinguistic space with fluid boundaries (Higgins 615) that affects the frequency and use of the central modal verbs in a variety of textual genres (Lee and Collins 501). Against this background, the study aims at identifying and analysing the frequency of the central modal verbs in a corpus of RA abstracts in applied linguistics published by international peer reviewed journals associated with the Outer Circle (one journal published in Hong Kong and one in Malaysia, respectively) and the Inner Circle of English (one journal published in the United Kingdom). The results of the quantitative analysis of the corpus indicate that the most frequent modal verbs in the entire corpus are can and may, which function as hedging devices in the journals that are associated with the Outer and Inner Circles of English, respectively. These findings are discussed in the article through the prism of the construal of the Circles of English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the use of epistemic modality in the category of modal verbs was comparatively examined in the abstract and introduction sections of journal articles written in the discipline of Humanities & Social Sciences. For this purpose, the Corpus of Journal Articles (CJA) 2014, which is a collection of 760 articles from high-impact journals in 38 disciplines, was used. The Humanities & Social Sciences, within this Corpus, consists of 23 sub-disciplines. The articles written in the discipline of Humanities & Social Sciences have further been divided into three sub-corpora: Research articles, Review articles and Theoretical articles. The CJA 2014 corpus consists of 6,015,063 words in total. This study investigated in quantitative terms the frequency analysis of the modal verbs “could, may, might, should, will, would, couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t” for the above-stated three sub-corpora in the Humanities & Social Sciences discipline. Log-likelihood tests were performed to determine any significant differences among the three sub-corpora. Findings of the study indicated that the most frequently used modal verbs in both the abstract and introduction sections of the Research Articles sub-corpus are “may, will, should, could”; while the most frequently used modal verbs in the Theoretical sub-corpus are “would, will, may, should”. Lastly, the most frequently used modal verbs in the Review Articles sub-corpus are “may, will, should”. Qualitative examples from the corpora were also provided in the manuscript. This study is expected to have important implications for academic writing in English for different research disciplines and different types of articles.

Sequences of two modal verbs in spoken English can represent use of a nonstandard syntactic feature (double modal) or a corrected utterance in which a speaker begins with one modal auxiliary, but switches to another (self-repair). This article presents the Double Modals and Self-Repairs (DMSR) database, a table of naturalistic double modals and self-repairs in videos from local government entities in North America, created from the Corpus of North American Spoken English (CoNASE). The paper describes the procedures used for the database’s creation, discusses potential uses, and presents an exploratory analysis in which a logistic regression classifier is trained with CoNASE data to distinguish authentic double modals from self-repair sequences on the basis of local discourse context. The analysis demonstrates how large corpora of speech can be used to investigate the links between syntactic and pragmatic phenomena and shows specifically that double modals are an interactive device, while two-modal sequences as self-repairs may be the result of high cognitive load. The paper concludes with a discussion of multimodal corpus creation from YouTube for the study of lexical, syntactic, and interactional phenomena in speech as well as for the analysis of complex, multilevel computer-mediated communication (CMC) phenomena.

This article offers an analysis of Moldovan complex predicates, focusing on the differences between structures with aspectuals and modals. It is shown that, under the influence of Russian, a minor pattern found in old Moldovan, whereby aspectuals and embedded infinitives instantiate a monoclausal construction, was generalized. As a consequence, pronominal clitics became free to raise to the matrix aspectual predicate, since they were no longer blocked by phasal (CP) barriers. Conversely, modal predicates, which select in both Russian and Moldovan full CP-complements, do not display clitic-climbing since clitics cannot skip over phasal boundaries. Following an overview of Romance and Slavic complex predicates, Moldovan complex predicates containing both aspectual and modal verbs are analysed. In this analysis infinitival complements and subjunctive complements, which show different syntactic behaviours, especially with respect to the phenomenon of clitic-climbing, will be treated separately. Finally, the special case of Moldovan within (Daco-)Romance is discussed, since Moldovan appears to be the only variety which has started to systematically display clitic-climbing out of subjunctive clauses introduced by să.

This study aims to examine how Chinese learners develop in their use and misuse of English modal verbs from Grade 7 to 9. Specifically, it examines form-function connections and explores the factors behind learners’ development. The main focus is on the modal verbs can, could, will, would, must, and should. The learner corpus consists of essay samples selected from the writings of 600 participants, stratified across three levels (Grade 7, 8, and 9). The developmental patterns of modal verbs are assessed in terms of completeness, robustness, and proximity to the target language. The analysis of misuse looks at semantic and pragmatic errors. The findings indicate that there are considerable variations in the form-function connections of the six modal verbs at the initial and subsequent stages. The influencing factors include L1 transfer, the influence of textbooks, L2 complexity, universal learning mechanisms, and teachers’ instructions.