Modal Verbs Usage in Modern English Fiction free essay sample

Some features of mood, such as hypothetical permission, are expressed in words that are calledmodals(M). The modals are listed here: will all may must can Historically, English modals came from a special class of verbs in Ger- manic, the ancestor of English and the other Germanic languages. Modals have always differed from ordinary verbs, to the point where they now belong to a special category of their own. Modals and verbs differ in the range of forms that Sentence: 4. 24: Fritz may get a promotion. they exhibit. English verbs appear in a number of distinct forms, whereas modals have a single, invariant form. For instance, modals never end in-s,even in sentences with third-person singular subjects. To include the modal in our grammar, we simply expand the rule for auxil- iary to account for tense markers (past and present) and modals, as shown: Aux? tense (M) M? will shall can may must With this modification to our rules, we can describe sentences such as 24: 24. Fritz may get a promotion. Analysis of this sentence is shown in the following tree diagram on the next page. A question that often arises in the analysis of expanded verb phrases is why the tense marker is placed in front of the verb rather than after. The past parti- ciple suffix -ed/-en, after all, comes at the end of a verb, not at the beginning. The answer is that there is no simple way to capture schematically the rela- tions among tense, modals, and verbs. Whenever a verb has a modal, the modal is tensed, not the verb. If our description put tense after the verb, we would solve nothing—we would still have the question of how tense jumps over the verb and attaches to the modal. The placement of tense at the head of the VP is a matter of convention; placing it elsewhere in the VP would not en- hance the description. What we learn here is that structural analyses are at best an approximate de- scription of the language we actually use. If we wanted to account for the fact that the past participle appears at the end of verbs, we would have to develop a special rule for attachment, which indeed is what linguists have done. Nevertheless, structural analyses reveal much about the nature of grammatical constructions. Tense and Its Complexities When we examine tense closely, it becomes apparent that the relation between tense and verbs is not a simple one. Tense does not merely indicate when an ac- tion took place, as evidenced in sentences such asMacarena could visit her sick friend in the morning. The verbvisitis not tensed in this sentence; instead, the tense marker is attached to the modal. But although the modal is in the past tense, the action is to occur in the future. Many students have a hard time grasp- ing this concept. Although modals are function words, they nevertheless have a semantic content. Canandmay,for example, do not mean the same thing. Canindicates ability, whereasmayindicates permission as well as a conditional future. With regard to requesting permission, popular usage has largely eliminatedmayand replaced it withcan. If a student wants permission to use the rest room, he or she invariably will ask,Can I use the rest roomrather thanMay I use the rest room. In a department store, clerks will ask,Can I help you,notMay I help you. Formal standard usage, however, continues to differentiate between these words, which makes helping students understand the difference a worthwhile goal. Becausemaycan signify two different meanings, it can lead to ambiguity. Consider the following sentences: 25. Fritz can play the piano. 26. Fritz may play the piano. Sentence 25 signifies Fritz’s ability to play; sentence 26 can be understood as giving Fritz permission to play, or it can be understood as a comment about Fritz’s playing the piano at some time in the future. The condition is uncertain. We easily can imagine this future conditional if we think of Fritz being at a party. Sentence 27 offers another example ofmayas a future conditional: 27. Buggsy may take a trip to Las Vegas next week. It is worth noting that the past tense form ofmayismight. These words differ in thatmightsignifies a more uncertain or doubtful future than doesmay. Thus, the likelihood of Buggsy taking a trip is more uncertain in sentence 28 than it is in sentence 27: 28. Buggsy might take a trip to Las Vegas next week. Like many other usage distinctions, this one seems to be disappearing. Even speakers and writers of formal Standard English rarely differentiate the two forms. However, anyone interested in using language as precisely as possible will, indeed, differentiate them. The difference betweenwillandshallis far more complicated, and it, too, has essentially disappeared in American usage. The traditional distinction maintains thatshallis used to indicate the simple future in the first person, as in I shall go to the movies. Shallcannot be used in the second and third persons, however, but instead must be replaced bywill,as inThey will end the strike soon. The use ofwillin the first person does not express simple future but in- stead signifies a promised action, as inI will give you the loan. The use ofshall in the second and third persons signifies a command, as inYou shall stop seeing that horrible woman immediately. Currently, there are only two instances of widespread use ofshallin American English, even among Standard speakers: in legal documents and in questions, as in Shall we go now?