Introduction

1 Modal verbs and why they have attracted a lot of attention

This volume applies different approaches to an area of English linguistics that is particularly challenging, that of the meaning of English modals. Our aim is to arrive at a better and richer understanding by combining insights from methods and theories among which there has as yet not been much interaction. In the course of doing so, we test their relative strengths and potential shortcomings, and show in what ways they complement each other and can shed new light on the topic at stake.

Modality, the linguistic expression of possibility and necessity, is a topic that has inspired a lot of research. This is hardly surprising for a lexical-grammatical area that pertains to an indispensable aspect of human cognition. As Narrog (2012: 1) puts it, “[h]uman beings constantly imagine things that are not real but still possible or even contrary to facts. They continually evaluate the reality status of states-of-affairs, or urge or allow interlocutors to bring about states-of-affairs in reality.” Take any moderate-sized stretch of spoken or written text and you will find that as people, we cannot help but communicate our natural interest in what is possible and what is necessary. A common way of expressing this pervasive concern is by means of modal verbs. To illustrate this, we provide in (1a-d) just some of the sentences with modal verbs that appeared on the website of a conference on English linguistics:1

In (1a-b), the modal verb may expresses shades of possibility; in (1c-d), the modal verb should expresses kinds of necessity. ‘Modality’ is an important, possibly universal, functional concept; it has been defined not only in terms of forms that represent situations as possible or necessary, but also, in more general terms, as forms that represent a situation as less than factual. Following Van der Auwera and Plungian (1998), we subscribe to the former, more restrictive approach. This implies that volition, which does not enter, in a straightforward way, into the possibility-necessity paradigm, will not be in the foreground in the chapters of this book. In any case, given the ubiquity of modal verbs in discourse, there is little wonder that they have been of prominent interest in linguistic research. Two more specific reasons can explain why linguists have been fascinated by them.

A first main reason for linguists’ attention to modal verbs is their semantic versatility. In (1a) and (1c), the modal verbs may and should both express epistemic modality, reflecting on the speaker’s perceived likelihood of the situation being the case (moderately likely in the case of may and very likely in the case of should), based on some knowledge of reality the speaker has.2 In (1b) and (1d), the same two modals express root, or non-epistemic, modality: the utterer is not concerned here with any degree of certainty as to the truth of the non-modalized proposition, but more directly with factors that impact on the actualization of the situation expressed. The existence of permission makes the situation of beginning a presentation possible in (1b); the existence of a formal requirement makes it necessary for participants’ abstracts not to exceed a word limit in (1d). Again, possibility and necessity are involved, but it should be clear that root interpretations of these two modals differ substantially from the same two modals’ epistemic readings. How to deal insightfully with the availability of these two radically different semantic notions of modal verbs has, understandably, been a major analytical challenge. There is some controversy, for example, as to how distinct these notions are. In the same recipe from which (1c) was drawn, we find this example:

Is this use of should epistemic (the writer considering it quite likely that the dough will become elastic when kneading it), non-epistemic (the writer pointing out that it is important for the dough to become elastic), or some kind of mixture? While the exact interpretation may not matter a great deal in this specific context, the question is whether such an example suggests that epistemic and root (or non-epistemic) meanings can coexist. Coates (1983: 17) has discussed such cases under the heading of ‘merger’. The context here simply does not allow us to decide with absolute certainty which of the two interpretations, which really are conceptually different, was intended by the writer. (In this case, it was probably the non-epistemic reading, as recipes are essentially sets of instructions.) We shall have more to say about the notion of merger in Chapter 1.

A second important reason for the popularity of modal verbs in linguistic research is that for any single intended modal meaning, broadly defined (e.g., epistemic possibility; non-epistemic necessity), there are typically several modal verbs that can be used, with often little discernible semantic difference. Thus, in the examples given above in (1a-d), we could substitute other modal verbs and thereby hardly change the meaning of the sentences:

The availability of multiple expressions for a single meaning raises familiar linguistic questions relating to variation and competition. In this respect, note that while the focus in this book is on modal verbs (sometimes just called ‘modals’) in the English language, there are various other formal realizations of modality. Consider the following sentence, in which the main clause, which does not have a finite verb, expresses non-epistemic necessity thanks to best (to):

For an overview of the kinds of markers that have been addressed under the heading of modality, see, for example, Portner (2009: 2–8). Modal adverbs and adjectives, specifically, have been studied by Hoye (1997), Simon-Vandenbergen and Aijmer (2007) and Van Linden (2012).

Modality, and modal verbs in particular, thus constitute the classic double problem of (i) single forms having multiple meanings and (ii) single meanings being expressible with multiple forms. This, and their centrality in thought and language, make them an ideal testing ground for fundamental semasiological and onomasiological research into variation in meaning and form. Accordingly, modality has been studied within various theoretical models, both linguistic and philosophical in nature, and from various research perspectives. In linguistics, modality has been dealt with from a formal semantic approach (e.g. Kratzer 2012, Portner 2009, 2018), within Relevance Theory (e.g. Papafragou 2000), and within cognitive linguistics and Construction Grammar (e.g. Talmy 1988, Sweetser 1990, Langacker 2003, Mortelmans 2007, Boogaart 2009, Boogaart and Fortuin 2016). Different research practices and concerns can be distinguished as well. For instance, the diachrony of...