2. Shade of meanings (nuances) expressed by the modals

The modals have a great variety of communicative functions, which sometimes appear unrelated. But broadly they can all be related to a scale ranging from possibility (can) to necessity (must). There is a clear parallel between the major distinctions made in both epistemic and root modality both in English and Ukrainian. Within this scale there are two divisions of what is necessary and what is possible:

1. one concerned with possibility and necessity in terms of freedom to act (including ability, permission and duty: to say that somebody is obliged or that something is permitted or forbidden),

2. the other concerned with the theoretical possibility of propositions being true or not true (including likelihood and certainty): to say, for instance, that a situation is probable, possible or impossible.

Degree of certainty	Obligation and freedom to act
Complete certainty (positive or negative) I’ll be away tomorrow. Things will be alright. There’s the phone. - That’ll be Tony. It won’t rain tonight. You must be tired. That can’t be John – he’s in Dublin.	Strong obligation Students must register in the tutorial office in the first week of term. All sale staff will arrive for work by 8.40 a.m. Need I get a visa for Hungary?
Probability / possibility She should / ought to be here soon. It shouldn’t / oughtn’t to be difficult to get there. We may be buying a new house. The water may not be warm enough to swim.	Prohibition Students must not use the staff car park. Books may not be taken from the library. You can’t come in here.
Weak probability I might see you again – who knows? Things might not be as bad as they seem. We could all be millionaires one day.	Weak obligation; recommendation You should try to work harder. She really ought to wash her hair. That child had better start saying thank-you for things. What shall we do?
Theoretical or habitual possibility How many people can get into a telephone box? New England can be very warm in September. Small children may have difficulties in understanding abstract ideas.	Willingness, volunteering, resolving, insisting, offering I’ll pay for the drinks. I’ll definitely work harder next term. She will keep interrupting people. Shall I give you a hand?
Conditional certainty or possibility If we had enough time, things would be easy. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t have to. If Peter came we could all go home. I couldn’t do anything without your help. If you stop criticising I might get some work done.	Permission / absence of obligation Can I borrow your key? Do you think I might take a break now? May we use the phone? You needn’t work this Saturday.
	Ability Note that the obligation, permission, etc are usually seen from the speaker’s point of view in statements and the hearer’s in questions. Compare: You must go and see Ann. (I think it is necessary.) Must you go and see Ann? (Do you think it is necessary?) You can borrow my car. (I give permission.) Can I borrow your car? (Will you give permission?)

In fact, many apparently unrelated communicative uses of modals can all be placed in a few broad categories. These categories are not mutually exclusive, and individual usages frequently combine several meanings.

For example CAN: You can catch the train if you hurry (can be considered as opportunity, but also contains an element of ability). Compare:

1. Permission: ‘Can I call you later?’ (Request); We can’t smoke in the theatre. You can say that again (agreement); You can forget about it (order/advice); This is awful work – you can do it again. (Order); Can I help you? (offer). Can I have another cookie? – No, but you can have an apple.

2. Ability: Can she speak Turkish? I can see my aunt over there, but I can’t see if she’s alone. Can you help me? (Request); The sea can be very rough at times. It can’t be helped. (Resignation). She’s in the wheelchair. How can she dance? You can’t take your eyes off her. -My son can play the piano. -But my daughter is only four and she can ride a bike. -Hey, that’s nothing. My dog can count to three.

3. Opportunity: You can catch the 6.10 train if you hurry. I can telephone tomorrow if you like. (offer); Come early and we can have a picnic. (suggestion); She can practice her Arabic with Abdullah next week.

4. Theoretical possibility: Can there be life on Mars? You can’t really mean that! (Disbelief); ‘Can that possibly be Tom on the phone?’ ‘It can hardly be Tom – he has just left.’ Grammar can be fun!

With action verbs, can’t is sometimes ambiguous: They can’t catch the 6.10 train could mean either that it’s too late (inability) or that permission has been refused. In practice, the context usually makes the meaning clear.

Can means complete freedom and possibility, with permission and ability as variants of this. Can in general applies to now: permission, opportunity, etc may exist now for the future. For past or future ability that doesn’t exist now, we use be able to: She’ll be able to scuba-dive when she’s finished the course. The new student is able to park a car, but she’s not able to drive in traffic yet. They’re able to get tickets for Friday’s dance performance, but they weren’t able to get front-row tickets.

COULD and was/ were able are used to describe a general permission or ability in the past but not on a specific occasion: Mary could/ was able to drive a car with special hand control. I could run much faster when I was younger.

Another meaning of was/ were able is a special achievement or a single event in the past:

In 1979, they were able to win second prize in a dance competition.

However, can is used ten times more often than be able to. There is also a very important difference in meaning, particularly in the past tense. Compare: We could repair the old car (it is potential that is implied). We were able to repair the old car (the implication is that the actual event took place).

MAY means permission and theoretical possibility – like can (they are interchangeable), but it does not mean ability, and the possibility is specific (not general) likelihood. May suggests some degree of actual probability. Contrast: We can have a picnic – but we may not (meaning ‘We have the opportunity but probably won’t take advantage of it’). The sea can be rough. (And it sometimes is). The sea may be tough with all this wind. (Now or later).

Permission: Only members may buy drinks in the bar. (club rule); Chairs may not be removed from the bar. That doesn’t suit you, if I may say so. (polite formula).

Likelihood:. She hasn’t called – she may not know the number. It may well rain. (May well – be very likely to). Our flight may be delayed. They may come later or they may not (may is interpreted as being equivalent to may not, indicating that an event is judged to have an equal possibility of occurring or not)

Concession: Oh well, you may be right. You may be old – but that doesn’t excuse you. You may have good reasons, but that doesn’t make it legal. A speaker wishes to acknowledge the possibility of some event or state of affairs being the case, but not necessarily relevant for the current discussion. This type of ‘possibility’ is interpreted as a concession, and is often followed by but-clause. It can usually be paraphrased by a clause beginning with although: He may be old, but he’s still fit (= although he’s old, he’s still fit).

MIGHT is a more tentative alternative to may, and there is no great difference in many contexts. Might-questions (like may-questions) are mainly about permission, and very rarely about likelihood. To give or refuse permission tentatively might be confusing or impolite, so a probable answer to ‘Might I borrow your car?’ is ‘Yes, you may/can.’ Or ‘No, you may not/ can’t’. But not ‘You might/ mightn’t.’ Negative mightn’t (like may not) leaves the possibility open (unlike can’t or couldn’t, which are deductions of impossibility: She might not know – but of course she might know.)

Permission: I don’t like that, if I might give an opinion. Might I remind you of your promise? You might type it for me, please (order/request).

Likelihood: She hasn’t called – she might be ill. She might not know your number. Вона не зателефонувала – вона може бути хворою/ хворіти. Вона може не знати твого номеру. There might be life on some planets. Життя може існувати на інших планетах. It might be raining tomorrow. I might be wrong. (concession). Я можу помилятися. He’s really busy now but he might join us later.

Hypothesis When a possibility is marked as being remote, might can also receive hypothetical interpretation: It’s warm for April – it might be summer. I might as well be dead for all your care. (Я б вже помер, якби не твоя турбота). That might happen, but we’re not going to worry about it. I might be mistaken, but I doubt it. His project is huge, but he might finish it one of these days. Yes, and pigs might fly!

SHALL is more limited in meaning than the other modals. However, a sense of obligation underlines some usages, while its strong sense of future is a form of prediction. In fact, it is alone among the modals in having exclusively future reference.

Obligation. With first person (I/we), shall is a sort of self-imposed obligation, and thus often a promise or threat. This explains why shall is here interchangeable with will (intention). We shall come about 3 (promise). I shall kill him for this. (promise). These regulations shall take effect immediately. (order). Nobody shall leave the room during the exam. (order). Shall we go to the cinema? (suggestion). What ever shall we do? (request for advice). Shall they send you a cheque? (request for instructions).

SHALL and WILL have distinct meanings, but some of them sometimes overlap, as with I/we statements combining promise (shall) and intention (will). With I/we questions used as suggestions or as requests for advice, only shall is possible (Shall I print the report for you?). In most other cases will is usable. Only will (never shall) carries meanings of general deduction, habit, or habit-power. That will be Susan ringing now. If you eat so much, of course you will be fat. On holiday, she will often swim before breakfast. This sack will hold 25 kilos of potatoes. This key won’t fit.

Prediction /‘pure future’ (I/WE only): I shan’t get the results until Thursday. I shall be 23 next month. Shall we ever discover the truth of this? This time next week I shall be sunbathing in Florida.

WOULD can replace will in all its meaning in the reported speech. They said they would be here by twelve o’clock. They were worried, because they wouldn’t know the results until the following Friday. The type of structures, beginning with Would you…, has become almost formulaic in contemporary English for expressing requests and offers.

Volition (willingness): She hoped they would help her if she called them. (The root meaning of willingness). If there was strong insistence in the past we infer that the action probably did happen: You would marry him. Where would implies more general past volition, there is often an overlap with past habitual behaviour: Susan would always help. (She regularly did). When she was young, Anne would suck her thumb. Every time I tried to talk to him, he would be too busy.

Prediction: You would enjoy the vacation (if you took one). They would do much better (if they studied more). The event has little likelihood of happening soon.

SHOULD is sometimes a weaker shall. Compare: Nobody shall leave the room during the exam (prohibition). Nobody should leave… (prohibition weakened to advice). I shall arrive at 5 pm. (nearly certain prediction). I should arrive ... (less certain assumption).

Obligation: the core concept in the use of should has to do with ‘requirements’. These are socially-oriented (root) requirements, typically expressed in terms of appropriate behaviour. You should brush your teeth twice a day. We should call them before we go there. There is a weaker sense of obligation than is found with must. Why-question is used to question or deny the relevance of a social requirement. Why should I go there when I’m quite happy here? Why should I do what everyone else does?

Possibility: He’s the best runner, so he should win the race. It should be clear to everyone that he’s a fake. The journey should take two or three days. Your laundry should be ready for pick-up tomorrow. The examples express the speaker’s reasonable assumptions about what is probable (epistemic).

SHOULD could be replaced by OUGHT TO, which is found more frequently in speech than in writing. Ought to is most commonly found with socially-oriented meaning, and typically receives stress whereas should mostly unstressed: He ought to get a job instead of just sitting around. She doesn’t care about money. Well she ought to!

MUST. The basic meaning of must is necessity now or in the future. This covers both obligation/duty – a sort of moral (root) necessity and logical (epistemic) necessity - the unavoidable deduction that something must necessarily be so.

Obligation: You must wear a seat belt when driving. Dogs must be carried (notice on escalator). I must write to my mother tonight. People must not ill-treat children (prohibition). You must concentrate at one thing at a time. You must come round for drinks (casual invitation).

Deduction (conclusion): Look at that house! Those people must have a lot of money. It must be hot there with no air-conditioning. There must be some job I could do. You must be tired after your journey. She’s terribly fat – she must eat too much. The parcel must surely arrive soon. Mary must have a problem – she keeps crying. There’s the doorbell. It must be Roger.

If A is bigger than B, and B is bigger than C, then A must be bigger than C. I’m in love. That must be nice, dear.

Both must and have to can be used to talk about obligation. Must involves the speaker’s authority. The speaker is imposing an obligation possibly on himself.

HAVE TO is used mostly to talk about obligation that come from outside – for instance, from laws, regulations, agreements and other people’s orders. Compare: I must stop smoking (I want to). I have to stop smoking. (Doctor’s orders.) This is a terrible party. We really must go home. This is a lovely party, but we have to go home because of the baby-sitter. I’ve got bad toothache. I must make an appointment with the dentist. I can’t come to work tomorrow morning because I’ve to see the dentist at 10 o’clock. You really must go to church next Sunday – you haven’t been for ages. Catholics have to go to church on Sundays. (Their religion tells them to.) Must you wear dirty old jeans all the time? (Is it personally important to you?) Do you have to wear a tie at work?

But in questions and negatives we use can instead of must. There’s somebody at the door. Who can it be? It can’t be the postman at the door. It’s only seven o’clock.

Semi-modals DARE/NEED/USED TO

These three verbs are partly like modals and partly like ordinary lexical (main) verbs, because they sometimes use question-inversion and not-negation and they sometimes use DO. Tag questions are usually with DO. As modals, dare and need are mainly used with questions and negatives only; they have no –s inflection for third person singular, and they are followed by bare infinitive. As regular verbs they take –s inflection, and regular need always takes to-infinitive.

Modal DARE mainly occurs in:

1. A few set expressions: I daresay everything will be alright (one word, 1^st person, singular only). I daresay roughly means ‘I expect’ or ‘probably’. How dare you speak to me like that! (Expresses annoyance at something already done). Don’t you dare do that again! (Expresses annoyance at a proposed action and is a kind of prohibition).

2. Negative daren’t is used for past and present: She daren’t tell him. You wouldn’t dare tell him, would you? They didn’t dare/ dared not complain.

3. Non-assertive modal dare is also common in subordinate clauses after expressions of doubt, uncertainty. I wonder if I dare go. I don’t know how he dares (to) show his face here.

NEED. The basic meaning of need is necessity now and in the future.

1. Regular verb: He doesn’t need to worry – he was born lucky. We don’t need to book in advance, do we? Do you need to see a doctor? We need to go and book seats. You need to eat more – you’re so thin. You need to be thinking about your career.

2. Modal need is non-assertive, occurring mainly in negative to express the absence of necessity, and in questions, where it hopes for the answer NO. You needn’t write, but please phone. He needn’t do anything, need he? You needn’t be so rude (complaint). Need you go so soon? You’ve just come. Need you see the doctor again? (Surely not!). I need hardly say how delighted I am. You needn’t work tomorrow. Look at these tracks. That must be a dog. It needn’t be – it could be a fox.

USED TO has past simple only, and means past habits and states, usually no longer existing. Compare WOULD for past habit. My daily routine is a bit different now that I’m working freelance. But when I was working regularly at the newspaper, I would start the day by getting up at about half past seven. I used to be a vegetarian in England, but it’s not quite so easy here in Hungary. Notice that only used to (not would) is possible with reference to a past state: She used be slim. I used to live in Brighton. You used to know her well, didn’t you? They often used to swim before breakfast, didn’t they? I used not to/ I didn’t used to enjoy pop music, but now I do. Did/Didn’t you use to play tennis at school? Have you ever heard from that Scottish boy you used to go out with?

Practice # 4

NON-FINITE FORMS OF VERBS AND THEIR PECULARIATIES (VERBALS)