Function of Modal Auxiliaries

Function of Modal Auxiliaries:

A modal verb (also modal, modal auxiliary verb, modal auxiliary) is a type of auxiliary verb that is used to indicate modality. The use of auxiliary verbs to express modality is a characteristic of Germanic languages.

Modal auxiliary verbs give more information about the function of the main verb that follows it. Although having a great variety of communicative functions, these functions can all be related to a scale ranging from possibility “can” to necessity “must”). Within this scale there are two functional divisions:one concerned with possibility and necessity in terms of freedom to act (including ability, permission and duty), and the other ("shall" not included) concerns itself with the theoretical possibility of propositions being true or not true, including likelihood and certainty.

Most modal auxiliary verbs have two distinct interpretations, epistemic (expressing how certain factual status of the embedded proposition is) and deontic (involving notions of permission and obligation). The following sentences illustrate the two uses of must: epistemic: You must be starving. (= "It is necessarily the case that you are starving.") deontic: You must leave now. (= "You are required to leave now.") ambiguous: You must speak Spanish.  epistemic = "It is surely the case that you speak Spanish (e.g., after having lived in Spain for ten years)." deontic = "It is a requirement that you speak Spanish (e.g., if you want to get a job in Spain)."

Epistemic modals can be analyzed as raising verbs, while deontic modals can be analyzed as control verbs.

Another form of modal auxiliary is the verb indicating ability: "can" in English, "können" in German, and "possum" in Latin. For example, "I can say that in English," "Ich kann das auf Deutsch sagen," and "Illud Latine dicere possum."

Sometimes, the use of the modal auxiliary verbs varies in positive and negative statements. For example, in English, we have the sentence pair, "You may do that," and "You may not do that." However, in German, these ideas are expressed as "Sie dürfen das tun," but "Sie müssen das nicht tun." The latter looks as if it would translate into English as "You must not do that," but it is more typically translated as "You may not do that."

Characteristics of Modals:

"A modal auxiliary has the following characteristics:

• Takes negation directly (can’t, mustn’t).
• Takes inversion without DO (can I? must I?).
• ‘Code’ (John can swim and so can Bill).
• Emphasis (Ann COULD solve the problem).
• No -s form for third-person singular (*cans, *musts).
• No non-finite forms (*to can, *musting)
• No co-occurrence (*may will)

The first four of these are what Huddleston (1976: 333) calls the NICE properties (Negation, Inversion, Code, Emphasis) and they very clearly draw a dividing line between auxiliaries and main verbs, a line which would be far from clear if we tried to use semantic characteristics. The last three, which are specifically ‘modal’ criteria, are needed to exclude the auxiliaries BE, HAVE, and DO.
(Jennifer Coates, The Semantics of the Modal Auxiliaries. Routledge, 1983)

“As early as Old English, a group of verbs signaling modal characteristics of action share morphosyntactic and semantic features which later result in the formation of the category of modal auxiliaries. . . .”

 “The most important syntactic developments which distinguish modals from other verbs are the following: (1) they lost their non-finite forms and their ability to take non-verbal objects; (2) the preterite forms came to be used in the present, future or timeless contexts; (3) they did not develop the to- link with an infinitive (in the Southern standard); (4) they became more and more uncommon in contexts where they were not followed by an infinitive.”

Because modal verbs are specialized function words, the formal realization of tense may not always correspond with time reference. We frequently use all of these verbs to discuss future or potential events, and so these verbs may not intuitively feel like normal present or past tense verbs. But there are important ways in which the tense of these modals remains relevant.