Mood and Modality Rajat Kumar Mohanty rkm[AT]cse[DOT]iitb[DOT]ac[DOT]in Centre for Indian Language Technology Department of Computer Science and Engineering Indian Institute of Technology Bombay Mumbai, India

Monday, May 09, 2005CFILT Outline Propositional Modality –Epistemic –Evidential Event Modality –Deontic –Dynamic

Monday, May 09, 2005CFILT Modality Modality differs from tense and aspect in that it does not refer directly to any characteristic of the events, but simply to the status of the proposition. Example: –John is at home. –John may/must be at home now. –John may/must come in now. –John can solve this problem. English uses a modal verbs to distinguish a judgement about a proposition from a categorical statement.

Monday, May 09, 2005CFILT Modality Propositional Modality (concerned with the speaker’s judgement of the proposition) –John may be at home now. (it is possible that…) –John must be at home now. (it is necessary that…) Event Modality (concerned with the speaker’s attitude towards a potential future event) –John may come in now. (it is possible for John to come in now…) –John must come in now. (it is necessary for John to come in now…)

Monday, May 09, 2005CFILT Propositional Modality Epistemic –The speaker expresses his judgment about the factual status. John must be in the office. (The speaker makes a firm judgement, on the basis of evidence, e.g., that the office lights are on; that he is not at home, etc) Evidential –The speaker indicates the evidence they have for its factual status. He is said to be extremely rich. (reported) He claims to have shot down a mosquito. (reported)

Monday, May 09, 2005CFILT Epistemic Modality The three types of epistemic modality: –Speculative John may be in the office (uncertainty/a possible conclusion) (The speaker is uncertain whether John is in his office) –Deductive John must be in the office (the only possible conclusion) (The speaker makes a firm judgement, on the basis of evidence, e.g., that the office lights are on; that he is not at home, etc) –Assumptive John will be in the office (a reasonable conclusion) (The judgement is based on what is generally known about John, e.g., that he always starts at eight, that he is a workholic, etc)

Monday, May 09, 2005CFILT Evidential Modality –Reported (e.g., He is said to be extremely rich. (reported) –Sensory ‘Meanings’ of the ‘evidentials’ (Willet, 1988) –Direct Evidence Visual Auditory Sensory –Indirect Evidence Reported –Second-hand –Third-hand –From Folklore Inferring –From results –From reasoning

Monday, May 09, 2005CFILT Reported Evidence Second-hand Evidence: The speaker claims to have heard of the situation described from someone who was a direct witness. Third-hand Evidence: The speaker claims to have heard of the situation described, but not from a direct witness. Evidence from folklore: The speaker claims that the situation described is part of established oral story.

Monday, May 09, 2005CFILT Event Modality Deontic –The conditioning factors are external. It relates to obligation or permission emanating from an external source. John may come in now. (permission) John must come in now. (obligation) Dynamic –The conditioning factors are internal. It relates to ability or willingness, which comes from the individual concern. John can speak Hindi. (ability) John will do it for you. (willingness)

Monday, May 09, 2005CFILT Deontic Modality The most common types of Deontic modality are the ‘directives’, where we try to get others to do things. –Permissive (may) (e.g, You may go now) –Obligative (must) (e.g., You must go now) MAY and MUST also express epistemic modality.

Monday, May 09, 2005CFILT Dynamic Modality There appear to be two types of dynamic modality, expressing ability and willingness. –Abilitive (can) (e.g., He can run five miles a minutes.) –Volitive (will) (e.g., Why don’t you go and see if John will let you stay?) CAN is used both for epistemic modality (only when negated) and for deontic modality.

Monday, May 09, 2005CFILT Modal Verbs Modals (English) –will, shall, may, can, must, would, should, might, could –Ought (to), need (to), dare (to) Modal verbs are used in all four types of modality –Epistemic –Evidential –Deontic –Dynamic

Monday, May 09, 2005CFILT Properties of English Modals WILL and SHALL are often used to refer to future time The properties of Modal verbs share with other auxiliary verbs BE and HAVE In addition to that, they have formal features of their own They do not co-occur e.g., *will can, *may shall, *must will, etc. They do not have –s forms for their third person singular e.g., *mays, *shalls, *musts, (wills, dares)

Monday, May 09, 2005CFILT Properties of English Modals They do not have non-finite forms. e.g., *to can, *to may, *to must Must has no past tense form, although the others do. e.g., could, should, would, might, etc. Only could is used to refer to past time in direct speech (though all may occur in reported speech) There are formal differences between the modal verbs, in their epistemic and deontic senses, in terms of negation and tense.

Monday, May 09, 2005CFILT Formal Differences The same modal verb may be used in English for both epistemic and deontic modality. Deontic MUST has negative mustn’t and needn’t, but epistemic MUST has no morphologically related negative. –John must / mustn’t come for the meeting. (deontic) –John must /*mustn’t be in his office. (epistemic) MAY and MUST followed by HAVE always epistemic. –John may/must have been in his office.

Monday, May 09, 2005CFILT Formal Differences MAY is replaceable by CAN only in deontic use –You may go now. (deontic) –You can go now. (deontic) –He may/*can be in his office. (epistemic) When MUST refers to the future, it is deontic. –John must come for the meeting. (deontic) –John must be in his office. (epistemic)

Monday, May 09, 2005CFILT Possibility and Necessity Why the same form is used in different types of modality? The explanation is in terms of possibility and necessity. The Epistemic Speculative and Deductive can be interpreted in terms of what is epistemically possible and what is epistemically necessary: –John may be in his office. (It is possible that…) –John must be in his office. (It is necessary that…)

Monday, May 09, 2005CFILT Possibility and Necessity The Deontic permissive and Obligative can be interpreted in terms of what is deontically possible and what is deontically necessary: –You may/can go now. (It is possible for you to…) –You must go now. (It is necessary for you to…)

Monday, May 09, 2005CFILT Sources and Suggested Reading Bhat, D.N.S The prominence of tense, aspect and mood. (Studies in language companion series). Benjamins, Philadelphia. Palmer, F.R Modality and English Modals. Longman, NY. Palmer, F.R Mood and Modality. CUP Plank, F The modals story retold. Studies in Language 8: Willet, T A cross-linguistic survey of the grammaticalization of evidentiality. Studies in Language 12: 51-97

Monday, May 09, 2005CFILT Thank You