Understanding and analysing languages with different grammatical systems is a major challenge, but by identifying formal grammatical categories and exploring their common meanings, as linguist Frank Palmer suggests, it is possible to uncover cross-linguistic patterns. This paper undertakes a contrastive and descriptive study of the modal verb ‘can’...
Glavni cilj magistrskega dela je ugotoviti, kako materni in nematerni govorci izražajo odsotnost obveze v francoščini, kako interpretirajo zanikane naklonske glagole devoir, falloir in avoir à in ali se skupini govorcev razlikujeta v svojih jezikovnih odločitvah. Teoretični del najprej obravnava deontično naklonskost in zlasti odsotnost obveze, pa ...
Published in Language Learning in Higher Education
Modifying and hedging one’s claims appropriately is an important characteristic of academic writing. This study focuses on the three main English modal verbs used to express “epistemic possibility” to avoid making strong statements, viz., may, might, and could. The purpose of this corpus-based study is to explore modal verb usage by Japanese EFL un...
Published in ICAME Journal
The modal verbs of necessity and obligation, a testing ground of grammatical change, have been shown to exhibit change and variation in world Englishes. Previous studies have primarily concentrated on English as a native language (ENL) and English as a second language (ESL) varieties. The present study extends this line of research and explores var...
Published in Chinese as a Second Language Research
汉语语法学界一般认为情态动词只能用于 “把” 字句的 “把” 字之前, 但语言事实显示情态动词在一定的条件下, 也能用于 “把” 字之后。 本文主要考察了情态动词用于 “把” 字之后的允准与限制、使用特点、表达效果与语法意义。 情态动词出现在 “把” 字之后, 可以出现在作为假设小句、宾语小句、推测主句之类的 “把” 字句中, 此类 “把” 字句存在时体与情态语义的限制, 即: (一) 当把字句存在现实体 “了1”, 情态动词一般不能进入。 (二) 当把字句没有时体成分出现时, “把” 后的情态动词语义无标记情况下不能是动力情态[意愿] (被动), 认识情态[推测], 而道义情态[义务], 动力情态[能力]则可以出现。 语用上则具有主观认识性、虚拟假设性、以及非现实的施为性等要求。 情态动词...
Published in Acta Marisiensis. Philologia
The article introduces a quantitative study that examines how modality, which is associated with modal verbs (e.g., must, would, etc.), is represented in English-medium research articles (henceforth – RAs) that are published in specialised scientific journals that focus on the intersection of climate change-related research and health. The aim of t...
Published in Linguistics
Modal verbs are well-known to license ellipsis of their complements under certain conditions. In the literature on Spanish, such sequences, which I refer to as Modal Ellipsis (ME), have been traditionally argued to involve a null pronoun. These analyses therefore treat ME simply as an instance of Null Complement Anaphora (NCA). In this article, I s...
Published in Frontiers in Psychology
Modality plays an important part in verbal communication, as it can reveal the speaker’s views and perspectives. The modal verb, as an essential component of the modality system, has been a hot research topic and a challenge in academic circles in recent years. Analyzing the modal verbs in a text may indicate the context produced by the translator ...
Published in East-West Cultural Passage
The article introduces and discusses a computer-assisted study that seeks to shed light on the frequency and use of the central modal verbs (can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would) in research article (further: RA) abstracts in applied linguistics published in the Inner and Outer Circles of English, respectively. The study is info...
Published in Frontiers in Psychology
This study investigates the use of modal verbs in Chinese–English government press conference (GPC) interpretation. Modal verbs mark the speaker’s opinion of or attitude toward the event described in a sentence. Interpreters also use modal verbs to indicate the stances of the source language speakers. The use of modal verbs has been examined in suc...
