Modality in Contemporary English (review)

This volume is a collection of papers from the Verona Conference on Modality in Contemporary English (University of Verona, 2001). In addition to an introduction by Frank Palmer, it contains fifteen articles, grouped under four headings: the semantics and pragmatics of core modal verbs, the status of emerging modal items, stylistic variation and change, and sociolinguistic variation and syntactic modals.

In the first section, ‘The semantics and pragmatics of core modal verbs’, Paul Larreya argues that a past-tense morpheme of modals always expresses a presupposition. Richard Matthews demonstrates that the interpretation of modals is determined by construction, context, and convention. Gregory Ward, Betty Birner, and Jeffrey Kaplan argue that would is used to express a salient open-proposition, a predictable meaning based on the previous utterance. Also focusing on the pragmatics of modals, Stephane Gresset’s work relates the use of could and might to the basic meanings of can and may, respectively.

The second section, ‘The status of emerging modal items’, also includes four papers. Philippe Bourdin deftly shows how go, in go undetected and go thinking, has evolved into an exponent of aspectual values in line with the semantics of the un-V-en and V-ing constructions. Similarly, Keith Mitchell maintains that had better and might as well have been grammaticalized into full-fledged modals. More theoretical is Heidi Verplaetse’s paper on want to, in which the author argues that the expression of volition with want to is gaining pace in contemporary English. Finally, Garita Paradis demonstrates that the interpretation of really results from the interaction between the ontological notion of [REALITY] and the construal of really in particular contexts.

The third section of the book, ‘Stylistic variation and change’, begins with Geoffrey Leech’s quantitative study showing that semi-modals have been increasing at the expense of central modals over the last three decades. Supporting Leech is Nicholas Smith, who documents the same trend, although in the obligation/necessity domain. The third paper, by Maurizio Gotti, focuses on shall vs. will, but over a much longer time period. He demonstrates that the two modals have experienced a gradual decrease in deontic meanings but an increase in their dynamic values. Roberta Facchinetti, by contrast, looks at the distribution of may across text types. She finds, among other things, that may is a useful tool for scholars to signal their stance of objectivity.

The last section of the volume, ‘Sociolinguistic variation and syntactic modals’, contains three articles. Jennifer Coates discovers that women use epistemic modals more than men, a fact she attributes to women’s tendency to self-disclose and their preference for open discussion and conversational collaboration. The other two articles are syntactic. Stephen Nagle proposes that the double-modal construction (might could) can be best accounted for as two clauses. Graeme Trousdale studies the patterns of sociolinguistic variation in the use of modals in Tyneside English and proposes that a valid account requires the combined efforts of both variationists and structuralists.