CLAUSE AS EXCHANGE
Text 4-3 Mood and tone combinations
4.5 Polarity and modality
4.5.2 Modality
‘sometimes’ or ‘maybe’. These intermediate degrees, between the positive and negative poles, are known collectively as MODALITY. What the modality system does is to construe the region of uncertainty that lies between ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
But there is more than one route between the two. In between the certainties of ‘it is’ and
‘it isn’t’ lie the relative probabilities of ‘it must be’, ‘it will be’, ‘it may be’. Similarly, in between the definitive ‘do!’ and ‘don’t!’ lie the discretionary options ‘you must do’, ‘you should do’, ‘you may do’. The space between ‘yes’ and ‘no’ has a different significance for propositions and for proposals.
(1) Propositions. In a proposition, the meaning of the positive and negative pole is asserting and denying; positive ‘it is so’, negative ‘it isn’t so’. There are two kinds of intermediate possibilities: (i) degrees of probability: ‘possibly/probably/certainly’; (ii) degrees of usuality: ‘sometimes/usually/always’. The former are equivalent to ‘either yes or no’, that is, maybe yes, maybe no, with different degrees of likelihood attached. The latter are equivalent to ‘both yes and no’, that is, sometimes yes, sometimes no, with different degrees of oftenness attached. It is these scales of probability and usuality to which the term
‘modality’ strictly belongs. We shall refer to these, to keep them distinct, as modalization.
Both probability and usuality can be expressed in the same three ways: (a) by a finite modal operator in the verbal group (seeTable 4(4)), e.g.that will be John, he’ll sit there all day; (b) by a modal Adjunct of (i) probability or (ii) usuality (see Table 3(5)), e.g.that’s probably John, he usually sits there all day; (c) by both together, e.g.that’ll probably be John, he’ll usually sit there all day.
Note that in a statement the modality is an expression of the speaker’s opinion:that will be John‘that’s John, I think’; whereas in a question it is a request for the listener’s opinion:
will that be John? ‘is that John d’you think?’. Note also that even a high value modal (‘certainly’, ‘always’) is less determinate than a polar form:that’s certainly Johnis less certain thanthat’s John;it always rains in summer is less invariable than it rains in summer. In other words, you only say you are certain when you are not.
(2) Proposals. In a proposal, the meaning of the positive and negative poles is prescribing and proscribing: positive ‘do it’, negative ‘don’t do it’. Here also there are two kinds of intermediate possibility, in this case depending on the speech function, whether command or offer. (i) In a command, the intermediate points represent degrees of obligation: ‘allowed to/supposed to/required to’; (ii) in an offer, they represent degrees of inclination: ‘willing to/anxious to/determined to’. We shall refer to the scales of obligation and inclination as modulation, to distinguish them from modality in the other sense, that which we are calling modalization.
Again, both obligation and inclination can be expressed in either of two ways, though not, in this case, by both together: (a) by a finite modal operator, e.g.you should know that,I’ll help them; (b) by an expansion of the Predicator (see Chapter 8, Section 8.5, p. 000), (i) typically by a passive verb, e.g.you’re supposed to know that, (ii) typically by an adjective, e.g.
I’m anxious to help them.
Proposals that are clearly positive or negative, as we have seen, are goods-&-services exchanges between speaker and hearer, in which the speaker is either (i) offering to do something, e.g.shall I go home?, (ii) requesting the listener to do something, e.g.go home!or (iii) suggesting that they both do something, e.g.let’s go home!.They rarely have third person Subjects, except as prayers or oaths. Modulated clauses, on the other hand, while they also
P o l a r i t y a n d m o d a l i t y
occur frequently as offers, commands and suggestions (I’ll be going, you should be going,we ought to be going), regularly implicate a third person; they are statements of obligation and inclination made by the speaker in respect of others, for example John’s supposed to know that,Mary will help. In this case they function as propositions, since to the person addressed they convey information rather than goods-&-services. But they do not thereby lose their rhetorical force: if Mary is listening, she can now hardly refuse.
Thus once a proposal becomes discretionary, it shifts into the indicative mood to accommodate the modal operator; this also means that it take the full indicative person system, not the restricted person system of the imperative. Modalized clauses are thus in principle ambiguous as between proposition and proposal: this is shown up when the experiential meaning of the clause points strongly in one direction or the other, for example she must be very careless is likely to be interpreted as proposition, because one does not usually enjoin people to be careless, whereas she must be very careful is more likely to be interpreted as a proposal.
What is the nature of these systems? Since modality is an expression of indeterminacy, it might be expected that the systems themselves would be notably indeterminate; but they are no more so than grammatical systems in general. Let us take the system of probability as one with which to explore further. As we have seen, probability may be construed by Finite operators, by modal Adjuncts, and by a combination of the two. We can therefore set up the following paradigm.
certain that must be true that’s certainly true that must certainly be true probable that will be true that’s probably true that will probably be true possible that may be true that’s possibly true that may possibly be true
What justifies us in setting this up as a systemic paradigm? These examples are all positive; let us now make the proposition negative.
certain that must be not true that’s certainly not true probable that will be not true that’s probably not true possible that may be not true that’s possibly not true
Suppose now we transfer the negative feature from the proposition itself to the modality:
certain that can’t be true that’s not possibly true probable that won’t be true that’s not probably true possible that needn’t be true that’s not certainly true
Notice what happens. The middle row is unaffected: it makes no difference whether we saythat’s probably not trueorthat’s not probably true(or more commonly that’s not likely to be true). But the top and bottom rows reverse the modality: ‘certain + not’ = ‘not + possible’;
‘possible + not’ = ‘not + certain’. If the domain of the negation is switched from the proposition to the modality, the value of the modality in the outer rows also has to be
switched. There is some variation in the items that most typically occur:can’t, rather than mayn’t;needn’t, rather than mustn’t;not necessarily, rather than not certainly; but these do not affect the principle at work.
This paradigm shows that probability is organized as a system of three values: a median value ‘probable’ where the form of the negative is the same whether it is attached to the modality or the proposition, and two outer values, high ‘certain’ and low ‘possible’, where there is a switch from high to low, or from low to high, if the negative is shifted between the two domains. We can represent this in a network as follows (Figure 4-24).
All nine feature combinations may be realized by Finite operator, modal Adjunct, or both.
Exactly the same set of possibilities arises in respect of the three other dimensions of modality. With usuality, for example, whereas ‘not usually’ is the same as ‘usually not’,
‘sometimes not’ is equivalent to ‘not always’ and vice versa. Similarly with obligation: ‘not supposed to’ is the same as ‘supposed not to’, whereas ‘allowed not to’ is equivalent to ‘not required to’ and vice versa. And finally with inclination, ‘anxious not to’ is the same as ‘not anxious to’, whereas ‘not willing to’ is equivalent to ‘determined not to’ and vice versa. It is this parallelism in their construction of semantic space, all lying within the region between the two poles of positive and negative, that gives the essential unity to this particular region of the grammar.
Up to now we have treated the different ways of expressing modality simply as if they were free variants: as if that must be trueandthat’s certainly trueare just different ways of saying the same thing. But they are not. In order to explore the difference between them, we should introduce two further variants which cover the same range of meanings. Keeping to the same category of high probability, we will also find expressions such as it is certain (that) that is true andI’m certain (that) that is true. Notice what is happening here. With these last examples, the speaker is explicitly stating the source of the conviction: it is either being said to be objective, as in it is certain . . ., or presented as a subjective judgement on the speaker’s part, as in I’m certain that . . . . By contrast with these, the versions presented earlier leave implicit the source of the conviction. But they also differ along the subjective or objective dimension: whereas the adverbial form certainly is a way of objectifying the
P o l a r i t y a n d m o d a l i t y
VALUE
POLARITY outer median positive negative
high low
on proposition on modality Fig. 4-24 The systems of VALUE and POLARITY
speaker’s evaluation, the verbal form mustcarries a subjective loading — it is the speaker’s own judgement on which the validity of the proposition is made to rest. We thus arrive at a matrix of four feature combinations as follows:
subjective objective
implicit must certainly
explicit I’m certain that ... it is certain that ...
These options are present throughout the system; we can therefore rewrite the network for modality as follows (Figure 4-25).
We have taken the description of modality up to this degree of detail because in the analysis of discourse, especially the more conversational, dialogic forms, all these variants are likely to be met with, and their differences in meaning may have a marked effect on the unfolding and impact of the discourse. The topic will be taken up again in Chapter 10, where we shall explain the workings of the system in more detail and show how it depends on the underlying potential for metaphor that is present as an essential property of human language.
modality
MODALITY TYPE
ORIENTATION
VALUE
POLARITY
modalization
modulation
median outer positive negative
subjective objective explicit * → implicit
probability→ * usuality obligation→ * inclination
high low direct transferred Fig. 4-25 System network of MODALITY