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Article published In: On the Role of Pragmatics in Construction Grammar
Edited by Rita Finkbeiner
[Constructions and Frames 11:2] 2019
► pp. 220–243

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The necessity modals have to, must, need to, and should

Using n-grams to help identify common and distinct semantic and pragmatic aspects

 | University of Lille
 | University of Lille
 | University of Lille
Published online: 7 November 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/cf.00029.cap
Abstract
When an ambiguous lexical item appears within a familiar string of words, it can instantly receive an appropriate interpretation from this context, thus being saturated by it. Such a context may also short-circuit illocutionary and other pragmatic aspects of interpretation. We here extract from the British National Corpus over 500 internally highly collocating and high-frequency lexical n-grams up to 5 words containing have to, must, need to, and/or should. These contexts-as-constructions go some way toward allowing us to group these four necessity modals into clusters with similar semantic and pragmatic properties and to determine which of them is semantico-pragmatically most unlike the others. It appears that have to and need to cluster most closely together thanks to their shared environments (e.g., you may have/need to…, expressing contingent, mitigated necessity), while should has the largest share of unique n-grams (e.g., rhetorical Why shouldn’t I…?, used as a defiant self-exhortation).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Modal constructions, lexically restricted saturation, and short-circuited meaning
  • 2.Methodology
    • 2.1Extracting highly collocating lexical n-grams
    • 2.2Identifying shared and unique n-grams for the necessity modals
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Quantitative results
    • 3.2Qualitative results
      • 3.2.1Why should(n’t)…: Rhetorical questions
      • 3.2.2Should with a passive infinitive: Low intersubjectivity
      • 3.2.3Must surely; should always/never; perhaps you/we should; I don’t think we should: Strength of modality
      • 3.2.4The modals with I/you/we: Hedged performatives, positive politeness and speaker inclusion
      • 3.2.5Must and should with a perfect infinitive: Epistemic necessity vs. reproach
      • 3.2.6May have to and may need to: Contingent necessity
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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