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In:Possibility and Necessity: Concepts and expressions of modality
Edited by Jean Albrespit, Christelle Lacassain and Tracey Simpson
[Studies in Language Companion Series 237] 2025
► pp. 166–185

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On the semantics of English modal expressions

Towards an integrative grammar

 | Sorbonne Paris Nord University, Pléiade (UR 7338)
Published online: 4 November 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.237.07fur
Abstract
Through the study of English modal expressions, this paper proposes an integrative approach to grammar. It shows that existing semantic descriptions of modal forms fail to account for the behaviour of these forms in discourse and to account for cases of near-synonymy. It suggests that grammatical descriptions should incorporate textual properties, which are of two kinds: contextual conditions of use and co-textual conditions of use. But the approach is also integrative in a second sense, since it contends that properties pertaining to different levels (formal, semantic and textual) are inter-connected, consistent with one another and part of a coherent whole.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.Data and method
  • 2.Contextual conditions of use
    • 2.1Channel
    • 2.2Domain
    • 2.3Genre
    • 2.4Discourse mode
      • 2.4.1Cases of ((very) strong) attraction between a modal form and DMs
      • 2.4.2Cases of ((very) strong) attraction between the use of a form and DMs
      • 2.4.3Influence of DMs on the semantic profile of a modal form
  • 3.Co-textual conditions of use
  • 4.Towards an integrative account
  • Acknowlegments
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
References (44)
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