2018-01-08
961
With respect to form linguistic modality is expressed by a highly developed system of different means, such as:
· Morphological categories of mood, e.g. It is spring. * I wish I were you. * Stop it!, as well as categories of tense and phase, e.g. * If I lived in London I would speak English every day. *If he hadknown about the party, he would have come.
· Lexical-syntactic means - combinations of modal verbs (may/might, can/could, must, should, will/would, ought to etc.) with the infinitive, e.g. Don't wait up for me because I might be late. *If anything should happen I can take care of myself. The doorman must have been bribed.
· Lexical means - modal words (maybe, perhaps, possibly, probably), e.g. Perhaps he has something on his conscience, and wants advice. I don't talk through my hat like maybe you think and other words (nouns, adjectives, verbs) of modal semantics, which introduce subordinate clauses and act as predicators(wish, it's time, possible, probable, chance possibility, etc.) e.g. * It's time we were moving. * It’s possible there might be large changes around here. The chances are you have chilled the rooms upstairs.
· Syntactic types of sentences and subordinate clauses (imperative sentences, clauses introduced by conjunctions as if/as though, conditional clauses, etc), e.g. *Take it easy! She really looks sometimes as if she isn't all there. * If we all looked our real selves the world would be uninhabitable.
· Different combinations of the above means (see examples above marked with *).
· Intonation, prosody.
We have seen then, that many of the features associated with modality are not marked morphologically, but lexically or syntactically, or both. In this case we have to deal with the mixed system of means expressing modality. Modality is broader than mood. Mood is but one of the means, namely morphological, of expressing modality.
So, having established the distinction between mood and modality, let's consider the grammatical category of mood proper.
