This collection of papers presented at the Second International Conference on Modality in English held at the University of Pau in 2004 follows in the footsteps of Facchinetti, Krug & Palmer (Reference Facchinetti, Krug and Palmer2003) and Facchinetti & Palmer (Reference Facchinetti and Palmer2004), which contain papers from the Conference on Modality in Contemporary English held at the University of Verona in 2001. The book has a strong Gallic orientation, with eleven of the twenty contributing authors based in French universities. Of these, seven present analyses based on a theory unfamiliar to most linguists outside France, that of ‘enunciative operations’ propounded by Antoine Culioli (Reference Culioli1990). In their Introduction (pp. 3–5) the editors provide some brief explanatory notes to assist readers with Culioli's somewhat abstruse terminology. Rather frustratingly, however, they do not identify precisely which of the chapters are set within the Culioli framework.
The topics addressed embrace not only the concept of modality and the study of the English modals, but also – and perhaps most interestingly – an assortment of constructions involving items other than auxiliaries and lying on the fringes of modality (such as extraposed subject constructions of the type It would be surprising if . . .; hearsay adverbs such as reportedly, allegedly and supposedly; and the come to VP construction).
The first five chapters concern aspects of the concept of modality. Paul Larreya's chapter (‘Towards a typology of modality in language’) argues the need to distinguish between modality (as a mental system based primarily on the relations of possibility and necessity) and modalisation (the use speakers make of modality), but does not convincingly demonstrate the need for the distinction. The terminology used by Larreya is – like that of other contributors – often non-conventional: within the typology of modality presented root modality is subdivided into ‘physical’ (why not the more familiar ‘dynamic’?) modality and deontic modality, while epistemic modality is subdivided into ‘problematic’ and ‘implicative’. Larreya's curious distinction between ‘factual’ and ‘non-factual’ volition (p. 20) turns out to be based not on modality but rather on the situation. Some of Larreya's judgements regarding his data are questionable: for instance, the sentence In Oklahoma you have to be 18 to marry without parental consent is adduced to support the claim that ‘implicative modality often overlaps with deontic modality’ (p. 15) but it is hard to see how this example expresses epistemic meaning. The sentence presented (on p. 24) as an example of ‘evaluative modalization’, It's a good thing he should have some rest, is ungrammatical. The paper also makes some factually erroneous statements. For example, the claim that will is ‘only marginally a marker of volition’ (p. 17) cannot be reconciled with Collins’ (Reference Collins2009: 126) finding that 30.4 per cent of wills in his comprehensive study expressed dynamic modality.
Renaat Declerck (‘“Not-yet-factual at time t”: a neglected modal concept’) argues that modality involves ‘not-yet-factuality’, one of four values that a situation can have in a possible world, the others being factuality, counterfactuality and hypotheticalness. It is likely that many readers will question whether Declerck's concept is more properly to be considered a matter of temporality than modality.
Keith Mitchell (‘Semantic ascent, deixis, intersubjectivity and modality’) makes a thought-provoking attempt to demonstrate how a re-examination of the three concepts mentioned in his title can shed light on a range of intractable phenomena: existential modality, clause type, auxiliary do, quasi-subjunctive should and concessive may. Mitchell's suggestions vacillate between the highly plausible and the highly speculative. In discussing existential modality he draws on Lyons’ (Reference Lyons1977) distinction between first-, second- and third-order entities, relating these respectively to deontic, epistemic and existential modality. Mitchell questions whether existential modality is a truly modal category, given that relevant statements (e.g. These animals can bite) can be reconstrued as unqualified statements of fact (e.g. These animals have been known to bite). Like others before him (e.g. Huddleston & Pullum et al. Reference Huddleston and Pullum2002) Mitchell identifies close links between the categories of clause type and modality, noting that non-declarative clauses mark propositional content as not being factually assertable. More controversially, Mitchell proposes that auxiliary do should be considered as a modal, a suggestion that carries plausibility if restricted to the emphatic use of auxiliary do, but beyond this has no more to recommend it than the mere fact that auxiliary do is found in many non-declarative clauses.
Raphael Salkie (‘Degrees of modality’) seeks to demonstrate that the prototype approach that he adopts can shed new light on such vexed relationships as that between the modals can and may. Salkie disputes the Huddleston & Pullum et al. (Reference Huddleston and Pullum2002) account of modal degree, proposing that it can be defined in terms of distance from the prototype. Thus, for example, high-degree may, with its dominantly epistemic and deontic meanings, is claimed by Salkie to be prototypical and to contrast with low- degree can, whose dominantly dynamic meaning is said to be non-prototypical.
Jelena Timotijevic (‘Another look at modals and subjectivity’) takes her inspiration from the work of Papafragou (Reference Papafragou2000), arguing that subjectivity results from the involvement of the modals with primary pragmatic processes. Implausibly, like Larreya & Rivière (Reference Larreya and Rivière1999), she associates subjectivity with individual modals rather than with their particular meanings/uses. It is claimed by Timotijevic that her approach provides a key to the monosemy vs polysemy debate, objective modals being monosemous and subjective modals polysemous. This distinction is simplistic: can is allegedly monosemous but the ambiguity of a sentence such as You can't be my friend (‘It is not possible that you are my friend’; ‘It is not possible for you to be my friend’) is suggestive of polysemy.
The next six chapters are concerned with the modal auxiliaries of English. Alain Deschamps and Lionel Dufaye's chapter (‘For a topological representation of the modal system of English’) is the first to be based on Culioli's enunciative operations theory. The authors present an analysis of may, will, must, can and shall, reserving will for an extended formal Culiolian analysis. This chapter has little to offer readers not well-versed in Culiolian theory. Furthermore, the authors are guilty of observational inadequacy: for example, the claim (on p. 130) that can never expresses epistemic possibility is inaccurate (see Coates Reference Coates, Aarts and Meyer1995; Collins Reference Collins2009: 98), while the classification of A lion may be dangerous (on p. 140) as unacceptable is incorrect.
Gilbert Ghio (‘Epistemic might in the interrogative’) seeks to determine why might is possible in sentences of the type Might this be the beginning?, but not may, despite their apparent semantic equivalence. Ghio's explanation, that the hypothetical, rhetorical, nature of such questions favours might is one that is not dependent upon Culiolian concepts. Curiously, Ghio regards epistemic could as incompatible with the interrogative, even though it surely could readily be substituted for might in many of his examples (e.g. Could this be the beginning?).
Jean-Claude Souesme (‘may in concessive contexts’) correctly observes that concessive may is similar in many ways to ‘normal’ epistemic may. Examples adduced and analysed by Souesme indicate that we need to be cautious about assuming that it always has a low degree of modality (in Huddleston and Pullum et al.'s 2002 terms). In fact Souesme's most important finding is that concessive may needs to be interpreted as having varying degrees of modality, from tokens where it is closely associated with epistemic may, to those where the truth value of the statement is unquestionable and may carries a low degree of modality (as in The sun may rise in the east, but it sets in the West).
There are two papers on the modal auxiliaries in legal English. The first, by Ross Charnock (‘When may means must: deontic modality in English statute construction’), investigates the use of may in legal English with a coercive meaning similar to that of must. Charnock argues that the preference for may over shall exercised by many legislators is to be explained in terms of the performativity and sense of inevitability associated with the latter. The second paper is that by Christopher Williams (‘Legal English and the “modal revolution”’), which documents the decline of shall in legal English, especially in South Africa and the Antipodes, and the use of must, may and be to in its place.
An Verhulst's chapter (‘Posteriority in expressions with must and have to: a case of interplay between syntax, semantics and pragmatics’) is about time reference in modal utterances with special reference to the subtype identified in the title. As such it is as much, or more, an exercise in aspectuality as modality. A number of minor criticisms can be made. One is that the claim ‘a suitable paraphrase of Thomas must have cleaned his room is: “I confidently conclude now that Thomas cleaned his room”’ is merely half right: the sentence is in fact ambiguous between the meaning supplied and ‘I confidently conclude now that Thomas has cleaned his room’. Another is that the terms ‘homogeneous’ and ‘heterogeneous’ (situation) are considerably less familiar than ‘imperfective’ and ‘perfective’ respectively. Yet another is that there is no reference to Depraetere & Reed's directly relevant chapter in Aarts & McMahon (Reference Depraetere, Reed, Aarts and McMahon2006).
The last six chapters deal with a variety of topics involving the expression of modality by grammatical categories other than the modal auxiliaries. Christiane Rocq-Migette (‘Using the adjectives surprised/surprising to express epistemic modality’) argues that in constructions of the type It would be surprising if . . ./I would be surprised if . . . the predicate of surprise may generate an epistemic interpretation. The evidence provided for this claim is not strong: Rocq-Migette argues that surprise differs from such categories of feeling as happiness and sadness, ‘being created by something which is external to the speaker’ (p. 228). However this in itself does not make surprise epistemic, any more than happy is epistemic when an external source is specified.
Juana I. Marin-Arrese (‘Commitment and subjectivity in the discourse of a judicial inquiry’), like Timotijevic, is interested in subjectivity. In this case it is the expression of subjectivity by modal auxiliaries and other means that is under scrutiny in three spoken registers, all connected to a single court case: an institutional one (the Government), social (the BBC) and private (a family).
Agnès Celle (‘Hearsay adverbs and modality’) adopts an expansive interpretation of (lexical) modality in her enunciative analysis of the ‘hearsay’ adverbs reportedly, allegedly and supposedly. The criterion of evidential speaker commitment that Celle regards as sufficient to count as modality will be questioned by readers who relate modality more narrowly to the central concepts of possibility and necessity. Celle's acceptability judgements are sometimes unreliable: I would question the judgements of unacceptable and ungrammatical as applied respectively to the following sentences: ?Yet Canada is not supposedly involved in Bush's war; *DFO did not reportedly receive copies of the auditor's management letters.
Another Culioli-influenced chapter is that of Claude Rivière (‘When Yes means No, and other hidden modalities’). While Rivière's premise is that the It be . . . since/before . . . construction expresses hidden modalities, as with Verhulst his chapter is based more on aspectuality than modality.
Manfred Krug (‘Modality and the history of English adhortatives’), like Mitchell, argues for an expanded category of modality that embraces clause type (including ‘adhortative’ constructions of the type Let's go!). While the case for the inclusion of this chapter in a book on modality is rather tenuous, it nevertheless provides some fascinating insights into the implications for the grammaticalisation of let's of emergent patterns such as let's you and I and let's don't.
Fittingly perhaps it is the last chapter that takes us farthest from the core of modality, somewhere in the fuzzy area between modality and aspectuality (like Verhulst and Rivière's chapters). Philippe Bourdin (‘On the “great modal shift” sustained by come to VP’) studies the diachronic development of the ‘raising’ resultative interpretation of come to VP from its ‘control’ intentionality interpretation, both meanings expressed in the ambiguous He came to learn Navajo. Bourdin notes the parallels with the auxiliarization of be going to.
There are a sufficient number of fascinating ideas, proposals and analyses to be found throughout this book to recommend it to scholars of modality and the modals in English. There are certainly chapters which encourage readers to broaden their perspective and which promise to stimulate further research.
