Expressions of Non-Epistemic Modality in American English: A Corpus-Based Study on Variation and Change in the 20th Century
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Abstract
This study aims at examining the meaning of 30 expressions of obligation and necessity in contemporary spoken American English and at retracing changes in their use. The analysis is based on transcripts from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), focusing on the years 1990 to 2009. Additional-ly, the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA) is used to determine the frequencies of use of the analyzed expressions between 1900 and 2009.
In contrast to previous studies on modal verbs in English, the focus does not only lie on core modal verbs (such as must and should) and so-called semi-modals verbs (such as have (got) to and need to) and on the question whether the increase of the latter compensates for the decrease of the former. Adjectives (such as necessary, essential, critical), nouns (such as obligation, need) and lexical verbs (such as force, require, urge) that express similar shades of meaning are also taken into account. In order to avoid “skewed” comparisons (Johansson 2013: 374) the analysis is restricted to those contexts in which the speaker or writer has the choice between all (kinds of) expressions; hence past tense and non-finite forms are, among others, excluded.
The author is the first to empirically describe such a great number of competing expressions in the modal system in a large-scale corpus study. In total the meaning of more than 15.000 occurrences in the spoken language section of COCA is determined at two points in time (1990-1994 and 2005-2009). A detailed classification scheme allows for the identification of small differences in meaning and slight changes in frequency. More information is provided by multiple distinctive collexeme analysis (cf. Gries and Stefanowitsch 2004) performed with data from COCA. Other noteworthy findings come from the semi-automatic and manual examination of 23,000 occurrences of need(n’t), need to, and be to, an investigation into the use of may/might want to, and a survey of the development of the mandative subjunctive.
The results do not only offer insights about the frequency and the meaning of the analyzed verbs, adjectives, and nouns, but also about general tendencies in the use of expressions of obligation and necessity.