Cover not available
Part of
Modes of Modality: Modality, typology, and universal grammar
Edited by Elisabeth Leiss and Werner Abraham
[Studies in Language Companion Series 149] 2014
► pp. 319–352

Enablement and possibility

| University of Brighton

We need a better explanation of the differences in meaning and use between can and may. This paper proposes that the underlying semantics of all uses of can is enablement, in a precise sense derived from the philosophy of action, while may expresses metalinguistic possibility, linking a proposition with another domain of propositions. The widespread belief among linguists that modality involves possible worlds is wrong: neither “modality” nor “possible worlds” play a part in the analysis. Semantically, sentences containing can and may are typically incomplete, but the missing information is different in each case. Both involve impliciture (n.b. not implicature), a pervasive pragmatic process. The two words can and may thus have complex but divergent semantic properties, yet there is nothing unusual about their pragmatics. The analysis draws on Kent Bach’s work on semantics and pragmatics, which assumes a sharp conceptual divide between meaning and use.

Published online: 24 January 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.149.11sal
References
Abraham, Werner
1989 Syntaktische Korrelate zum Lesartwechsel zwischen epistemischen und deontisch/volitiven Modalverben. Groninger Arbeiten zur germanistischen Linguistik (GAGL) 30: 145–166.Google Scholar
2002 Modal verbs: Epistemics in German and English. In Barbiers, Beukema & van de Wurff (eds), 19–50.Google Scholar
2012 Covert modality in typology. In Werner Abraham & Elisabeth Leiss (eds), Covert Modality, 386–439. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Bach, Kent
1994a Semantic slack: what is said and more. In Foundations of Speech Act Theory: Philosophical and Linguistic Perspectives, Savas L. Tsohatzidis (ed.), 267–291. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
1994b Conversational impliciture. Mind & Language 9(2): 124–162. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004 Minding the gap. In The Semantics/pragmatics Distinction, Claudia Bianchi (ed.),27–43. Stanford CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
2011 Perspectives on possibilities: Contextualism, relativism or what In Epistemic Modality, Andy Egan & Brian Weatherson (eds),19–59. Oxford: OUP. [URL] (November 2012) DOI: DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Balkanski, Cecile T
1993 Actions, Beliefs and Intentions in Multi-action Utterances. PhD dissertation, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Barbiers, Sjef, Beukema, Frits & van der Wurff, Wim
(eds.) 2002 Modality and its Interaction with the Verbal System [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 47]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bealer, George
2006 A definition of necessity. Philosophical Perspectives 20(1): 17–39. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Johansson, Stig, Leech, Geoffrey, Conrad, Susan & Finegan, Edward
1999 Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight
1989 Extrinsic possibility and intrinsic potentiality: 7 on MAY and CAN+1. Journal of Pragmatics 13: 1–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bradley, Raymond & Swartz, Norman
1979 Possible Worlds: An Introduction to Logic and its Philosophy. Indianapolis IN: Hackett.Google Scholar
Butler, Jonny
2003 A minimalist treatment of modality. Lingua 113(10): 967–996. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carston, Robyn
2004 Relevance theory and the saying/implicating distinction. In Handbook of pragmatics, Larry Horn & Gregory Ward (eds), 633–656. Oxford: Blackwell. Early versiont: < [URL] > (November 2012).Google Scholar
Collins, Peter
2006 Can and may: Monosemy or polysemy Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Australian Linguistic Society. < [URL] > (November 2012).Google Scholar
2009 Modals and Quasi-modals in English. Amsterdam: Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coates, Jennifer
1983 The Semantics of the Modal Auxiliaries. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Declerck, Renaat
2011 The definition of modality. In Cognitive Approaches to Tense, Aspect and Epistemic Modality [Human Cognitive Processing 29], Adeline Patard & Frank Brisard (eds), 21–44. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Delin, Judy, Hartley, Anthony, Paris, Cecile, Scott, Doni & van der Linden, Keith
1994 Expressing procedural relationships in multilingual instructions. Proceedings of the eventh International Generation Workshop , June 1994, Kennebunkport, ME, 61–70. < [URL] > (November 2012).Google Scholar
Depraetere, Ilse
2012 Time in sentences with modal verbs. In The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect, Robert I. Binnick (ed.), 989–1019. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Depraetere, Ilse & Reed, Susan
2011 Towards a more explicit taxonomy of root possibility. English Language and Linguistics 15(1): 1–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Depraetere, Ilse & Verhulst, An
2008 Source of modality: A reassessment. English Language and Linguistics 12(1): 1–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Egan, Andy, Hawthornen, John & Weatherson, Brian
2005 Epistemic modals in context. In Contextualism in Philosophy, Gerhard Preyer & Georg Peter (eds), 131–169. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Fine, Kit
2005 Modality and Tense: Philosophical Papers. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gisborne, Nicolas
2007 Dynamic modality. SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics 4(2): 44–61. < [URL] > (November 2012).Google Scholar
Goldman, Alvin
1970 A Theory of Human Action. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Gresset, Stéphane
2001 CAN/MAY et MIGHT/COULD. Cahiers de Recherche en Grammaire Anglaise 8: 177–222.Google Scholar
2003 Towards a contextual micro-analysis of the non-equivalence of might and could . In Modality in contemporary English [Topics in English Linguistics 44], Roberta Facchinetti, Manfred Krug & Fran Palmer (eds) 81–99. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Groefsema, Marjolein
1995  Can, may, must and should: A relevance-theoretic account. Journal of Linguistics 31: 53–79. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hughes, George & Cresswell, Max
2012 A New Introduction to Modal Logic. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Huddleston, Rodney & Pullum, Geoffrey
2002 The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: CUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kiefer, Ferenc
2009 Modality. In Grammar, Meaning and Pragmatics [Handbook of Pragmatics Highlights 5], Frank Brisard, Jan-Ola Östman & Jef Verschueren (eds), 179–207. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika
2012 Modals and Conditionals: New and Revised Perspectives. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krug, Manfred
2000 Emerging English Modals: A Corpus-based Study of Grammaticalization [Topics in English Linguistics 32]. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Larreya, Paul & Rivière, Claude
2005 Grammaire explicative de l’anglais, 3rd edn. Paris: Longman.Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey
2004 Meaning and the English Verb, 3rd edn. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Narrog, Heiko
2005 On defining modality again. Language Sciences 27: 165–192. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Palmer, Frank
1990 Modality and the English Modals, 2nd edn. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Papafragou, Anna
2000 Modality: Issues in the Semantics-pragmatics Interface [Current Research in the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface 6]. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Pollack, Martha E
1986 Inferring Domain Plans in Question-answering. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. SRI Technical Report SRIN-403.Google Scholar
Recanati, François
2010 Truth-conditional Pragmatics. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ross, John Robert
1969 Auxiliaries as main verbs. In Studies in Philosophical Linguistics, S eries 1, William Todd (ed.), 77–102. Evanston IL: Great Expectations Press.Google Scholar
Salkie, Raphael
1997 Naturalness and contrastive linguistics. In Proceedings of PALC ‘97, Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk & Patrick J. Melia (eds.) 297–312. Lodz: University of Lodz. Reprinted in Teubert, Wolfgang & Krishnamurthy, Ramesh (eds) 2007 Corpus Linguistics, Vol. 4 [Critical Concepts in Linguistics], 336–351. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
2009 Degrees of modality. In Modality in English: Theory and Description [Topics in English Linguistics 58], Raphael Salkie, Pierre Busuttil & Johan van der Auwera (eds), 79–104. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010 The INTERSECT translation corpus. < [URL] > (November 2012).Google Scholar
Scott, Donia, Delin, Judy & Hartley, Anthony
1998 Identifying congruent pragmatic relations in procedural texts. Languages in Contrast 1(1): 45–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Swartz, Norman
1997 The concepts of necessary conditions and sufficient conditions. < [URL] > (November 2012).Google Scholar
Vetter, Barbara
2011 Recent work: Modality without possible worlds. Analysis Reviews 71(4): 742–754. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wurmbrand, Susi
1999 Modal verbs must be raising verbs. WCCFL Proceedings 18: 599–612Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Abraham, Werner
2020. Modality in Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics, DOI logo
Depraetere, Ilse & Raphael Salkie
2017. Free Pragmatic Enrichment, Expansion, Saturation, Completion: A View from Linguistics. In Semantics and Pragmatics: Drawing a Line [Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning, 11], ► pp. 11 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 20 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.