Predicate structure and the semantics of the English modal 'should'.

373 BULLETIN DE LA SOCIÉTÉ POLONAISE DE LINGUISTIQUE, FASC. LXXVI, 2020 ISSN 0032-3802 LESZEK SZYMAŃSKI Uniwersytet Zielonogórski, Zielona Góra ORCID: 0000-0003-3812-3615 ♦ DOI: 10.5604/01.3001.0014.6662 Predicate structure and the semantics of the English modal verb should Summary The aim of the study described in this paper is to verify whether the structure of a modal predicate influences the type of modality expressed by the English modal verb should. The study uses language samples excerpted from The corpus of contemporary American English. It has adopted the model of the semantic field of modal expressions proposed by Angelika Kratzer. Additionally, this framework has been used to determine types of modality in this study. The analysis focuses on the interaction within the semantic field of the modal should with various forms of the main verb within the modal predicate structure. Keywords: modality, modal predicate, modal meaning, predicate structure Struktura orzeczenia a semantyka angielskiego czasownika modalnego should Streszczen i e Celem badania zreferowanego w tekście było ustalenie czy struktura orzeczenia modalnego wywiera wpływ na typ modalności wyrażanej przez angielski czasownik modalny should. Przedmiotowe badanie wykonano z wykorzystaniem próbek języka zebranych z Korpusu współczesnej amerykańskiej odmiany języka angielskiego (The corpus of contemporary American English). W celu jego przeprowadzenia zaadaptowano model pola semantycznego wyrażeń modalnych (the semantic field of modal expressions) zaproponowany przez Angelikę Kratzer. Model ten posłużył także do określenia typów modalności w badaniu. Analizie poddano interakcję w polu semantycznym czasownika should z różnymi formami czasownika głównego w obrębie struktury orzeczenia modalnego. Słowa kluczowe: modalność, orzeczenie modalne, znaczenie modalne, struktura orzeczenia 374 LESZEK SZYMAŃSKI 1 . I n tr o d u ctio n Research has shown that modal verbs are ambiguous. They require contextual placement so that they could receive specific meanings (Hacquard 2006, 2010, 2011; Kratzer 1991, 2012). Moreover, contemporary studies have focused on the impact of other grammatical categories on modal meanings. They have reported that aspect, tense, negation, diathesis and the main verb form can exert influence on the meaning expressed by a modal verb (see e.g. Abraham 2008; Abraham and Leiss (eds.) 2008; de Haan 1997; Hacquard 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2016; Iatridou 1990; Iatridou and Zeijlstra 2013; Fălăuş and Laca 2016; Kotin 2012, 2014; Leiss 2008; Morante and Sporleder 2012; Szymański 2015, 2016a, 2016b, 2017, 2019a, 2019b). Literature has also recognized particular modal meanings as related to various syntactic structures and categories (see e.g. Arregui, Rivero, and Salanova (eds.) 2017). The study described in this paper attempts to verify whether the form of the main verb within the modal matrix predicate has a bearing on the type of modality expressed by the English modal auxiliary verb should. It has been initially motivated by Abraham’s (2008: 6) generalizations about modality-aspect interfaces (see section 3 below), as well as Szymański’s (2015, 2016a, 2016b, 2017, 2019a) findings about the interaction of modality with the main verb form. For the purpose of the investigation, the study adopts the Kratzerian model of the semantic field of modal expressions, taking into consideration the interaction at the levels of the modal force and the modal base. The language material for the study comes from The corpus of contemporary American English (Davies 2008–). The paper is composed of seven numbered sections. Following this Introduction, section 2 defines modality and lists types of modal predicates to be studied. Section 3 deals with selected issues concerning modality-aspect interfaces studies. Then, section 4 presents the model of the semantic field of modal expressions (Kratzer 1991) and introduces a typological framework for modal readings to be used in the analysis. After that, section 5 outlines the semantics of the English modal verb should. Section 6 offers a discussion of the study. The paper closes with conclusions. 2 . D ef in in g mo d ality ( a n d m o d a l s ) The word modality has its roots in the Latin word modus, which denotes a mode, manner, fashion or style. The concept itself comes from philosophy and dates back to the times of Aristotle. Philosophers perceive modality as modifications people make to facts (Perzanowski 2006). This is the broadest sense of how this concept can be understood. Linguists view modality in a number of ways. Typically, this notion is perceived as “the speaker’s opinion or attitude towards the proposition that the sentence expresses or the situation that the proposition describes” (Lyons 1977: 452). Also, it may be understood as “the status of the proposition that describes the event” (Palmer [1986]2001: 1). It may also be defined as a semantic concept which has to do PREDICATE STRUCTURE AND THE SEMANTICS... 375 with necessity and possibility (Kratzer 1991, 2012), which is applied in the study described further. Speakers of English use a number of linguistic devices to express modality. Among them, one will find both implicit as well as explicit means (Chrzanowska 1989: 3). The former include: modal adverbials, modal adjectives, modal nouns and modalized main verbs. The latter encompass: modal auxiliaries, moods and intonation. There are 9 modal auxiliaries in English (Coates 1983; Huddleston and Pullum 2002; Quirk et al. 1985). They can be used to form modal predicates. A modal predicate includes a modal auxiliary and the main verb. There are the following four types of modal predicates: i. modal auxiliary + bare infinitive, e.g. She should sing. ii. modal auxiliary + progressive, e.g. She should be singing. iii. modal auxiliary + perfect infinitive, e.g. She should have sung. iv. modal auxiliary + perfect progressive, e.g. She should have been singing. The study described in this paper examines the modal verb should used in all the four types of modal predicates. It focuses on the influence of the main verb form on the type of modality expressed by should. 3 . M o d ality - as p ec t i n t e rfa c e s As articulated in the Introduction, the idea for the analysis discussed below comes from Abraham’s (2008) generalizations about modality-aspect interfaces. In his seminal paper, the scholar proposes the following three hypotheses: a. Perfective aspect is compatible with root modality. b. Imperfective aspect is compatible with epistemic modality. c. Clausal Neg+perfective aspect yields epistemic modality as opposed to positive declarative perfective aspect, which yields root modality (Abraham 2008: 6). The above generalizations have been observed to hold in West and North Germanic languages (Abraham 2008: 3). As can be seen, the cited researcher focuses on aspect from the dichotomous viewpoint perspective, which cannot be easily applied to t (...truncated)