A Study On Intonation As A Means Of Conveying Deontic Modality In English.pdf

Viet nam National University, Hanoi
college of foreign languages
postgraduate department

ngun thÞ hång tuyªn

A study on Intonation as a means of
conveying deontic modality in English.
Nghiên cứu về ngữ điệu nh- một ph-ơng tiện biểu đạt tình
thái trách nhiệm trong tiếng Anh

M.A. minor thesis

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15

Hanoi-2009


Viet nam National University, Hanoi
college of foreign languages
postgraduate department

ngun thÞ hång tuyªn

A study on Intonation as a means of
conveying deontic modality in English

Nghiên cứu về ngữ điệu nh- một ph-ơng tiện
biểu đạt tình thái trách nhiệm trong tiếng Anh

M.A. minor thesis

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Võ Đại Quang

Hanoi-2009


Viet nam National University, Hanoi
college of foreign languages
postgraduate department

ngun thÞ hång tuyªn

A study on Intonation as a means of
conveying deontic modality in English

Nghiên cứu về ngữ điệu nh- một ph-ơng tiện
biểu đạt tình thái trách nhiệm trong tiếng Anh

M.A. minor thesis

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Võ Đại Quang

Hanoi-2009

1

Part I: Introduction
1. Rationale:

In the process of learning English, a large number of learners recognize that
intonation is one of the most important issues and as the backbone of English. It not only
causes difficulties for the speaker himself but also for the listener. Since English intonation
is considered as one of the most important matter and as the backbone of English, there
have been a lot of opinions about this topic.
In J. P.O’ Connor’s opinion, the words themselves are unchangeable in expressing meaning
but they are enriched in the process of using tunes. What enriches the words is the
speaker’s feelings at that moment and this way of using tunes is called intonation. Here the
phonetician wanted to emphasize the important role of tunes in English because the speaker
can use it to express his state, he can say it definitely or hesitantly or sometimes he can say
it with interest or without interest.
According to Barbara Randford (1988), expressing oneself and understanding other
people are two of the most necessary goals for foreign language learners in general and for
English language learners in particular. In order to achieve two main goals successfully we
must know how to master English intonation effectively. It is the best way for us to express
our attitudes, feelings, emotion while we are speaking. On the other hand, it is helpful for
us to understand other people’s feelings, emotion in their specch so that we can lead our
talks to the result full of success and intelligibility. Furthermore, intonation helps us to
focus on the most considerable things to speak or express. This make our talks more
interesting and we feel more confident when we speak in public or in a crowd. With the
wrong use of intonation, our speeches may be broken because the listeners do not
understand what are the goals of our speeches. More seriously, in some cases they are not
patient enough to pay attention to us and they may try to find the way to stop our
conversations as soon as possible.
In our everyday lives, much of our time is spent for communication with other

people and in our communication, we not only exchange facts but also express our
emotions and attitudes, or in other words we express modality.Thus, to study modality in
general and investigate how much a speaker commits to what he says in particular is very
interesting and essential. Modality gained much populaity among linguists. According to
Halliday (1985: 86), modality is “an expression of the speaker’s opinion” towards the


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content of what he is saying, whether he considers it is possible, probable, certain, etc. For
Lyon (1997), a speaker’s qualification of his commitment to the truth of his/her proposition
becomes an important issue. Besides, the study of modality has spawned innumerable
academic papers, namely Bybee (1985), Palmer (1986) and others. In Vietnam, Hoàng Phê
(1984) and Đỗ Hữu Châu (1989) have studied on Vietnamese modal system and there have
been a number of English-written M.A theses on this issue, for example: Modality and
Modal Auxiliaries: A systematic Comparision of English and Vietnamese by Đỗ HữHuyến (1996); Modality in English by Hoµng Thu Giang (2001); A Contrastive analysis of
modal meanings expressed via Must, Should, Have to in English and the equivalent in
Vietnamese by Phạm Thị Mai Anh (2005).
Indeed, learning to express and interpret modality is very difficult, particularly for
learners of English as a foreign language. The learners’ failure in the understanding of the
modal meanings has already prevented the from getting the goals of communication. As a
learner and

a teacher of English as a foreign language the writer has realized the

importance of researching intonation as a means of conveying modality, specificly on
deontic modality to get the success in communicating goals. It is the reason the writer
would like to choose Intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality in English as the
subject for this thesis with the hopes that the

research can serve as a very small

contribution to liguistic studies and also to teaching and learning English as a foreign
language. In addition, suggestions and pedagogical implications of this study can be
utilized to aid teachers of English and learners of Enlish at Hoa Lu University in Ninh Binh
province in the process of studying and learning English because in the school year of
2009-2010, the first English majored students will be trained to become junior secondary
teachers of English for Ninh Binh Province.
2. Aims of the study:

The study is aimed at:


providing as exhaustive as possible a description of the basic tunes in English and
English deontic modality in terms of forms, functions, features and meanings.



giving systematic description of two semantic features: obligation and permission
as subtypes of deontic modality in English and studying the four basic tunes in
English as a means of conveying those two semantic features .



finding mistakes commonly made by Vietnamese learners in using Intonation as a
means of conveying deontic modality.


3



offering some suggestions on possible solutions to these mistakes and implications
on teaching intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality.

3. Scope of the study

It would be ideal for the thesis to study on intonation as a means of conveying both deontic
modality and epistemic modality. However, since the limitation of time , knowledge and
the aims of the study the writer focuses on Intonation as a means of conveying deontic
modality, more specificly, the four basic tunes in English as a means of conveying
obligation and permission in deontic modality.
4. Method of the study

In order to achieve the goal set from the beginning, a number of books and studies
in the field of intonation and modality were collected and then studied thoroughly to set up
the theoretical framework for the intonation and as well for the deontic modality.The study
was classified mainly based on the basic tunes in English by J.D.O’Connor (1991) and by
Assoc. Prof. Dr Vâ §¹i Quang in “Lecture on Principles of Phonetics and Phonology”
(2008), Nghiên cứu một số ph-ơng tiện biểu đạt nghĩa tình thái trong câu - phát ngôn
tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt- (“Th«ng Tin Khoa Häc”, Sè 3-2008). About Modality, the study
was mostly based on the opinion of Palmer (1986).
And a combination of different methods of analysis will be used in this study:
The first is the discriptive method. Basic tunes in English and semantic features of
deontic modality will be described in turns to find out how intonation can convey deontic
modality.
Secondly, an investigation was made into the intonation and the deontic modality
in order to find out the commonest mistakes made by Vietnamese learners when studying
intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality by recording, interviewing, discussing
with the Vietnamese learners of English .

Finally, a thorough analysis on the results of the study was made to give the
suggestions and implications on teaching English intonation as a means of conveying
deontic modality.
5. Design of the study

This study is designed in three parts:
Part 1 is the Introduction: this part includes the rationale, scope, aims,
methodology and design of the study.


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Part 2 is the Development: This is the main part of the study and is divided into
three main Chapters.
Chapter One is dealt with the general theoretical concepts involving the subject
under consideration.
Chapter Two discusses the intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality in
English.
Chapter Three focuses on a number of mistakes existed on the process of studying
English intonation, especially conveying deontic modality.
Part 3 is the Conclusion: This part lays out the findings of the study, draws
important conclusions and suggests implications of teaching and learning English as a
foreign language and suggestions for further research are also presented.


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Part II: Development
Chapter 1: Theoretical background
1. 1. Intonation in English

1.1.1. Definitions of English intonation
English Intonation is a very important and difficult matter in the process of
learning, studying and teaching English. There are a number of lingustists have given the
definitions of intonation.
In “Oxford Advanced Learner’s Encyclopedic Dictionary”, 1992, Oxford
University Press, intonation is defined as: “the rise or fall of the pitch of the voice in
speaking, especially as this aspects the meaning of what is said: intonation patterns.”
According to the definition of Paul Tench (1996), the lingusitic use of pitch in
untterances can be called intonation. In his definition, two things are clearly classified.
Firstly, he specifies “pitch” as the essence of intonation. Secondly, the definition futher
specifies the concern between intonation and utterances.
Barbara Bradford (1988) defined Intonation is a feature of the spoken language. It
consists of the continuous changing of the pitch of a speaker’s voice to express meanings.
The author specified that people can mean different things by using the same group of
words, arranged in the same oeder, but saying them in different ways.
J.D. O’Connor (1967) mentioned to the different attitudes of expressing a word
group, it can be said definitely or hesitantly, angrily or kindly, with interest or without
interest, “and these differences are largely made by the tunes we use: the words do not
change their meaning but the tune we use adds something to the words, and what it adds is
the spesker’s feelings at that moment; this way of using tunes is called intonation.” Here
the phonetician wanted to emphasize the important role of tunes in English and a necessary
study about the shapes as well as the meanings of tunes in English.
For Peter Roach (1983), “no definition is completely satisfactory but any attempt at
a definition must recognize that the pitch of the voice plays the most important part. Only
in very unusual situations do we speak with fixed, unvarying pitch and when we speak
normally the pitch of our voice is constantly changing.”
In sum, all the above mentioned definitions have mentioned intonation is the
change of the pitch of the voice in speaking.

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1.1.2. Functions of English Intonation
1.1.2.1. Grammatical function
According to Peter Roach (1983), with the help of intonation the listener can
recognize the grammar and syntactic structure of what being said. More clearly, the listener
is better able to realize the placement of boundaries between phrases, clauses or sentences,
the difference between questions and statements and the use of grammatical subordination
may be indicated.
Look at a typical example by Peter Roach (1983):
“ Those who sold quickly mame a profit."
This can be expressed in at least two different ways:
a/ Those who sold quickly mame a profit.
b/ Those who sold / quickly made a profit.
We can see the placement of tone-unit boundary causes the difference in the above
example. Besides, consider two different paraphrases of the sentences:
a. A profit was made by those who sold quickly.
b. A profit was quickly made by those who sold.
With this function, we are easy to clarify the different types of sentences, they can
be the declaratives, the interrogatives, the exclamatives, the requests, etc. For example, if
the speaker use the falling tune (or in the lower pitch) at the end of the statement sentence,
the listener can realize that is the declarative. But if the speaker use the rising tune (or raise
voice) at the end of the utterance, the listener can understand that is the interrogative, even
that is incomplete utterance and the expecting answer for the utterance is “Yes/ No”. For
example:
She is Peter's wife.
(falling tune at the end of the utterance, and this sentence plays a role in providing
the listener with the information that: that woman is Peter’s wife.)
She is Peter's wife.

(raising tune at the end of the utterance, and this sentence can be understand as a
question: She is Peter’s wife?)
In short, with the grammatical function, sentences can be divided into different
spoken purposes. Each kind of sentence has a suitable kind of intonation. So we can


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conclude that intonation plays an important role in expressing the grammatical meaning of
a sentence.
1.1.2.2. Attitudinal Function
This function is probably the most familar. With attitudinal function, the speaker
can express their feelings, attitudes while speaking. It helps to transfer a special meaning in
questioning and answering. It corresponds most clearly to the observation “Not what they
said but the way they said it.” (Paul Tench-1996). Here, Paul Tench wanted to emphasize
the term: “the way they said it”, that conveys the mood of the speaker or his attitude shown
to the addressee. Moreover, the speaker can give a message with different ways depending
on the his states of emotion. A message can be given politely, angrily, grumpily, warmly
and so on. Specifically:
-

The Glide-down: cofirming in categoric statement or expressing a forceful
agreement from the questionner in tag question.

-

The Dive: expressing the hesitation, uncertainty, sarcasm.

-

The Take-off: expressing the anger, annoyance.

-

The Glide-up: tranfering the interrogative meanings.

The great importance of attitudinal function of English intonation is undeniable. If a
person who has a dull voice with neither rises or falls sounds like a dull person, but one
who can express that he is bored, indignant, friendly or angry and so on by using different
pitches of his voice can have greatly good impression on the listener. Unless the learners of
English learn the appropriate way to use this function of intonation in a given situation, he
will be facing with a great risk that the listener does not understand his attitude or emotion
expressed in the sentence, for example, in his talk, he would like to express his bored or
unhappy state but with wrong intonation he seems to be expressing a very happy mood.
This misleading view of intonation must have caused unnecessary anxiety to many learners
of English.
Therefore, it is very necessary to learn this function of intonation thoroughly.
1.1.2.3. Discourse function
Looking at the larger context of speech, we can see that intonation helps the listener
to identify the given information as well as the new information. In conversation, intonation
can convey to the listener what kind response is expected. We call the above functions are
intonation’s discourse function.


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Dealing with the discourse function of intonation, we look at how information is
implied by speaker and understood by listeners in discourse with the great help of
intonation. Two main aims are easily found out when realizing the relationship between
discourse and intonation. The first main aim is the use of intonation to focus the listener’s

attention on what is the most significant information in the speaker’s utterance. The second
main one is concerned with the regulation of conversational behaviour.
With this function, the tonic stress plays an important part in it. The tonic stress
usually falls on the most important words of the sentence. Many discourse analysts’ideas
point out that tonic stress and pitch movement are exploited by speakers to mark not only
the information which the speaker presents but also the beginning of a speaker’s turn, the
beginning of new topic, special emphasis or constrast.
Furthermore, this function of intonation is considered the most important part in the
conversational interaction of two or more speakers. Based on it, the listeners are easy to
identify what each speaker is actually doing in spaeking, such as questioning, challenging,
advising, encouraging, disappointing and so on. In a more general way, the speakers
indicate to others that they have finished speaking, that another person is expected to speak,
that a particular type of response is required, etc.
In short, be copetent with this fuction, we are easy to take the initiative in mastering
English and we always achieve great success in our speech or conversation.
1.1.2.4. Accentual function
The term “Accentual” is derived from “accent” which is used to refer to “stress”. So
accentual function here means the placement of stress, or more specifically, the tonic
stress.
With this function, the speaker can specialize the tonic stress or unstressed word in
the speaking utterancesto highlight that this word is the most important. Commonly, the
position of the tonic syllable is on the last lexical word (e.g. Noun, Adjective, Verb,
Adverb...). However, for the contrastive or emphatic purposes, any word may become the
tonic syllable. Compare:
Example:

Did Mary broke the vase yesterday morning?
Did Mary broke the vase yesterday morning?
Did Mary broke the vase yesterday morning?
Did Mary broke the vase yesterday morning?

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Generally, the focus is on “morning”. However, the focus on dofferent words result
different understandings as following interepreting:
If the focus is on “Mary”, it means “Mary or someone else broke the vase?”
If the focus is on “vase”, it means “Mary broke the vase or something else?”
If the focus is on “yesterday”, it means “Mary broke the vase yesterday or some day
else?”
In sum, placement of tonic stress is important and is closely linked to intonation.
With this function of intonation, the speaker can convey the essential information to lead to
the success of communication.
1.1.3. Basic tunes of English Intonation.
A number of the phoneticians classify tunes in various ways such as Paul Tench
(1981) has classified them in 5 tunes: falling, rising-high, rising- low, falling-rising-falling,
rising-falling.
Whereas Vasilyez says that there are eight nuclear tunes: high-falling, low-falling,
high-rising, low-rising, rising-falling, falling-rising, rising-falling-rising, and level tone.
However, many English language learners and researchers find that the best way to
classify basic tunes in English by J.D.O’ Connor (1991). He classified them into four basic
tunes: The Glide-down (The Fall), The Glide-up (the first rising tune), The Dive (The
falling-rising tune), The Take-off (the second rising tune).
In this study, the writer takes the view of J.D.O’Connor into considerartion,
specifically:
1.1.3.1. The Glide - down (The Fall)
- Form:

- Intonation Marking:

( )

- Description: The falling-tune consists of a fall in the voice from a fairly high pitch to a
very low one.
+ On a single syllable:
Example:

Ten

+ On more than one syllable:

Yes


10

Example:

Tenpence

Definitely

+ When there is more than one important word in the group:
Example:

What was the matter with that?

+ In group with more than three important words:
Example:

How can I possibly pay him two hundred pounds?

+ Unstressed syllables before the stressed syllable of the first important word:
Example:

I was very glad

+ Any stressed syllable near the beginning:
Example:

I taught him all I know

- Functions:
+ We use the Glide - down for statements whichs are complete and definite.
Example:

I ' wouldn't 'mind 'seeing it

a gain

+ We use the Glide - down for Wh - question:
Example:

'Why did you 'change your

mind?

+ We use the Glide - down for short questions used as responses:
Example:

(I went to cinema last night) Did

you?

+ We use the Glide - down to seek for agreemen in question - tag;
Example:

It's cold today,

isn't it? (Forcing the answer "yes").

+ We use the Glide - down for strong commands:
Example:

' Come and ' have

dinner with us!

+ We use the Glide - down for strong exclamations:
Example:

' Good

Heavens!


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1.1.3.2. The glide - up (The First Rising Tune)
- Form:

- Intonation marking: ( )
- Description: The Rising Tune is just like the Falling except that it ends with a rise on the
voice
+ On one syllable
Example:

Two

Eight

+ The stressed syllable of the last important word is low:
Example:

Are you married?

+ The stressed syllable of the last important word is low:
Example:

Have you posted it to him?

- Functions:
+ We use the Glide - up for statement intended to be soothing:
Example:

I shan't be long

+ We use the Glide - up if the statement is intended as a question:
Fof example:

You love him?

+ We use the Glide - up if we want WH - question to show as much interest in the other
person as the subject.
Example:

'How's your daughter?

+ With yes/no question, we use the glide - up:
Example:

'Can I see it?

+ We use the Glide - up for greeting and saying good - bye:
Example:

'Good morning

+ For exclamations which refer to something not very exciting or unexpected:


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Example:

Thank you

1.1.3.3. The take - off (The second Risng Tune)
- Form:
- Intonation marking:

( )

- Description: The Take - off also ends with the rise like the Glide - up but any words and
syllables before the rise are low:
Example:

I was only trying to help him with it

+ All the syllables before the rise are said on the same low pitch as the beginning of the
rise:
Example:

You didn't really hurt yourself

- Functions:+ We use the Take - off for a grumble:
Example:

You can't

'

'

possibly do that (you ought to know bettr)

'

'

+ For repetition questions or repeating some information:
Example:

Where did you do last night?
Where did

'

'

I

+ For tag questions after commands:
Example:

'Come over

'

go last

'

night?

here, will you?

+ For tag question with both statement and the tag - question have "not" or don't have
"not".
Example:

You liked it,

did you?

+ When you don't want the other person to agree with you, but to give his opinion:
Example:

You are 'coming to

tea with us,

+ For exclamations which are questioning
Example:

Really?

Oh?

aren't you?


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1.1.3.4. The Dive (The Falling - Rising tune)
- Form:
(V )

- Intonation marking:
- Description:

+ On one syllable:
Example:

Why?

+ On several syllables:
Example:

Seventy of them

+ Words or syllables before the fall are said in the same way as for the glide - down and
glide - up:
Example:

I may be able to come on Monday

- Functions:
+ If the statement is not complete but leading to a following word group, we use the Dive:
When'ever he 'come to Vvisit us (he tries to borrow money)

Example:

+ For statements which show seservations on the part of the speaker we use the Dive:
I could 'take you 'there Vtomorrow (but not to day)

Exaple:
or:

It 'wasn't a 'very 'nice 'thing to Vdo (you must admit)

+ For the statement whichs is a correction of what someone has said, we use the Dive:
Example:

(I like him a lot).

You used to like him

+ For statement which is a warning, we use the dive:
Example:

You 'musn't

shake it too

much

+ If the statement which has two parts, of which the first one is more important to the
meaning than the second, we use the Dive?


14

Example:

You can keep it if you really

want it

+ If you want the command to sound like a pleading request, we use the Dive:
Example:

Send it as soon as you can

1.1.4. Summary
In this part, the writer has given a systematical presentation of a number of concepts on
intonation in English from different linguists, its four main functions, and its four basic
tunes with the clear description on the view of J.D.O’ Connor paving the way for the
discussion in the next chapter.
1.2. Modality in English

1.2.1. Definitions of Modality
In English language, modality has been a clear reflection of its key role and seems
to be essentially subjective, i.e it refers to the speaker’s opinion or attitude. It can be easily
understandable because in everyday conversations and in different contexts, all utterances
show the purpose, attitude or assessement of the speaker. Viewing from a speaker’sevaluation approach, Keifer (1997) stated that modality is “the speaker’s cognitive,
emotive, or volitive attitude toward a state of affairs”.
Palmer (1986) defines modality as semantic information associated with the
speaker’s attitude or opinion about what is said.
Bybee (1985) gives a broader definition: what the speaker is doing with the whole
proposition.
To some extent, both of those liguists have the same views on modality that
concerns entire statements, not just events or entities, and its domain is the whole
expression at truth-functional level.
In Lyons (1977), modality is said to be the speaker’s opinion or attitude towards
“the proposition that the sentence expresses or the situation that the proposition describes”.
And for Frawley (1992), modality semantically reflects a speaker’s attitude or
degrees of awareness of the content of a proposition.
In sum, all the above-mentioned definitions show that those linguists have one thing
in common seeing that modality describes the speaker’s attitude or judgement toward the
proposition and not the proposition itself. The notional content of modality hightlights its

association with entire statements. Modality concerns the factual status of information, it
signals the relative actuality, validity, or believability of the content of an expression.


15

Modality affects the overall assertability and thus takes the entire proposition with its
scope.
1.2.2. Types of Modality in English
Not all linguists agree with one another about the types of modality. They have
different classifications of types of modality. However, most of them have the same idea
about two main kinds of modality:
(a) to comment on and evaluate an interpretation of reality.
(b) to intervene in and bring about changes in events.
Therefore, a number of ideas of different linguists on types of modality can be
considered as follow:
Von Wright (1951) in “studying modal logic” distinguishes four types of modality:
a) the Alethic modes
b) the Epistemic modes
c) the Deontic modes
d) the Existential modes
An important thing here is the distinction between two types of modality: the Epistemic
and the Deontic. It can be illustrated for clearer understandings in the following examples:
a1: John may be there by now.
a2: You may come in now.
b1: John must be there by now.
b2: You must come in by now.
May, in general, expresses “possibility” but in a2 may expresses “permission”. Similarly
to the use of must, in b1 must expresses possibility but in b2 refers to obligation.
Therefore, may in a1 and must in b1 express the Epistemis modes and may in a2 and

must in b2 refer to the Deontic modes. Two types of modality mentioned here are
considered the most important and popular in different languages. Thus, most of modality
researchers later have mentioned and analysed.
N. Rescher (1968) in “Topics in Philosophical logic” refers to a system of types of
modality. Apart from: the Alethic, the Epistemic, the Deontic, the Existential, he has
mentioned to other five ones: the Temporal, the Boulomaic, the Evaluative, the Causual and
the Conditional.


16

John Lyons (1977) distinguishes “Epistemic Modality” from “Deontic Modality”.
In his opinion, Epistemic modality is concered with the matters of knowledge and belief,
and Deontic modality, on the other hand, concerned with the necessity or possibility of acts
performed by morally responsible agent.
Palmer (1990) also distinguishes “Epistemic Modality” from “Deontic Modality” in
which Epistemic modality is refered to the speaker’s relation to propositions and Deontic
modality is concerned with the his active relation to events.
In short, with the opinions of different linguists on the types of modality, two types
of modality: Deontic and Epistemic, are the most popular and they are also taken into
consideration in the following parts.
1.2.2.1. Epistemic Modality
In general understanding, epistemic modality is concerned with belief, truth,
knowledge, etc, in relation to proposition by others or by the speaker himself. In the
process of researching about epistemic modality, there also exists alot of point of views on
this problem.
Keifer and Lyons (1977) share the same idea that Epistemic modality is “concerned
with matters of knowledge and belief”.
Lew (1997) points out that epistemic modality “modifies the truth of a semantic
proposition”.

For Coates (1983), epistemic modality is “concerned with the speaker’s
assumptions or assessment of possibilities and, in most cases, indicates the speaker’s
confidence (or lack of confidence) in the truth of the proposition”.
Bybee and Fleischman (1995) state that “Epistemic are clausal- scope indicators of
a speaker’s commitment to the truth of a proposition”
Palmer (1990) gives a simple and more comprehensible definition: “Epistemic
modality indicates the degree of commitment by the speaker to what he says”. In his
opinion, epistemics can be interpreted as showing the status of the speaker’s understanding
or knowledge which included both his own judgements and the evidential he has for what
he says.
Epistemic modality is a very interesting aspect, however, within the scope of this
study, it will not be explored any further.
1.2.2.2. Deontic Modality


17

The term “Deontic” comes from a Greek word relating to the imposition of
obligations. (Lyons- 1995).
Mentioning to the deontic modality, there are also a lot of definitions of different
linguists. Palmer (1990) states that deontic modality is concerned with “influencing
actions, states or events”.
Lyons, Von Wright, cited in Palmer (1986: 18) defines “Deontic modality which is
concerned with the necessity or possibility of acts performed by morally responsible
agents”.
Nuyts (2001) states that “Deontic modality is an evaluation of the moral
acceptability, desirability or necessity of a state of affairs, i.e. it crucially involves notions
such as allowance, permission and obligation”.
According to Lew (1977) also has the same idea that deontic modality “involves the
issuing of directives and is associated with notions of such as permission or obligation”.

Linguistically, these two main meanings of deontic modality are the basis to define
prohibition and exemption in which the former means being obliged not to do something
and the later means permitting not to do something. The following examples illustrate the
types of meaning of deontic modality:
Obligation: You must leave now.
Prohibition: You mustn't leave now.
Permission: You may leave now.
Exemption: You may not leave now.
Some types of deontic modality, in the wide sense, are often expressed in lexical verbs. For
example: the verbs of hoping and wishing in English, as in:
I hope you will come.
I wish you would come.
In sum, the concepts of deontic modality are different according to different
liguists’ viewpoints. The features of deontic modality can be interpreted into: Lexical,
Semantic and Pragmatic. However, all the mentioned concepts come into two basis
semantic categories of deontic modality: Obligation and Permission. Within the scope of
this study, the writer would like to study those two semantic categories by the use of the
modal verbs in the next part.
1.2.3. Deontic Modality