Luận văn Thạc sĩ Modal verbs in English and their uses in writings by 10th graders at an upper secondary school in Hanoi

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

VŨ THỊ LAI

MODAL VERBS IN ENGLISH AND THEIR USES IN WRITINGS BY
10TH GRADERS AT AN UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL IN HANOI
(Động từ tình thái trong tiếng Anh và những cách sử dụng chúng
trong các bài viết của học sinh lớp 10 trường THPT Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 8220201.01

Hanoi, 2020


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

VŨ THỊ LAI

MODAL VERBS IN ENGLISH AND THEIR USES IN WRITINGS BY
10TH GRADERS AT AN UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL IN HANOI
(Động từ tình thái trong tiếng Anh và những cách sử dụng chúng
trong các bài viết của học sinh lớp 10 trường THPT Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 8220201.01
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Hoàng Văn Vân

Hanoi, 2020


DECLARATION

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project
report entitled “Modal Verbs in English and Their Uses in Writings by
10th Graders at an Upper Secondary School in Hanoi” (Động từ tình thái
trong tiếng Anh và những cách sử dụng chúng trong các bài viết của học
sinh lớp 10 trường THPT Hà Nội) submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty of Post Graduate
Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National
University, Hanoi. Except where reference indicated, no other person‟s work
has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis.

Hanoi, 2020

Vũ Thị Lai

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Hoàng
Văn Vân, Prof. Dr., for his inspiring me to do this research. If not for his

helpful material supply as well as invaluable guidance, insightful comments
and kind support, my thesis would not have been accomplished.
I also wish to thank all my lecturers in Vietnam National University,
Hanoi, Postgraduate Department for their precious lectures, which are partly
applied in this study. Particularly, I am immensely grateful to Nguyễn Thị
Minh Tâm, Dr., whose interesting and useful lectures on semantics and
modality have facilitated much my doing the research.
I am indebted to my friends both at home and abroad for their
suggestion, encouragement and enthusiasm in helping me distribute the
survey questionnaires and collect information for the study.
Finally, I owe the completion of this study to my family: my parents,
my son, my daughter and my relatives and especially my husband who gave
me understanding and encouragement throughout the study.

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ABSTRACT

Modality is important in academic written discourse as it conveys the
writer‟s attitude both to the propositions he/she makes and to the readers.
According to many researchers, the ability to use modality appropriately
contributes significantly to pragmatic aspect in English writing and may
reflect an advanced level of both linguistic and pragmatic proficiency in the
written mode. However, past research has shown that learners of English
seem to have difficulty in using modal verbs appropriately. Therefore, it is
necessary to investigate how Vietnamese learners of English use modal verbs
in their writings. For this purpose, a collection of 75 pieces of writing from 30
students in grade 10 in an upper high school in Hanoi were analyzed.
Findings indicated that Vietnamese learners of English do not use modal

verbs frequently in their writings. Besides, they tend to overuse can, should,
will and rarely use other modal verbs. Based on analysis of the students‟
writings, this study proposed possible reasons that account for these issues.
The study provided some insights in the use of modal verbs by Vietnamese
learners of English as Foreign Language and thus informed teaching of modal
verbs in the English classroom and contributed to the academic curricula
design.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION ....................................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................ iv
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ...................................................................... vi
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS ....................................... vii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................1
1.1. Rationale for the study.......................................................................................1
1.2. Aims of the study ................................................................................................2
1.3. Method of study and research questions..........................................................2
1.3.1. Method of study ................................................................................................2
1.3.2. Research questions ............................................................................................3
1.4. Scope of the study ...............................................................................................3
1.5. Significance of the study ....................................................................................3
1.6. Organization of the thesis ..................................................................................4
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................5
2.1. Modality ..............................................................................................................5

2.2. Modal Verbs .....................................................................................................11
2.3. Studies of modal verbs in writing ...................................................................17
2.4. Overview of English textbooks of grade 10 currently in use in Vietnam ...21
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................24

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3.1. The research setting .........................................................................................24
3.1.1. Students ...........................................................................................................24
3.1.2. Teachers ..........................................................................................................24
3.1.3. Facilities ..........................................................................................................25
3.2. The study ...........................................................................................................25
3.2.1. Research approach ..........................................................................................25
3.2.2. Data collections ...............................................................................................25
3.2.3. Method of data analysis ..................................................................................26
CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS .........................................................................28
4.1. Overall counts ...................................................................................................28
4.2. The use of can, should, will, may and must .....................................................30
4.3. Syntactic Analysis of Students’ Usage of Modals ..........................................33
4.4. Misuse of modal verbs .....................................................................................34
CHAPTER 5: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ...................................................36
5.1. Summary of research findings. .......................................................................36
5.2. Discussions of the findings ...............................................................................37
5.3. Recommendations for better teaching modal verbs to learners ..................39
5.3.1. For teachers .....................................................................................................39
5.3.2. For textbook designers ....................................................................................40
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION ...............................................................................42
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................44
APPENDIX ................................................................................................................ I

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: Biber et al.’s (1999) description of modal semantic class ........... 13
Table 2. Frequency counts of nine modal verbs in writing corpora. ...... 28

Figure. 1. A spatial modal tense, aspect and modality ................................ 6
(Chung & Temberlake, 1985: 47) .................................................................. 6
Figure 2. Description of modality .................................................................. 8
(Huddleston & Geoffrey, 2002: 175-177) ...................................................... 8
Figure 3: Percentage of modal verbs can, will, should, may, must in
corpora............................................................................................................ 29

vi


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS

BNC: the British National Corpus
Conv: Conversation
CEFR: The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
EFL: English as Foreign Language
ELT: English Language Teaching
LSWE: the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English
L1: first language
L2: second language
MOET: Ministry of Education and Training

VNFLPF: Six- level Foreign Language Proficiency Framework for Vietnam
VNU- ULIS: Vietnam National University- University of Languages and
International Studies.

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Rationale for the study
Modality as an important component of linguistics has been extensively
studied from syntatic, semantic and pragmatic perspectives. The study of
modality expressions within linguistics is one of the most complicated
problems. As Palmer (2003, p. 4) says “modality is realized by linguistic
terms from a wide range of grammatical classes, covering not only modal
auxiliaries and lexical verbs, but also nouns, adjectives, adverbs, idioms,
particles, mood and prosody in speech”. Even modality is

significantly

important in academic written discourse as it conveys the writer‟s attitude
both to the proposition he/ she makes and to the readers. The ability to use
modality appropriately also contributes significantly to pragmatic aspect in
English writing (Hyland, 1994; Myers, 1989) and may reflect an advanced
level of both linguistic and pragmatic proficiency in the written mode (Chen,
2010). However, modal verbs are a challenge to many English language
teachers and learners due to its complexity. According to Thompson (2002),
modals are considered a complex unit and one may not find it easy to put
together such intricacy into something that is meaningful to learners. If one
managed to reduce the complexity of the modals, English language learners

may find learning English modals to be less problematic.
Past research has shown that learners of English seem to have difficulty
in using modal verbs appropriately and that they frequently overuse or underpresent certain modal verbs meanings or forms (Hinkel, 1995; DeCarrico,
1986). This leads to the need for an examination of modal verbs and their use
by non-native speakers in the specific genre of research articles. Besides, the
teaching of English language has always been a main concern in Vietnam and

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is often vastly highlighted in the media. Several steps have been proposed in
the teaching of grammar of the foreign and second language, especially in
teaching modals. Byrd (2004) discusses the teaching and learning of modals
from the easy items to the more difficult ones. However, she discusses and
foresees that there is a problem in determining what is difficult or easy and to
whom it is difficult or easy – questions which need to be given consideration.
Unlike most research on learner corpora in which non-native speaker
corpora are compared with native speaker corpora or a comparison between
learner corpora with professional corpora, this study is set to analyze the use
of modal verbs of 10th graders‟ writings in an upper high school in Hanoi. It is
hoped that the discussion of the use of modal verbs and patterns by grade 10
students could give an understanding of the use of modal verbs by high school
students, contribute to academic writing curricula design and thus help
improve second language learners‟ academic writing competence.
1.2. Aims of the study
This study was carried out with the aim to:
 ascertain the frequent use of modal verbs by the grade 10 students in
a school in Hanoi in their writings.
 investigate how grade 10 students in a school in Hanoi use modal
verbs in their writings.

1.3. Method of study and research questions
1.3.1. Method of study
Quantitative approach was utilized in this study so as to achieve the
desired aims. In details, the following methods were employed:
Writing analysis was employed in this research. The author collected
pieces of students‟ writings in 5 topics to analyze. Students were of multiple

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English levels, so the result of the research could be reflected more
accurately.
1.3.2. Research questions
In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims, the study was conducted
to answer the following research question:
 What modal verbs do grade 10 students use in their writings and how
do they use them?
1.4. Scope of the study
According to Chung and Temberlake (1985: 25), modality in English
may be expressed grammatically or semantically by auxiliaries, verbs,
adjectives, nouns or adverbs, in which modal verbs are the most frequent
expressions of modality. Quirk et al., (1985), identified nine core modal verbs
including can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would and must, which
were also the focus of this study.
The research analyzed writing corpora of students at an upper high school
in Hanoi. The subjects were selected for this study are students in grade 10 of
three levels based on their grades of English subject at class including underaverage students, average students and good students. Due to limit of time and
resources, the researcher only analyzed students‟ writings to figure out some
findings and propose some recommendations for the research topic.
1.5. Significance of the study

The significance of the study lied in its focus on forms, modal verbs and
their use by high school students of English as a foreign language in their
writings. Information about students‟ use of modal verbs in research articles may
assist learners, their teachers and textbook writers to understand more about the
appropriate or common frequencies and functions of modal verbs use.

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EFL students and teachers also benefit from considering the
implications of the findings from the research.
The focus on modal verbs is significant because of their complexity
in both syntactical form and semantic meaning, which makes them
challenging for Vietnamese students as non-native speakers to learn and
use in any setting.
The choice to study grade 10th students‟ use of modal verbs is
important because of the potential to offer useful information to learners and
teachers. The results of this study helped to provide teachers overview about
the frequency of grade 10 students‟ use of modal verbs and how they use
modal verbs in their writings. From that, some recommendations are proposed
to better teaching students‟ use of modal verbs and promote them to use
modal verbs in their writings.
1.6. Organization of the thesis
The research includes six chapters as follows.
Chapter 1 provides a brief introduction to the issue and an overview of
the paper.
Other chapters are Literature Review (Chapter 2), Research
Methodology (Chapter 3), Data Analysis (Chapter 4), and Findings and
Discussion (Chapter 5). In greater detail, chapter 2 reviews the theoretical
background of modality and modals, the use of modal verbs in writing and

provides review of English textbook of grade 10 currently being used in
Vietnam. Chapter 3 describes the methods used to carry out the study.
Chapter 4 analyzes the data collected from students' writings. Chapter 5
provides the results of the research and discuss these findings.
Chapter 6 summarizes the main issues so far touched upon in the
research, some suggestions for the betterment of using modal verbs in writing.
Following the chapters are the references and appendices.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter is concerned with literature review of the minor thesis. It
will first examine two key concepts “modality” and “modal verbs”. Then it
will provide an overview of studies of modal verbs in writing, and of two
English textbooks of grade 10 currently in use in upper-secondary schools
throughout Vietnam: one is of the seven-year curriculum, and the other is of
the new ten-year curriculum.
2.1. Modality
Modality is one of the most complex aspects of English grammar that
many EFL learners find it very difficult to learn. However, the study of
modality in English language is regarded as the most persistent and
fascinating area of philosophical and linguistic inquiry (Hoye, 1997). Despite
the long existence, the definition has not been fully agreed upon in various
linguistic schools. In simple terms, modality is defined as the speaker's
verdict about the “necessity” and “possibility” of subjects (Huddleston,
Pullum et al, 2002). Likewise, Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik (1985)
defined modality as “the manner in which the meaning of a clause is qualified
so as to reflect the speaker‟s judgement of the likelihood of the proposition of

the sentence being true” (p. 219). Halliday (1998) also defines modality as the
expression of necessity and possibility. He claims that modality is “the
speaker‟s assessment of probability and predictability. It is the external to the
content, being part of the attitude taken up by the speaker.”
A rather different view is taken by Lyons (1977: 848, 452) who defines
modality as “the speaker‟s opinion or attitude towards the proposition that the
sentence expresses or the situation that the proposition describes.” In
traditional usage, modality is applied to subsets of inflected form of verbs and
is distinguished by means of term “indicative”, “imperative”, “subjective”,
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etc. Lyons has chosen to respect this usage because he says one of the
advantages of doing so is that it helps learners to draw a distinction, not only
between utterances and sentences but also between sentences that are subclassified as declaratives, interrogatives, jussives, permissives, etc. in terms of
syntactic features and in terms of the mood of the main verbs.
Chung & Temberlake (1985: 25) state that English sentences are
categorical or modalized. In modalized sentences, modality may be expressed
grammatically or syntactically by means of auxiliaries, or it may be expressed
in various lexical ways (for example by full verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.).
However, they further argue that grammatically modality is expressed in
terms of mood. If the mood is expressed morphologically, it is considered as
synthetic. The subcategory synthetic mood has two types, namely the
subjunctive and the imperative. Both of these are expressed by the
“inflection” (in case of the subjunctive often by be instead of is), but they can
be told apart by their behavior with respect to subjects. If mood is expressed
syntactically by means of auxiliaries, it is considered as analytic. The
subcategory analytic mood has two factors as well, namely possibility and
necessity, which are expressed by the auxiliaries may, might, can, could,
must, should, need respectively. This analysis can be illustrated in Fig 1.1.

Figure. 1. A spatial modal tense, aspect and modality
(Chung & Temberlake, 1985: 47)

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Deborah Cameron (2007) illustrated modality with an example
“[Modality] is what makes the difference between a factual assertion like
unicorns never existed, and a more guarded view, such as it seems unlikely
that unicorns could ever have existed- or a bolder claim like the existence of
unicorns must always have been a myth.” He added that speakers and writers
used modality as a resource when they are asserting claims to knowledge: it
allows them to formulate different kinds of claims and indicate how
committed they are to those claims. In general, modality refers to linguistic
device which expresses the attitude of the speaker or writer toward the state of
affairs expressed in a sentence.
Palmer (1986) states that “modality expresses the speaker‟s attitude or
opinion regarding the contents of the sentence or the proposition that the
sentence expresses”, and modality is considered as a linguistic feature that is
realized by a variety of linguistic means such as modal auxiliaries. According
to Quirk at al. (1985), modality may be considered as “the manner in which
the meaning of a clause is qualified so as to reflect the speaker‟s judgement of
the likelihood of the proposition it expressed being true.”
Downing and Locke (1995) have set forth modality as “semantic
category by which speakers express their attitudes towards the event
contained in the proposition as possibility, necessity, and temporal notions
such as usuality.”
Van der Auwera (2001: 1) states “modality has traditionally been dealt
with in relation to the analysis of semantic features associated with the

speaker‟s attitude and/ or opinion about what is said”. According to Palmer
(2001: 1), “modality is a valid cross language grammatical category that can
be the subject of a typology study”. Palmer‟s definition of modality is the
same as the view point of Matthews (2005: 228). He defines the term
modality as “category covering either of a kind of a typology study”.

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The definition of modality applied in this study is used most widely,
agreeing with the view of Huddleston & Geoffrey (2002: 172) and Palmer
(2003: 4): “modality is as category of meanings which, in verbal system, is
grammaticalized by mood.” In their usage, mood comprises modal auxiliaries.
However, expressions of modality are not limited to the verbal auxiliaries and
lexical verbs, as well as nouns, adjectives, adverbs, idioms, particles, mood,
and prosody in speech.
In analyzing the different meanings associated with modality linguistic
means, Huddleston & Geoffrey (2002: 175-180) suggests the different
expressing means of modality that have been described in flexible ways, and
have been given various meanings, i.e., model of description: any given
expression of modality will have a value on each of the three factors: kind
(epistemic to deontic), strength and degree. These are shown in Fig. 1.2 as
following:

Figure 2. Description of modality
(Huddleston & Geoffrey, 2002: 175-177)

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Huddleston & Geoffrey (2002: 175-177) explain that the group of
strength expresses the speaker‟s strength of commitment to the truth value of
a proposition and the semantic strength of an utterance. Kind can be
categorized in three subtypes: epistemic, deontic, dynamic. The third group of
modality described by Huddleston & Geoffrey (2002) is degree where they
discuss the problem of identifying modal meaning clearly. A modal element
may be difficult to recognize because it does not necessarily change the
meaning of an expression greatly. Like strength, degree of modality can also
be expressed on a scale from strong form to weak form. These categories are
often subdivided further into possibilities, inference and necessity for
epistemic; volitions, necessity, predictions and possibilities for deontic; and
abilities, possibilities, predictions, necessity and habits for dynamic.
A modality is a set of modal meanings attributed to an identical
semantic basic. In the study of modality, linguists have identified epistemic
modality, deontic modality (Lyons, 1977), dynamic modality (Palmer, 1986,
2001, 1990), and agent-oriented modality (Bybee at al., 1994), etc. The last
two types of modality have been reformed and renamed by Van der Auwera
& Plungian (1998) as participant-internal modality and participant-external
modality.
Lyons (1977) uses the term “epistemic modality” to refer to the type of
knowledge the speaker is going to say, and “deontic modality” to indicate the
speaker‟s views or stance towards what he/ she saying. Coates (1983) states
that the term “attitude” has been expanded into that of “subjectivity”
understood as “subject or speaker‟s involvement” in order to emphasize both
types of modality. Therefore, it can be said that modality is concerned with
the expression of the speaker‟s involvement towards the propositional content
of an utterance, whether in form of agency or subjective. Quirk at al., (1985:
112) discuss modality as "constraining factors of meaning, namely in terms of
9

intrinsic and extrinsic modality. Intrinsic modality indicates “permission”,
“obligation”, and “volition” that refer to deontic. Extrinsic modality signifies
“possibility”, “necessity”, and “prediction” that imply epistemic. Dik (1989),
who bases his observation on previous work by Hengeveld (1987, 1988),
suggests three types of modality: (i) inherent modality, which denotes
"relations like “ability” and “willingness” between a participant and the
realization of the state of affairs in which he is involved; (ii) objective
modality, which signals the speaker‟s evaluation of the likelihood of
occurrence of a state of affairs (in terms of certainty or obligation), (iii)
subjective modality, which expresses the speaker‟s commitment to the truth of
what he says.
Halliday (1994: 357) differentiates modality types further; i.e., (i)
epistemic modality (which he labels modalization) conveys either probability
or possibility; (ii) deontic modality (what he calls modulation) expresses
either obligation or inclination. Modalization is typically realized as
indicative, while modulation is considered as imperative; (iii) dynamic
modality (what he calls ability/ potentiality). However, he claims that
ability/potentiality is one further category that lies outside the epistemicdeontic system and that corresponds to inherent modality in Dik‟s division.
In general, modality can express a wide range of semantic meanings
which can be obligatory, necessary, requesting, permissible and so on. These
meanings can be expressed through a variety of formal and lexical means
such as the morphological mood of the verb (indicative, subjunctive,
indicative), sentence adverbials (e.g. maybe, perhaps, possibly, necessarily),
modal auxiliaries (e.g. can, may, must, should), and syntactic means.
However, modal verbs are the most common devices being used and they are
also the focus of this study.

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2.2. Modal Verbs
Cambridge Dictionary (2019) defines modal verb as “a verb used with
another verb to express an idea such as possibility that is not expressed by the
main verb”. It also claims that the modal verbs in English include can, could,
may, might, must, shall, should, will, and would. They also have been
identified in past literature as core modals (Quirk et al., 1985; Biber,
Johansson, Leech, Conrad & Finegan, 1999). Likewise, according to Biber et
al (1999) can, could, may, might, must, shall, should and will are classified
into the category of central modal verbs. These modal verbs can be used to
express the modal meanings of permission, possibility, ability, obligation,
necessity, volition, and prediction. These verbs forms are distinguished from
lexical verbs by the following characteristics (Halliday, 1976):
1. They have no finite, to, -ing, -ed, etc. forms: * “maying, to may”.
2. Negative and interrogative forms are made without expansion. It is
not necessary to include a “to do” or “to be” form when creating questions or
making negative statements with modal verbs. “He will not”. “Can she go?"
rather than * “Is she can go?” and * “He doesn‟t will”.
3. Negative forms are reducible. They can be contracted, as in “I can‟t
write this paper.” “I won‟t be able to finish.”
4. They can be used as “code verbs” in ellipsis. This means that when two
equivalent clauses using a modal verb occur together, the second clause does not
need to repeat the accompanying lexical verb, as in, “I can go. So can she.” In
this case, the second modal verb (can) represents the lexical verb (go).
5. They do not require a third person singular -s: * “She cans.”
6. They are not found in imperative clauses.
7. They do not combine with each other and do not co-occur in a clause
(except in some nonstandard dialects: “She might could go.”).

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Despite these clear characteristics, Biber at al (1999) argue that the
distinction between modal verbs and lexical verbs is not completely clear.
Some normally non-modal lexical verbs can also function as modal verbs,
especially in spoken contexts. These forms are classified in two categories.
Marginal modal verbs include need to, dare to, used to and ought to. Quasimodals include had better, have to, have got to, be supposed to, be going to
and can co-occur with modal verbs (Collins, 2009: 15).
This study‟s focus, based on the defining characteristics of modal
verbs, is on the nine core modal verbs: can, could, may, might, must, shall,
should, will, and would.
While the list of modal verbs is fairly limited, the list of possible
semantic functions of these verbs fulfill is rather extensive. There is not a
one-to-one correspondence of meaning and form, and most modal verbs can
fill more than one semantic function. Different modal verbs can have different
meanings when they are used in different contexts. According to Biber et al.
(1999), modal verbs can be divided into three main categories based on their
meanings.
1) “Permission/ possibility/ ability”: can, could, may, might
2) “Obligation/ necessity”: must, should
3) “Volition/ prediction”: will, would, shall
The following table is the classification of the semantic functions of
modal verb.

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Table 1: Biber et al.’s (1999) description of modal semantic class
Meaning

Definition

Example

CAN
1. Permission evidence of some condition Can I have some? (conv,
that determines whether an LSWE)
agent is or is not permitted to You can read my book. (conv,
do something

LSWE)
Can I have an apple please?
(BNC)

2. Possibility

express the degree to which A brief view of the century as
something

is

possible: a

whole

can

be

useful.

inanimate noun/dummy it + (textbook)
can

+

linking

verb

+

adjective/ noun phrase; or
Inanimate noun + can + main
verb
3. Ability

evidence of an animate agent I can hear what she’s saying
that is capable of doing to somebody (conv, LSWE)
He goes, I can’t swim. (conv,

something

LSWE)

COULD
1. Permission used in its past tense to refer And we didn’t know we could
to permission

see her. (conv, LSWE)
She had the nerve to ask me if

she could sit at the end of our
table. (conv, LSWE)


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Meaning
2. Possibility

Definition

Example

express the degree to which That could be her. (conv,
something was possible

LSWE)

It could be anything you
choose. (conv, LSWE)

3. Ability

evidence of an animate agent They asked me and I just
that was capable of doing couldn’t
something in the past

refuse.

(conv,

LSWE)
I couldn’t feel my hand.


MUST
1. Obligation express

an

agent‟s We must be careful to avoid

responsibility to do something several

logical

pitfalls.

(textbook)
We must get up early. (conv,
LSWE)

2. Necessity

logically

conclude

that It must have something to do

something is likely/ necessary with the government. (study
based on evidence available group)
to the speaker/ writer

She must have left already.
(conv, LSWE)

SHOULD
1. Obligation the agent is obliged to do You
something
2. Necessity

Logically

should

relax.

(con,

LGSWE)
conclude

that That should have been Sydney

something is likely/necessary (textbook)
based on evidence available

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Meaning

Definition

Example

MAY
1. Possibility

express agent‟s doubt in the So you may not see it as a
truth of proposition (Coates, joke. (conv, LSWE)

1983) or slight possibility

That may be wrong, though.
(conv, LSWE)

It may rain tomorrow. (conv,
LSWE)

2. Permission refer to present or future time Please may I go to the toilet?
when

used

to

ask

for (conv, LSWE).

permission or to make a polite You may do some maths if you
request and giving permission want to (conv, LSWE)
to the agent

You may do your language
work if you want to. (conv,
LSWE)

MIGHT
1. Possibility

express agent‟s doubt in the It
truth of proposition

might

rain

tomorrow.

(conv, LSWE)

2. Permission refer to present or future time She said I might go. (conv,
when used that the agent was LSWE)
permitted to do something
SHALL
1. Prediction

make predictions that are not We shall be away on holiday
completely certain or definite

for

a

fortnight

Wednesday 29 August.
2. Volition

I shall help you.


express intention

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from


Meaning

Definition

Example

WILL
1. Prediction

make predictions that are not Gas prices will drop soon.
completely certain or definite

2. Volition

express immediate decisions “And then I’ll take you home
to get it.”

or intention
WOULD
1. Prediction

be

used

for

future

time The President is proposing a

reference when there is a new
sense

of

possibility

bill

that

would

or significantly change Social

capability. It is generally Security.
regarded

as

a

weaker

alternative to will when used
in this sense.
2. Volition

express immediate decisions I would give it back. (conv,
or intention

LGSWE)
I would just read the book as
well. (conv, LGSWE)
( Biber et al.,1999: 485 )

It can be seen from the table that the same modal verbs sometimes are
used to express different functions like that of “probability”, “possibility” and
“certainty”, and of “inclination”, “ability”, “permission” and “obligation”.
From the pragmatic perspective, Halliday (1994) attaches the values of
high, medium and low to different modal verbs. Halliday and Hasan (1989)
divided modal verbs in terms of their pragmatic values as follows.
High value modals: must, ought to, need, and have to;

Intermediate value modals: will, would, shall, should;
Low value modals: may, might, can, could.
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