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Anonymous,
351 days ago
Balance: The simple explanation of Americanization also does not apply to all cases. Strangest of all is the observation that the semi-modals, which have been strongly associated with American English, are observed to less common in American than in British English in both sets of corpora. Hence there can be no easy conclusion to the effect that American English, championing the semi-modals, is causing their extended use in British English.
http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/ucrel/floblob.html
Anonymous,
351 days ago
So, can we modify the thread statement about "have to" with this? 'When an obligation is clearly speaker-oriented must is a clear choice. When an obligation is clearly external, the choice is have to. But there are many times when a situation is neither “clearly external” nor “clearly speaker-oriented” and here in this “neutral” area many native speakers use must and have to more or less indiscriminately (Palmer, 1990).' http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/modalsinteaching.html
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MrPedantic
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590473
Fri, 21 Nov 08 11:04 PM
1. Ah, so you're using "have to" epistemically there, are you?
”
Sorry, no, old chap. It was perfectly deontic.
2. So when staff say "I have several emails to answer", you'd say that they are not necessarily expessing doentic modality, but may be expressing epistemic modality, would you?
”
Neither. They simply have emails in their inboxes.
3. But that could only be derived from an extended context/cotext, right? e.g. "The teachers said/says I must do my homework before I go to bed."
”
You mean the teacher has imposed the task?
You said that where it occurs in the UK, it is seen as an Americanism.
I've often heard it "occurring", but I've never heard it described as an Americanism, except on an ESL forum. Your statement is therefore inaccurate.
MrP
Joined on
Tue, Oct 12 2004
Veteran Member
13,616
...opella forensis / adducit febris...
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Anonymous,
350 days ago
<1. Ah, so you're using "have to" epistemically there, are you? > ]Sorry, no, old chap. It was perfectly deontic.> I see. Commissive? Volitive? Other? <Neither. They simply have emails in their inboxes.> So the e-mails don't need replying to, right? The writers of those e-mails do not " expect" a reply, right? <You mean the teacher has imposed the task?>
If your student is, rather poorly, reporting the speech of the teacher, yes. A similar situation would be the child who has had this sentence drummed into his head by his parents:
You must not tell lies!
Each time the child feels a lie coming on, he could repeatedly mutter "I must not tell lies" to himself. So we get a "report" of subjective modality, mebbe.
Anonymous,
350 days ago
<No; there is no necessity for me to write to Visser; and there is no external command or direction. I say "I have to" because I want to write to Visser.>
But some would say that "want to" is becoming an auxilary and expresses modality.
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MrPedantic
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591190
Sun, 23 Nov 08 01:42 AM
 Anonymous“<You mean the teacher has imposed the task?>
If your student is, rather poorly, reporting the speech of the teacher, yes. A similar situation would be the child who has had this sentence drummed into his head by his parents:
You must not tell lies!
Each time the child feels a lie coming on, he could repeatedly mutter "I must not tell lies" to himself. So we get a "report" of subjective modality, mebbe.
”
Are you saying that when homework is inflicted on a schoolgirl, and the schoolgirl says to herself, the night before the homework is due, "I must finish my homework before I go to bed!", that schoolgirl is "rather poorly reporting the speech of the teacher"?
MrP
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Anonymous,
349 days ago
So I guess that MrP is saying that all these can express deontic modality and are acceptible in his variety. I have to do my homework before I go to bed. I must do my homework before I go to bed. — subjective: the speaker has imposed an obligation on himself.
I have to do my homework before I go to bed.
I must do my homework before I go to bed.
— objective: the teacher has imposed the obligation on the schoolboy.
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MrPedantic
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592374
Sun, 23 Nov 08 11:58 PM
MrP is saying that the "subjective/objective" distinction is fallacious: every obligation is naturally a combination of subjective and objective requirements.
MrP
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Anonymous,
349 days ago
MrPedantic “ MrP is saying that the "subjective/objective" distinction is fallacious: every obligation is naturally a combination of subjective and objective requirements. MrP ”
Yes, we all know about reality, but we are talking about language use. Does the speaker, when choosing a modal verb, wish to indicate that "every obligation is naturally a combination of subjective and objective requirements"? If the speaker wishes to indicate the source of the obligation, what does he/she do?
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