Search results for 'tag:Predicates tag:Modals' matching tags 'Predicates' and 'Modals'

Re: The infinitive "to be"

CalifJim — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 02:34:32 GMT

Your questions reveal the limitations of the traditional technical vocabulary for discussing grammatical structures!

You can think of infinitives as a direct objects of the verb want.
On the other hand, want takes a clause as its complement.

I want (He helps us).

But the complement clause is expressed with an infinitive. He helps us >> him to help us.
The final, correct form of I want (He helps us) is I want him to help us.

When the subject of want is the same as the subject of the complement clause, the subject in the complement clause is deleted:

I want (I am a doctor) >> I want me to be a doctor >> I want me to be a doctor >> I want to be a doctor.

In the same way:

She wants (She is happy) >> She wants her to be happy >> She wants ~~her~~ to be happy. >> She wants to be happy.

In the first of these a doctor is a predicate noun/nominative, as you say. And in the second, happy is a predicate adjective, as you say.
___________

The other pattern is quite different. is/are/was/were to be is a semi-modal construction with an idiomatic meaning. The whole pattern (in brackets below) can be analyzed as a verb phrase.

She [is to be] a doctor.

CJ

Re: Modal Substitutes

Inchoateknowledge — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 10:12:59 GMT

CalifJim wrote:
I - pronoun subject
am - linking verb
allowed - predicate adjective
to ride - infinitive complement of allowed
the roller coaster - noun phrase object of ride

Alternately, depending on the analytical technique you are using, the sentence is derived by transformations of the underlying structure:

someone allow [ I ride the roller coaster ]

CJ

It is another interpretation of grammarians.

I like mine more

Re: Modal Substitutes

CalifJim — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 01:01:26 GMT

I - pronoun subject
am - linking verb
allowed - predicate adjective
to ride - infinitive complement of allowed
the roller coaster - noun phrase object of ride

Alternately, depending on the analytical technique you are using, the sentence is derived by transformations of the underlying structure:

someone allow [ I ride the roller coaster ]

CJ

Re: Is there any difference between "be able to" and "can"?

Schetin — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 23:52:18 GMT

Anonymous wrote:

Are you able to help me with my homework? (seems to me that this sentence should be used in a situation in which I am not sure that the person I'm addressing has the knowledge to help me )

This would rather be 'Are you capable of helping me with my homework?' I guess.

As for 'able to' this is the way I see it (this is only an opinion): it's good as an equivalent of 'can' in situations where you can't use the latter (in English you can't use two modals in the same predicate, so the second will be substituted by an equivalent, e.g.: He will/should/must be able to help you). Apart from that, when you want to avoid contextual ambiguity of the meaning of 'can' you can use 'able', say: 'They are able to help you, but what makes you think they can?'

2 coins,

Slava

Re: Modal verbs

milky — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 07:25:44 GMT

Anonymous wrote:
Sorry Milky, for my butting in. I followed your discussion, and I wanted to hear your opinion about the following comments:

CalifJim wrote:

In any case, I thought the difference was supposed to lie along the speaker-oriented vs. subject-oriented axis, not the epistemic vs. deontic axis, so I still don't see what difference it makes whether you call the first one epistemic or deontic, or even 'neutral', another of Palmer's classifications. (emphasis is mine)

I feel that terms such as speaker-oriented are not as well defined as terms such as "deontic" and "epistemic". Have a look at these definitions:

speaker-oriented modality: epistemic modality, which applies to a whole proposition and communicates the speaker's stance concerning its truth. Opposed to agent-oriented modality and subject-oriented modality. Palmer (1990: 7) says âepistemic and deontic modality relate to the speakerâ (i.e. they are concerned with the speakers - or reported speakers - and their judgments and desires).

However, in an earlier work (1974: 100-3) he talks of âdiscourse-oriented modalityâ (deontic modality in questions and requests, which involve both interlocutors) and âspeaker-oriented modalityâ (deontic statements, where the speaker is the deontic souce).

Bybee (1995) seems to use speaker-oriented modality in a different way to refer to speech acts that aim at getting something done: imperatives, optatives, permissives.

........

subject-oriented modality: âascribes a certain property to the subject of a clauseâ; one of the three types of modality for Huddleston (1988: 78-9). SEE: type of modality. Palmer defines dynamic modality at subject oriented (1990: 36, since it refers to the ability of will of the subject, rather than the opinions (epistemic) or attitudes (deontic) of the speaker (and addressee)). later, however, he divides dynamic modality into subject-orientated (I can swim) and neutral (='it is possible/necessary forâ¦')

.........

agent-oriented modality: a supercategory proposed by Bybee (1985) and used by used by Bybee & Fleischman (1995: 5) applying to all modalities in which conditions are predicated on an agent (obligation, desire, ability, permission and root possibility). It is opposed to speaker-oriented modality (speech acts that aim at getting something done: imperatives, optatives, permissives) and to epistemic modality which applies to a whole proposition and communicates the speaker's stance concerning its truth. It seems to boil down to the same thing as 'root modality' (i.e. a combination of deontic and dynamic modalities).

...........

subjective vs. objective epistemic modality: âAlfred may be unmarriedâ (= (subjectively) âperhaps Alfred...â, or = (objectively) âI know that there is a possibility that Alfred...â) (Lyons 1977: 797-8). S.m. refers to the speakerâs beliefs, o.m. refers to reality (and can be denied, questioned, can be included in if-clauses and embedded under factive predicates: I know that...). Subjective epistemic modality âseems to be in many ways more basic in natural language than objective epistemic modalityâ (Keifer 2518b) and Coates confirms that 'in the majority of cases Epistemic modals are subjective and Root modals are objective' (1983: 33).

http://dinamico.unibg.it/anglistica/slin/modgloss.htm

MrPedantic wrote:

In the epistemic structures, the utterance relates to inferring states of affairs.
("Since X is the case, Y is the case.")

In the deontic structures, the utterance relates to influencing the course of events.
("Since X is the case, Y is necessary.")

(emphasis is mine, again)

F.

Can I get back to you later on that as I am on the phone to students all of this morning?

Re: both

paco2004 — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 00:31:10 GMT

"a" is more common but "b" is not so bad.

"Both" in attributive uses commonly behaves like a middle-positional adverb in its position.

The middle-positional adverbs are positioned like:
(1) When the main verb is not "be" and the main stands as a finite (=tense/person bearing) verb, the adverbs are put between the subject and the main verb.
      (EX) They both like flowers.
(2) When the main verb is a finite form of "be", the adverbs are put after the "be".
      (EX) They are both young.
This construct is problematic when the predicate consists of two words: "They are both young and pretty". In this case, you'd better say "Both of them are young and pretty" or "They both are young and pretty".
(3) When the verbal is a complex one with auxiliary/modal verbs, the adverbs are put after the first (finite) verb.
      (EX) They were both christened at St Peter's.
      (EX) I hoped you would both be good students.
      (EX) They said they had both been learning English.

paco

Re: Could/Can

Anonymous — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 10:40:37 GMT

Paco2004 wrote:
Hello Anon

I'm sorry but I have to say all of your sentences sound a bit weird. The conjunction "No matter how" is usually followed by an indicative (non-modal) predication. #4 is wrong because of tense mismatch between the concessive and main clauses.

(EX) No matter how hard he tries, he can't do it.
(EX) No matter how hard he tried, he couldnât do it.

paco

Hi Paco

I'm having trouble with your terminology. 'No matter how' doesn't have a predicate as it's not the subject of the subordinate clause. Look at them transposed:

He can't do it [eat a hundred eggs], no matter how hard he may try.

He couldn't do it [eat a hundred eggs], no matter how hard he might try.

'Can't' and 'couldn't' are in the present/future and refer to his lack of ability. I'd like to know what the difference between 'can't' and 'couldn't' is in these sentences.

Thanks

Terminology Term

Thebest — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 07:35:04 GMT

What are they mean?

1) hypotactic clause

Is it a dependent clause or main clause?

2) delected functional element?

3) deontic modal

4) cicumstantial clause

Is it an adverb clause of place?

5) anticipatory subject

Is it the word "it" when it used as grammatical subject of verb and the real subject is an infinitive or a noun clause comes after the predicate verb.

Please help.

Re: It's amazing!

muratsekerci — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 22:14:30 GMT

hi agent c

we are discussing the translations of sentences and some types of examples in montague grammer.

this is my "formal semantics" lesson in school.

i don't know well this issue but Roro helped me much.
so i increase my knowledge a bit with discussing.

this is the first handout of the lesson:
------------------------------------------------------

Introduction to Logic

Logic as the Science of Reasoning

Logic can be defined as the science of reasoning or the science of relationships between meanings. Argumentation is an important application of reasoning. The trains of reasoning studied in logic are called arguments, or argument schemata. The business of logic is to find out what it is that makes a valid argument (or a valid inference) valid.

An argument can be conveniently seen as a finite collection of declarative sentences in some language, where a single sentence is distinguished as the conclusion, and where the other sentences constitute the premises. An argument is valid iff it is not possible for the premises all to be true while the conclusion is false. In other words, if the premises were all true, then the conclusion would have to be true. So a valid argument has no possible counterexample. A sound argument is a valid argument with true premises.

Some Examples of Valid Arguments

Below are a few examples of valid arguments:

(1) John will come to the party, or Mary will come to the party.
John will not come to the party.
---------------------------------------
Mary will come to the party.

(2) John will come to the party, or Mary will come to the party.
If John has not found a baby sitter, he will not come to the party.
John has not found a baby sitter.
---------------------------------------
Mary will come to the party.

(3) All airplanes can crash.
All DC-10s are airplanes.
-------------------------------
All DC-10s can crash.

(4) John is a teacher.
John is friendly.
-------------------------------------
Not all teachers are unfriendly.

(5) All fish are mammals.
Moby Dick is a fish.
------------------------------
Moby Dick is a mammal.

All of these examples are valid: anyone who accepts that their premises are true will also have to accept that their conclusions are true. Take (1) for instance. Anyone can see that (1) is a valid argument without even being able to ascertain the truth or falsity of its premises.

Validity of an Argument and the Truth or Falsity of its Premises and Conclusion

Apparently one does not even need to know who Mary and John are, let alone anything about their behavior with respect to parties, in order to say that the argument in (1) is valid (i.e. in order to say that if the premises are all true, then so must its conclusion be.

That the premises of a valid argument can even be plainly false is apparent from example (5). Obviously both premises of this argument are false, but that does not stop the argument as a whole from being valid. If one were to accept that the premises were true, then one would also have to accept the conclusion.

Not only is the factual truth of the premises not necessary for argument to be valid, it is not sufficient either. This is clear from the following example:

(6) All horses are mammals.
All horses are vertebrates.
-----------------------------------
All mammals are vertebrates.

Both the premises and the conclusion of ( 6 ) are in fact true, but that does not make ( 6 ) valid. Accepting the truth of its premises does not involve accepting that of the conclusion, since it is easy to imagine situations in which all of the former are true, while the latter, as the result of a somewhat different mammalian evolution, is false.

Argument Schemata

But if it is not the truth or falsity of the premises and the conclusion of an argument which determine its validity, what is it then? Let us return to example (1). We have pointed out that we do not even have to know who John is in order to say that the argument is valid. The validity of the argument actually has nothing to do with John Personally, as can be seen if we exchange him for someone else, say Peter. If we write âPeterâ instead of âJohnâ, the argument remains valid:

(7) Peter will come to the party, or Mary will come to the party.
Peter will not come to the party.
---------------------------------------
Mary will come to the party.

The name âJohnâ is not the only expression which can be exchanged for another while retaining the validity of the argument:

(8) Peter will come to the meeting, or Mary will come to the meeting.
Peter will not come to the meeting.
---------------------------------------
Mary will come to the meeting.

If we try out all of the alternatives, it turns out that or and not are the only expressions which cannot be exchanged for others. Thus (9) and (10), for example, are not valid arguments:

(9) John will come to the party, or Mary will come to the party.
John will come to the party.
---------------------------------------
Mary will come to the party.

(10) John will come to the party if Mary will come to the party.
John will not come to the party.
---------------------------------------
Mary will not come to the party.

From this it is apparent that the validity of (1) depends only on the fact that one of the premises consists of two sentences linked together by the conjunction or, that the other premise is a denial of the first sentence in that premise, and that the conclusion is the second sentence. And (1) is not the only argument whose validity depends on this fact. The same applies to (7) and (8), for example. We say that (1), (7), and ( 8 ) have a particular form in common, and it is this form which is responsible for their validity. This common form may be represented schematically like this:

(11) A or B
Not A
--------
B

These schematic representations of arguments are called argument schemata. The letters A and B stand for arbitrary sentences. Filling in actual sentences for them, we obtain an actual argument. Any such substitution into schema (11) results in a valid argument, which is why (11) is said to be a valid argument.

The âformâ we said could be represented by (11) is more than just a syntactic construction. The first premise is not just two sentences linked by a conjunction, for it is also important what conjunction we are dealing with. A different argument schema is obtained if the conjunction or in (11) is replaced by another conjunction, say, if:

(12) A if B
Not A
--------
B

This schema is not valid. One of the substitutions for A and B is, for example, (10), and that is not a valid argument. That expressions other than the conjunctions can lead to arguments being valid becomes apparent if we examine example (5) in more depth. Considerations similar to those for (1) lead to the following argument schema for (5):

(13) All P are Q
a is P
-------
a is Q

In this schema the letters P and Q stand for expressions which refer to properties, and a stands for an expression which refers to an individual or an entity, that is, to a material or an abstract object. It will be clear that every substitution for a, P, and Q results in a valid argument; (5) is one example of these. The validity of this schema derives from, among other things, the meaning of the quantifying expression all. Other examples of quantifying expressions to be found in argument schemata are some and no.

Logical Constants and Logical Systems

To sum up, logic, as the science of reasoning, investigates the validity of arguments by investigating the validity of argument schemata. Argument schemata are abstractions which remove all those elements of concrete arguments which have no bearing on their validity and keep those expressions that play a part in this issue.

In fact, there is no such thing as a universal logic which characterizes all valid arguments. In practice, different logical systems are developed, each with its own particular class of arguments. What class this is or, equivalently, what logical system we have, depends on the kinds of expressions on whose meanings the validity of arguments is based on. The expressions which play this part in a logical system are called its logical constants, since within that system their meaning is completely fixed. Below are some sets of logical constants associated with the logical system which they are treated in:

(14) LOGICAL CONSTANTS LOGICAL SYSTEMS

and, or, if (â¦then), if an only if, it is not the cased that----------- Propositional Logic
all, some--------------------------------------------------------------- First-Order Predicate Logic
possibly, necessarily ------------------------------------------------ Modal Logic
it was the case that, it will be the case that ----------------------- Tense Logic
believe, know, etc.--------------------------------------------------- Intensional Logic

The set of possible logical constants is an open one. We could give some more examples of expressions for which logical systems have in fact been developed, but it turns out to be extremely difficult to specify the set of all expressions for this would make sense.

We should, finally, note that enlarging our set of logical constants is not the only way new logical systems can be developed. We can also consider the same set of logical constants under a new interpretation.This too results in a different class of valid argument schemata. So besides so-called classical propositional logic we have, among other alternatives, intuitionistic propositional logic, in which the same logical constants receive a slightly different interpretation. Strictly speaking, then, a logical system is characterized by its logical constants together with the interpretations placed on them. However, the dimension of devoloping new logical systems via variations in interpretation will remain outside the scope of this course.

Re: Basic semantic meanings of modal auxiliaries

Roro — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 06:48:21 GMT

Dear milky. Sorry for my slow reply.
I promised you to make a rough sketch of P.Ricoeur's thesis a few days ago ... but I cannot !

It will be not fair to P.Ricoeur, if I use his thesis as invoking my argument:
.

I consider some of his thought as valid to refute your argument, though, at my own discretion. And what I wanted to say is contained in the quote made above already. (If I want to expand on that, I have to study Hermeneutics from the basics ...) I hope you would understand me.

I'd like to quote from Time and Narrative my favorite passage instead:

To take up again one of my earlier statements.
I will say that, for me, the world is the whole set of references opened by every sort of descriptive or poetic text I have read, interpreted, and loved.
To understand these texts is to interpolate among the predicates of our situation all those meanings that, from a simple environment (Umwelt ), make a world (Welt ).