SOME FEATURES AND USES OF MODAL VERBS IN SHAKESPEARE'S LANGUAGE ACCORDING KAKIETEK

Kakieteks study is the first attempt to provide a organized and exhaustive description of the modal(a) verbs in the language of Shakespeare. He points out that the existing literature on the subject is appallingly poor and does not actually present every accredited value from the linguistic points of view (P.Kakietek, modal Verbs in Shakespeares English Poznam, 1972, pag.3).The exit he lists contains nearly all the currently available concerning the job: E. A. Abbott, A Shakesperian Grammar, 1925,pag 210-234; W. Franz, Die Sprache Shakespeare, 1948, pag.174-180 e pag.475-502;Frieden Studies on the Tenses of the English Verb from Chaucer to Shkespeare, 1948, pag.118-203; O Jespersen, A Modern English Grammar, 1931, pag. 235-300; M. Ehrman, The Meanings of the Modals in THE Present-Day the States English, 1966, Appendix A, pag.78-97.

In Kakietek opinion, there is no discredit about the fact that the value of Ehrmans account is by farther more(prenominal) important than that of the other trains menti 1d. As the surname of her book indicates, Ehrman is primarly concerned with the modals in Present-Day American English. though her study of Shakespeares modals is, is in fact, based on a more or less corpus amounting up to about 75.000 words according to Kakietek, the pictorial matter sensation receives is that it was carried out quite hastly and that the subject was treated by her as of secondary importance. As he mantains, our impression seems to thoroughly be sub-stantiated by the fact that Ehrmans presentation is guilty of a number of factual mistakes as it leaves many things quite unexplained. Her theory of modal verbs in general is the subject of a detailed study made by Kakietek in chapter 1 of his own work. According to him the above mentioned works (except for Ehrmans) suffer from at least both weaknesses: 1) Wrong interpretation of the data 2) Lack of desirable generalization regarding the modal verbs.

Clearly this is a direct result of the inability on the fracture of the grammarians to keep apart two basically distinguishable things, namely, the semantics strictly pertaining to the modals and the semantics represented by the other sentential elements.(P. Kakietek, Modal Verbs in Shakespeares English, pag 1).Kakieteks study is based on the material quiet from ten of Shakespeares plays: Alls Well That Ends Well, The Comedy of Errors, Henry IV part One and part Two, Henry V, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Measure for Measure, Othello and The Winters Tale. Following Anderson (in his work:Some Proposal Concening The Modal Verbs in English, diary of Linguistics, 6, 1970, pag. 75)Kakietek obseves that each modal can be appoint one or more interpretation, each decomposable into a sit of meaning components or births.This is how the overlap between MAY and chiffonier is visualized in the following figure: --M-- NON- intentional POTENTIAL external NON-CONDITIONAL NON-PAST <__ may__________ --m-- intentional potential external non-conditional non-past can> --M-- INTENTIONAL POTENTIAL NON-EXTERNAL NON-CONDITIONAL NON-PAST thereof MAY and CAN are regarded as synonymous. They are alternativa manifestations of the same interpretation. For instance it is attributed to MAY and CAN two features, that is , EXTERNAL and POTENTIAL. and then as they realize more than one interpretation, they are polysemous. It follows that a given interpretation which is associated with a particular modal verb may belong to several classes symultaneously, membership to anyone of the classes being bloodsucking on the presence of a particular feature in tha fasten assigned to the modal interpretation involved. Each feature constitues one term in a binary opposition any MARKED or UNMARKED. When the modals MAY CAN depart essential combine with the perfect auxiliary HAVE, an INTENTIONAL interpretation for any of them is rendered impossible. So, in the following example MAY CAN lead essential receive an UNINTENTIONAL interpretation. Examples : He MAY HAVE ARRIVED at six He CAN HAVE GONE by then HeLL HAVE SEEN the British Museum He MUST HAVE LEFT the town The subclassification of the modals could thus be presented in the terms of a set of rules which would consist of subcategorization for VP and adding to it various destination features. It is assumed here that all the modals are predicitve. Prediction merely means that the assurance of the follow out is expressed by the chief(prenominal) verb.



The feature INTENTIONAL is connected with the modal that combines with a verb denoting an action performed by animate agents, either dependent on themseves or on somebody/something else. By definition, then, modals appearing in sentences containig nonliving nouns as their subjects will be characterized by the lack of the feature INTENTIONAL.In the following examples the INTENTIONAL interpretation for the modal is excluded: Wood will screw up on water It will get dark (before they finish the game).

These two instances are simply predictive.Moreover, INTENTIONAL modals tend to occur in sentences which carry meaning such a VOLITION, DETERMINATION, ABILITY, PERMISSION, OBLIGATION, etc.The feature INTENTIONAL will be also incompatible with what are called unwieldy actions, ie, actions being outside human control which are denoted by the following verbs: DIE, EXIST, SNOPE, etc.The feature EXTERNAL will be assigned to those modals which appear in sentences in which an external agent is suggested. In Shall I bring it here?the initiation of the subject and in this case depends upon the addressee. It turns out that the modal MUST is ambiguous with the take to be to this particular destination.For instance, in He must leave early in the morning the action may be or may not be dependent upon another persons will.I may add more details and examples but this is an es conjecture and surely I must be brief. consequently to conclude it, I may say that Kakietek after specific research into the use of modal verbs in Shakespeares works, concentrated above all on the use of the auxiliaries WILL/SHALL (WOULD/SHOULD), these are the ones most frequently and most commonly used. In fact, these forms are seen as future with the aspect of promise, command, moral tariff dependent on external circumstances such as laws, rules, etc. There is also the future of intention dependent on the intention of the subject of the sentence or of the speaker system. Thus the external agent, which could obviously be animate or inanimate, is present. In any case, the predictive future is to be considered merely UNINTENTIONAL, as it cannot normally depend on the will of the subject/speaker of the sentence.

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