UNIVERSIDADE EDUARDO MONDLANE

FACULTY OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT

ENGLISH SECTION

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING (ELT)—4TH YEAR-- DAYSHIFT

DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS OF ENGLISH III

TOPIC: Modality, scope and quantification

Student: Domingos Inácio Mucambe

Professors: Carlos Manuel & Samo Fumo

Maputo, April 2024

 MODALITY, SCOPE AND QUANTIFICATION

Modality is centre on the notions of necessity and possibility. Modality can be

signalled by expressions that have meanings such as: obligations, permission,
feasibility. Having the evidences, the proposition seems certain to be true, probably true
or merely possible.

Modal verbs and tense

Some modal verbs like would, could, might and should are past tense forms, but they
may not mark past time (and sometimes can mark).

Ex.: Would/Could help me tomorrow? (The modal are past, but the tense of the sentence
is not)

Ex.: Two years ago she could swim fifty lengths, but not anymore. ( About past)

Ex.: Man will be always a man. (Not about Future, timeless truth)

7.1.2. Deontic and epistemic modality

 Epistemic: Have to do with knowledge and understanding (cognition). This has

to do with “the level of certainty of a proposition’s truth”.

Some statements does not accept modals, like when: (1) speakers are talking about
events on fixed schedule; (2) they have reliable information, or (3) eyewitnesses
testimony.

 Deontic: pertaining to necessity, duty, or obligation, or expressions conveying

this. “Relate to constraints grounded in society: duty, morality, laws, rules”.
Deontic modals relate to na obligatory situation or permissible one.

Requests are deontic, meaning that can all deontic statements be added ‘please’
without a problem.
 7.1.3. Core modal meanings

“Sometimes the epistemic and Deontic cut is ambiguous, or simply there’s a a clear-cut
between them”, which make the ‘context’ of utterance be important to figure out the
difference between the two. Although, is important to know that “Deontic
interpretations arise when preferences, wishes, requirements, or recommendations form
the contextual presupposition”.

Some meanings of modals:

 Must is hardly used for epistemic claims about the future, will is used instead.
 Might is generally weaker than may, past tense.
 Can’t us epistemic and deontic, but can is usually used for deontic.

Relative scope

Scope is the part in which the material it applies to.

Operators are items that have scope.

With two operators we can get different meanings depending on which operator
includes the other within its scope.

Ex.: Must and have to have similar meanings, but mustn’t and don’t the to are different.
The same way, can’t and mustn’t have the same meaning, but can and must are
different.

It is so because of the operators and Scopes.

Quantification

Quantification refers to how quantities or amounts are specified.

Enclosing the label of a set within a pair of vertical lines is a way of representing the
number of elements in the set, its cardinality.
Cardinal quantifiers: Are tied to just the cardinality of a set, quantifiers of the kind
(No, several, at least three, some, at least one, few, many). Cardinal quantifiers specify
exact quantities or amounts, and usually can be the answer of “How many?”

Sentences with cardinal quantifiers have a kind of symmetry that they would not have
with certain other quantifiers: the nouns can exchange positions without truth or falsity
being affected.

Proportional quantifiers: They are different to cardinal because do not have the
symmetry. If the nouns change the positions, the Truth or falsity can be affected.
Examples of proportional quantifiers are less than half, most, a third of, some. They
express a fraction or proportion of a whole, a part of a total.

Distributive quantifiers: Refers to quantities distributed among members of a group

often individually. “How Manu per each” is the usual question. (Each, every, either,
neither).

Collective quantifiers: Refer to quantities considered as a single group or unit rather

than individually. It’s like the whole group acting together. (All, both, the whole, entire)