THE USE OF MODAL VERBS IN ENGLISH SPEECH.

Abstract

Modal verbs are frequently used in every day communication. In previous studies, modal verbs were studied from different perspectives, such as the formal linguistics, semantics or pragmatics (Thomas, 1983; Leech 1983, 2003; Jacqueline & Kenneth, 1997; Rappen, 2002; Neil, 2009; Peters, 2013). Halliday (1994) proposed that VALUE is an important factor to represent the variability in modality. Halliday and Hasan (1989) divided modal verbs in terms of their pragmatic values. High value modals include must, ought to, need, and have to; intermediate value modals include will, would, shall, should; and low value modals include may, might, can, could. Different groups of modality are related with different politeness degree of the speech.