Subjective and intersubjective modality: a quantitative approach to Spanish modal verbs

Abstract

This paper presents a semantic analysis of the Spanish modal verbs deber 'must' and tener que 'have to', based on their deontic uses in parliamentary debates. These verbs have previously been described in terms of weak vs. strong necessity or internal vs. external obligation, frequently without the support of empirical data. In contrast, we argue that the notion of (inter)subjectivity is crucial for a proper understanding of these verbs. Our quantitative analysis, in which we examined deber and tener que according to five variables related to the semantic notion of (inter)subjectivity (tense, polarity, grammatical person, diathesis, source of the necessity), shows statistically significant differences between the verbs. Deber is more frequent in the conditional tense, in negated utterances as well as in passive/ impersonal clauses, in the third person and when the source of the necessity is not the speaker. Tener que usually occurs in the present tense and in affirmative and active clauses, is equally frequent in first and third person and usually appears when the source of the necessity is the speaker. Based on these results, we conclude that tener que is used to convey a subjective attitude whereas deber is used to indicate intersubjectivity.

The Pragmatics of Function Words in Fiction

“…Fairclough's sets of items abound in grammatical aspects relevant to produce an ideology-loaded type of discourse. Pronouns and modality are discursively employed to express, produce and maintain agency, particularly in the field of ideological/critical discourse studies [35], [36], [37]. These studies clarified that the reason lies in the fact that agency is closely related to notions of power and domination, and it is difficult to find any ideological discourse that does not address issues of power, dominance, persuasion, and manipulation.…”

Lo obligado, lo permitido y lo prohibido: estudio de la modalidad deóntica en el planteamiento de las medidas para controlar la pandemia Covid-19 en Chile.

“…Esta investigación, la que fue realizada en inglés, es una de las pocas desarrollada sobre la problemática de la modalidad deóntica y la pandemia. La mayoría de las investigaciones sobre la modalidad deóntica se han realizado en lenguas germánicas como el inglés (Thegel & Lindgren, 2020). En el contexto de la lengua española, los estudios sobre dicha modalidad son escasos, los autores que la han estudiado en esta lengua han analizado el discurso político y jurídico donde el lenguaje normativo es habitual (Vázquez Laslop, 1999;Polo, 2014;González & Satt, 2016;Thegel, 2017;Romo, 2018;Serrano, 2021).…”