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Concepts and Categories of Modality

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Concepts and Categories of Modality ISSN: 2347-7474 International Journal Advances in Social Science and Humanities Available Online at: www.ijassh.com RESEARCH ARTICLE Concepts and Categories of Modality Ho Van Han School of Languages-Cultures-International Relations-Ba Ria-Vung Tau University, Vietnam. Abstract Modality is a basic meaning combined into an utterance, each of the utterances is always divided up two parts: dictum and modus. Dictum is the main information; modus is the additional one of the utterance to express an attitude of judgement, assumption or a status of the speaker to the state of affairs. Nowadays, modality has been concerned by linguists due to its complexity but its full interest. In any languages, if people take modality out of an utterance, its state of affairs will become dry, poor and lose the beauty of the language. Cao Xuan Hao stated that the proposition of any utterance must contains a modus (or combine many segments of modus). Based on this statement, this paper desires summary different concepts and categories of modality in order to help us recognize easy epistemic modality and have a plan to study it fully. Keywords: Modality (modus), A state of affair, Dictum, Parole, Langue. Introduction In recent years, modality has attracted by 1b. John must be in his office. famous linguists such as Perkins [1], Palmer 1c. I think that John is in his office. [2], Halliday [3], Lyon's [4], Cao Xuan Hao 1d. It is possible that John is in his office. [5], etc. The basic reason is not only its 1e. I know that John is in his office. complexity, but also its interest when 1f. I believe that John is in his office. expressing the propositional meaning in an utterance. For instance, Perkins said, The examples above show that they are all studying modality is like trying to walk in a epistemic modality marked by different room crowded and trying not to step on evidential ties based on the degree of the others. Although modality is independent on commitment of the speaker. The sentences the structure of the utterance, its (1a, 1c, 1d) represent non-factual modality pragmatics has a great influence on hearers. because these sentences’ presupposition is When they receive an utterance, they must “John is impossibly in his office" while (1a, understand: (1) its denotation, (2) its 1e, 1f) express the necessity based on some implication of the speaker in the context, real evidence or knowledge, so they and (3) its metalinguistics. represent factual modality because their presupposition is “John is certainly in his These are necessary conditions to be office”. understood the utterance. To make a complete statement semantically, one must It can be said, modality is the soul of the mention modality worked in the predicate of utterance, has a significant position in the the sentence. Thus, it’s said that modality expression of meaning. Observing the point refers to the relationship between the of view of modality that linguists previously content of information towards its factual recognized, we found that there were many value, and, attitudes and emotions of the concepts on the different modality such as: speaker towards its proposition. logical objectivity, subjectivity, dynamic, deontic, epistemic, root, etc,. However, there In the state of affairs, “John is in his office”, are three concepts that many linguists are the speaker can rely on his knowledge and most interested in: logical objectivity, attitude to make various expressions: deontic and epistemic. In general, these three views of modality are often analyzed 1a. Perhaps John is in his office. on two grounds: necessity and possibility. Ho Van Han|July 2017| Vol.5|Issue 7 |09-13 9 Available online at: www.ijassh.com Epistemic modality does with possibility or In this case, modus is within the scope of necessity of the truth of propositions, and is beliefs, attitudes and commitments of the thus involved with knowledge and belief speaker towards the dictum, while the whereas, deontic modality is concerned with dictum is the meaning of the state of affairs. the possibility or necessity of acts performed Resee example 1a-f, Palmer [2] showed that by morally responsible agents, and is thus there are at least four ways in which the associated with the social functions of speaker can indicate that he does not permission and obligation. present what he is saying as a fact: The logical objectivity is based on the That he is speculating about it random necessity and possibility of the That he is presenting it as a deduction proposition. If the propositional meaning is That he has been told about it absolutely correct or completely wrong, its That it is a matter only of appearance, modility is necessity. And if the based on the evidence of possibly fallible propositional meaning shows only some senses scalar of truth, its modality lies in the possibility (the judgment of possibility is These four ways are concerned with the one-way entailment). If all judgment is indication by the speaker of his commitment necessity, it also means the judgment of the or lack of commitment to the truth of the possibility too. (the judgment of neccesity is proposition contained in an utterance. two-way entailment). Concepts of Modality Saussure's suggestion is that modality belongs to parole because he distinguishes We firstly would like to mention the person langue from parole: Langue is the social who made the greatest contribution to the language, exists outside the individual, a later study is Bally [6], his successor to social product that saves in the human Saussure, who was also interested in langue mind. In contrast, Parole is an individual and parole. However, unlike Saussure [7], act, the whole of what someone says. who studied langue but little interest in parale, Bally studied personal psychology, Unlike Saussure, Austin [8] distinguishes considered parole as a means of expressing between three concepts (1) locutionary acts, feeling and emotional life of human. He (2) perlocutionary acts, (3) illocutionary acts. introduced into his structuralism a new Austin acknowledges that all paroles are concept of expressiveness and laid the actions and all forms of paroles, including foundation for generative grammar. making statements, asking questions, etc,. are coordinated by central concepts of It is therefore arguable that Bally himself authority and commitment. In other words, was a pioneer in generative grammar. each statement contains at least one Therefore, It’s said that Bally’s the first meaning of acts or a sense of modality. person of generative grammar because he put into linguistics the basic principles of When making an utterance, the speaker is transformation in language while studying doing something rather than saying the relationship between language and something by using a language. This theory mind. Grammatical transformation allows gives us a close picture of the interaction the language to change from one grammar between people in communication. So, the category to another, or change a clause into meaning of the utterance must be considered another. based on its ability to influence on the hearer and create a response of the act of 2a. I gave John a book. behavior or psychology with a certain 2b. I gave a book to John. degree. This is the process of pragmatic of 3a. I think I don’t agree with you. the purpose of the utterance. This process 3b. I disagree with you. reflects many different social aspects of the proposition, the communicative situation Direct and indirect expression in 2a-2b or between the speaker and the hearer, etc,. 3a-3b are the most basic difference. Also, Bally claimed that modility of the utterance Agree with Austin, Searl [9] also uses the belongs to syntactic and semantic. When term speech acts to explain modality, analyzing semantics, he divided modality especially epistemic. into two parts: modus and dictum. Ho Van Han|July 2017| Vol.5|Issue 7 |09-13 10 Available online at: www.ijassh.com There are five types of illocutionary acts: farmer and assumed that the man X didn’t representative, commissive, declarative, see). Then, indeed, the man X believed there directive, and expressive. Based on this was a sheep in the field. This statement is theory, we think that the relationship true and reasonable. However, it is between langue and parole is particularly necessary to rethink the nature of this emphasized. Specifically, the relationship sheep. between modality and speech acts. Halliday [3], Lyons [4], Palmer [2], defines Ayer [10] in logical modality, he considers it modality based on the attitude and beliefs to be in the relationship between knowledge and meanings of the speaker through and belief. He thinks that when something is semantics and pragmatics. Or modality is considered true belief, it creates knowledge. the information of the meaning related to He defines knowledge as sufficient and the attitude, judgment of the speaker about necessary conditions to know that something what he is said. is said to be true first, then to determine exactly what it is, and finally to make Categories of Modality certain it is. Givón [12] claims that epistemic modality To prove this, he gives a model "X knows it is based on evidentiality and inference. is Y" then implies that "X believes it is Y". Evidentiality and inference allow the hearer Given this definition of knowledge, Gettier to perceive the factivity of the statement as a [11] examines a situation to prove: Does the factivity, non-factivity, and contra-factivity man X feel wrong a dog replaced by a sheep based
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