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Taming English modals

How a Construction Grammar approach helps to understand modal verbs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2018

Sergio Torres–Martínez
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Extract

In the present paper, I pursue a Construction Grammar (CxG) characterization of English modal auxiliaries (e.g., can-could, must, have (got) to, should, ought to, need to, will-would) that seeks to add to established lexical approaches. It is argued that Construction Grammar (e.g., Goldberg, 1995, 2006; Tomasello, 2003) can successfully account for underlying modality patterns, the understanding of which can lead to distinct gains for both linguistics and second language acquisition research. To that end, some of the tenets of CxG are invoked.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Today , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , June 2019 , pp. 50 - 57
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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