COVER PAGE

Table of contents

Introduction 3

Chapter 1 Modal and Semi-Modal Verbs: Theoretical Aspect 4

1.1. Modal and Semi-Modal Verbs and Their Different Interpretations 4

1.2. Syntax, Morphology and Scope of semi-modal verbs 7

Chapter 2: Semi-Modal Verb GET: Practical Aspect 12

2.1. Usage: Tense and Aspect 12

2.2. Different Uses of Semi-Modal Verb GET 14

Conclusions 19

Bibliography 20

Introduction

Human language is truly unique as it allows us to talk about things beyond here and now. The way we do so is through the Tense, Aspect and Modality systems of natural language. Modality is what this paper is about. Roughly speaking, modality allows us to talk about events that may not have happened, but are desired or required. Modality is completely autonomous unit, and it affects our language usage in many ways. Tense and Modality are undeniably interconnected: what used to be a possibility a month ago may not be one today. Tense and Aspect are likewise related: a punctual event that took place yesterday may not hold at present, but an event (or state) that is more durative may still hold. The primary function of modal verbs is to enable us to talk about possibilities and necessities. We can talk about the ways the world should be, were there peace on Earth, how it might have been, would Christopher Columbus not have landed in America, etc... This ability to go beyond directly observable facts is indeed at the heart of the meaning of modal expressions, and is neatly captured formally by invoking the notion of 'possible worlds' (cf. Kripke 1963: 57, Kratzer 1981: 38, 1991: 640, a. o.). What modal and semi-modal verbs do is 'quantify' over different sets of worlds, the way the quantifiers some or every quantify over sets of individuals. We thus see that semi-modal verbs enable us to talk about non actual (but possible) situations by invoking worlds other than the actual one. The aim of the paper is to provide unified analysis of modal and semi-modal verbs focusing on the semi-modal verb get. The objectives of the paper include: • Acknowledging the theoretical aspect of modal and semi-modal verbs; • Defining different interpretations of modal and semi-modal verbs; • Providing a unified analysis of all uses of get under the rubric of semi-modal verbs; • Accounting practical usage of get in modern English; • Presenting conclusions. The paper consists of two chapters. The first one focuses on theoretical aspect of modal and semi-modal verbs. The second one concerns the practical aspect of semi-modal verb get.

Chapter 1 Modal and Semi-Modal Verbs: Theoretical Aspect

1.1. Modal and Semi-Modal Verbs and Their Different Interpretations

Before we proceed and delve into differences between the various interpretations of the modals and semi-modals, it is essential to provide a common definition of what modal and semi-modal verbs are. There are many definitions of modal verbs. In general, modal verbs are defined as: • a type of auxiliary verb that communicates how likely something is to happen, or the degree of intent behind it. • a special kind of verb (known as an auxiliary verb) which describes the way a speaker feels about a situation (e.g. whether the speaker thinks that the situation is possible or impossible, advisable or inadvisable). • a type of auxiliary verb that is used to indicate modality. The use of auxiliary verbs to express modality is a characteristic of Germanic languages. Common examples of modal verbs are 'can', 'could', 'may', 'might'. 'must', 'have to', 'should', 'will', 'would', etc. Here are some examples with the use of these modals: • I can help you with your homework. • Could you give me your book? • May I help you? • Martha, you might have phoned me and told me not to wait for you. • You should have put more sugar in the pie. • You must be very careful! • You would be late! • Did you have to wait for your friend long? The modal verbs share some distinct characteristics that grammatically differentiate them from other verbs: a) they have no -s forms, infinitives, or participles (these sentences are the examples of how modal verbs should not be used: ‘Martha cans drive’ (no -s form), ‘I like canning drive’ (no non-finite forms) ; b) they do not have the set of tenses formed with be or have which most verbs have; c) they form questions by inversion and negatives by adding not or -n't (‘Can you drive?’, ‘Martha can’t drive’) ; d) they must be used as auxiliaries to lexical verbs (cf. The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar, 1998: Modal Verb); e) they cannot be chained together in a sentence ( ‘They will can go to the concert tomorrow’ is not a correct sentence) with a few exceptions such as might have to or may have used to; f) they have verbal ellipsis (I can sing this song, and so can Joanne); g) they can be used to add emphatic stress (but I do like Milli Vanilli; but she can sing Bella Ciao) (Palmer, 1990: 103). Syntactically, modals take infinitival complements. They fully decline and, in that sense, they behave like regular verbs. As far as the aspectual class they belong to, modals are traditionally taken to be stative predicates (cf. Stowell 2004: 86,): e.g., in English, they are licensed by present tense and do not allow progressive morphology. Most modal auxiliary verbs have two distinct interpretations, epistemic (expressing how certain the factual status of the embedded proposition is) and deontic (involving notions of permission and obligation). The following sentences illustrate the two uses of must: • epistemic: You must be starving. (= "It is necessarily the case that you are starving.") • deontic: You must leave now. (= "You are required to leave now.") • ambiguous: You must speak Latvian. ← epistemic = "It is surely the case that you speak Latvian (e.g., after having lived in Latvia for ten years)." ← deontic = "It is a requirement that you speak Latvian (e.g., if you want to get a job in Latvia)." Epistemic modals can be analyzed as raising verbs, while deontic modals can be analyzed as control verbs. There are three general categories of meaning for modal verbs, which may be seen to be related systematically. These are:- • intrinsic modality - influences concerning degree of obligation, duty, necessity, permission and responsibility; • extrinsic modality - knowledge as to the likelihood of an event occurring; • time modality - time reference from the moment of speaking.
|This can be shown systematically as follows, where "I" represents intrinsic modality, "E" extrinsic modality, and "T" |
|time reference: |
|[pic] |
|Figure 1 General categories of meaning for modal verbs |

It is well known that the class of modal auxiliaries emerged as a separate syntactic category around the beginning of the Early Modern English period, and that in the later modern period, there has been an ongoing grammaticalization of some verbal constructions called “semi-modals” such as have to and be going to, which in function and behaviour overlap with these modals. The semi-modals are a rather loosely-defined grouping of verbal idioms, which are much more frequent in spoken than in written English – indeed, some of them have acquired reduced pronunciations, reflected popularly in written forms such as gotta and gonna. (Krug 2000: 117). Semi-modals function to some extent like a modal verb, typically in the way it forms negative and interrogative constructions (e.g. need and dare in English). Semi-modals differ from modals in many respects: first of all, they involve a purpose clause. Secondly, while both types of modals involve circumstantially accessible worlds, the meaning of ability, as is commonly understood, primarily involves physical and mental capacities, while another interpretation might be more sensitive to surrounding factors, rather than intrinsic factors. However, there are borderline cases which make it difficult to give a categorical distinction between the two. Moreover, one can always imagine an implicit semi-modal clause with every ability modal construction. What links these two forms of modāls is that they involve circumstantial modality. Circumstantial modality is the modality of rational agents (Kratzer 1991: 643), it has explanatory power. Semi-modals include: • dare: ‘She dare not ask her mother to lend her money.’ • need: ‘She needn’t take the exam if she doesn’t want to”. • ought to: ‘You ought to have gone to see your grandmother in the hospital.’ • used to: The town used to be a quiet little fishing village, before it became a tourist resort. ’ • get to: ‘ You got your friend to come here!’ It appears that the semi-modals are hybrid forms, combining characteristics of both main verbs and auxiliary verbs. It also appears that the category is defined by the semantic functions of its members, not their formal qualities. This is important because it suggests that there is no necessary main verb or auxiliary verb characteristic that all semi-modals must share. Many of the semi-modals behave oddly. Used to often takes do support (‘Did you use to live in New York?’), while need sometimes acts as a proper modal auxiliary (‘you needn’t come’) and sometimes as a semi-modal requiring do (‘you don’t need to come’). Had better shows the formal characteristics of modal verbs (no -s, no non-finite form, no chaining with other modals), but the presence of better makes treating it as a modal verb problematic, to say the least.
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1.2. Syntax, Morphology and Scope of semi-modal verbs

Semi-modality usually refers to those modal meanings related to the language concepts in a general way. Nevertheless, this kind of modality is more complex than that: it includes a variety of meanings, including possibility due to external or internal cirumstances, predisposition and in some cases it overlaps with regular modal aspects. According to the literature semi-modality is typically realized in English by modals like can and semi-modals like to get to. It is important to remember that when dealing with modality, unclear cases are inevitable, like authors like Leech and Coat emphasize (1980). Palmer's view (Palmer 1979) is similar: modal meanings continues with extremes that are distinct, but with indeterminacy in th middle. Most languages have some kind of grammatical system of modality, although they appear to be able to divide up the field in various ways. An obvious example is the existence of a system of modal verbs in English, which exhibit some translational correspondence. A number of criteria have been proposed for the definition of modality. Lyons (1977) and Palmer (1986) discuss modality in terms of notions such as non-propositionality, subjectivity and non-factuality. The notion of non-propositionally has been traditionally linked to the speaker’s attitude or opinion, as opposed to the “contents of the sentence” (Jespersen 1924: 67-69, Fillmore 1968: 162). Therefore, if a proposition is subject to further qualification, this qualification represents modality. If we turn to the notion of subjectivity, we will be dealing again with the grammatical approach of subjective opinions or attitudes. However, there are modal verbs, like get, which express ability, and not subjective opinion. On the other hand, it is not always easy to distinguish between a subjective opinion and an objective necessity. The sentence “You get to go”, for instance, may indicate either a general objective necessity for going or the speaker’s judgment of the situation. There are problems in linking non-factuality to modality, since speech act theory makes it clear that assertions not only have propositional content, but also illocutionary force (Austin 1962: 90). Therefore, it can be argued that assertions too are subjective, representing the speaker’s point of view. Moreover, there are languages in which declarative sentences belong formally to a modal system. The weakness of the facts presented above seems to be related to the view of meaning as the relationship between words and world. From a cognitive perspective, language reflects our cognitive structuring of the world and modality can only be explained by positing a unified cognitive basis for it. The semantics of root modality is best understood in terms of force dynamics. This notion points basically to the linguistic expression of forces and barriers in general: permission represents the taking away of a potentially present barrier (e.g. may, let, allow), while obligation relates to a compelling force directing the subject to the choice of some specific act (e.g. must, ought to, have to, need to). Epistemic and root construal of modals differ from each other in terms of how they interact with tense and aspect, as well as with lexical aspectual classes. For example, when the complement of an epistemic modal is stative, the eventuality-time (or the interval of habitual quantification) may be understood to coincide with the modal time (the time at which the modal evaluation obtains), yielding a so-called simultaneous reading. In many contexts this is the most natural reading, though in most cases a future-shifted context is also possible. When the complement of the modal is eventive, however, it must have a future-shifted with respect to the modal evaluation time. In contrast, most root-modal construal favour a forward-shifted reading of the eventuality time relative to the modal time, regardless of the aspectual class of the complement of the modal, except in the case of ability-readings of can and could, for which a simultaneous reading is natural. More generally, apparent scope is never possible for evidential modal interpretations. This suggests that ‘metaphysical’ or ‘alethic’ modality, though traditionally classified as epistemic, in fact more closely resembles root modality than true evidential epistemic modality, at least in terms of its relationship to tense. Though the relevant semantic judgments are difficult to distinguish from their other potential root-modal reading, the relevant reading is in fact possible. In other words, the distinction between the modals that allow the apparent scope reversal and those that do not precisely coincides with the distinction between the modals that allow a simultaneous ‘sequence-of-tense’ construal when they occur in the clausal complement of a past-tense intentional verb and those that force a double-access reading in the same environment, as discussed above. So-called present and past morphemes in English are not actually present and past tenses where tenses are understood as temporal ordering predicates but rather polarity markers on time-denoting heads designating a particular scope relation with a past tense. Although get, allows a future-shifted construal of complements on the root-modal interpretation, even when the complement is stative, they appear not to allow a future-shifted perfect interpretation. Taking a force dynamics account of modality, Sweetser (1990) extends this proposal by arguing that modal verbs do not have two separate unrelated senses, but rather show an extension of the basic root-sense to the epistemic domain. Therefore, the following correspondence is defined:
Table 1 The correspondence between root and epistemic construal of modals
|ROOT |EPISTEMIC |
|Obligation |Necessity |
|Permission |Probability |
|Ability |Possibility |

The basic idea is that our reasoning processes are subject to obligations, permissions and abilities, just as our real-world actions are subject to modalities of the same sort. This idea can be reframed by recent work on the cultural origins of human cognition, which argues in favor of a socially rooted understanding of causality (and hence to the linguistic expression of this concept). Forces and barriers are viewed in terms of understanding of causation. Modality is a cover term for all those linguistic expressions which impose an interaction force by taking some explicit perspective towards some specific event, action or reasoning process. Therefore, modality can be coded by different linguistic expressions in a language, like: a. phonological markers such as pitch, intonation, etc; b. inflectional morphology such as mood, aspect, etc; c. morphological classes such as modal verbs, hedges, etc; d. Syntactic forms such as adverbial clauses. The class of semi-modal verbs in English is usually understood to include auxiliary verbs conveying possibility and necessity (including predictive future) that lack non-finite morphological forms; from a syntactic perspective, these verbs occur only in finite clauses (as opposed to infinitives or gerunds). Nevertheless the modals do not inflect for third-person singular agreement, unlike normal present-tense verbs. When they are negated, modals always precede the negative particle not, regardless of their understood scope relative to negation, and never give rise to do-support. The modals also differ from other English verbs with respect to the distinction between present and past tense. In a limited set of syntactic contexts, some modals exhibit a present/past alternation that is similar to what obtains with normal verbs; these include the pairs can/could, shall/should, and will/would in contemporary colloquial American English, as well as may/might in some conservative dialects. But the present/past alternation is semantically neutralized for these verbs in many syntactic and semantic contexts, in a way that has no parallel with normal verbs. Moreover, other true modals, including must, ought, and need (as well as may and might in contemporary American English) do not exhibit any morphological present/past alternation. Of these, must, may, and need behave in many respects like present-tense verbs, while ought and might seem to behave ambiguously in precisely those syntactic contexts where the first group of modals exhibits a limited present/past alternation. The question is whether these modals should really be considered to involve a morpho-syntactic combination of tense with a modal verbal head, or whether instead they should be analyzed in modern English as distinctive modal heads which occur as alternatives to tense in finite contexts. This question has not been definitively resolved in contemporary formal theories of syntax and semantics. In addition to the modals, English also has a small number of so-called semi-modal verbs, including the modal get. This semi-modal has largely placed in many syntactic contexts in modern usage, most notably in order to convey modality at a past time, as well as in non-finite contexts. Unlike the true modals, the semi-modal get exhibits normal third person singular agreement in the present tense, and is free to occur in non-finite contexts. Modern English also makes use of adjectives such as able, possible, and necessary, and past participial forms such as allowed, to convey particular types of modal force. It is well known that most modal verbs conveying possibility or necessity can be used with either epistemic or root-modal force. Root-modal construals of possibility modals often involve notions of ability or permission, while necessity modals may carry deontic or quasi-imperative force. Epistemic modal construal may have an evidential or quasi-predictive interpretation.

Chapter 2: Semi-Modal Verb GET: Practical Aspect

2.1. Usage: Tense and Aspect

English semi-modal get (to get, get(s), getting, got, got (ten)) has a variety of uses, ranging from ‘onset of possession’ to ‘experience-get’. Each use of semi-modal get has an inchoative as well a modal version. The fact that get shows systematic modal alternations for a range of complementation types suggests that get is not inherently modal: the modal uses of get are derived uses. The underlie for the derived modal get cases cannot involve a predicate like become (= COME + BE), or have (= BE + TO). The semi-modal get construction involves a gerund with an overt subject following, is semantically and structurally aligned. It involves derivations, in addition to the modal get-cases in English has two patently non-inchoative uses of invariant simple-past got: the stative-possessive and obligation uses. In fact, in English it is altogether impossible to use stative-possessive or obligation-got in past-time reference contexts (when I was little, I got a book about airplanes is grammatical but only supports a ‘receive’ interpretation, not a stative-possessive interpretation; similar remarks apply to when I was little, I got to go to the swimming pool every day). Apparently, simple-past morphology can suppress the otherwise systematic modal component of the semantics of English get, and cannot make a temporal-semantic contribution. [pic]

As noted by Gronemeyer (1999: 10), in Present-day English get has at least the following senses: onset of possession, stative possession, motion, permission, causation, obligation, inchoative, and passive (Figure 1). The verb get, in its semi-modal use, is often called an auxiliary. Though it’s meaning and grammatical function appear to be similar to those of passive be, Haegeman (1985) shows that passive get fails all of the accepted syntactic tests for auxiliaries. It fails to invert with subjects in questions, triggers do-support in negative expressions, and fails to occur in tag questions. Many linguists have attempted to link semi-modal get to causative get, based on the observation that these are syntactically and semantically closely related constructions (Dixon, 1991: 45; Downing, 1996; 66-67; Givo´n & Yang, 1994: 225). Analyses linking the passive to the causative cluster in two groups: those that focus on the synchronic syntactic relationship between the constructions and those that propose a diachronic development in which passive get comes from a causative source (Givo´n & Yang, 1994: 227). Syntactically, causative get has the structure ‘get + NP + complement’; semantically, the causative involves an external agent, realized as the subject, causing the NP to enter a state or undergo some action. Givo´n & Yang argue that semi-modal get develops from instances of causative get that contain a reflexive NP argument. It is possible to derive actuality entailments when perfective aspect moves above the semi-modal. The author argues that the entailment comes about because aspect comes with its own world variable, which has to be bound by the matrix world binder, given that it appears above the modal. This yields an actual event. We then infer that that event has the same properties in the actual world as it does in the accessible worlds in which it also occurs. This happens via default identification principle. Various authors discuss the meaning of to get and argue that it can cover all the range of meanings associated, although it is often assumed on morphological grounds that it is associated with the 'ability' core. There are two main differences: (1) form; (2) aspect and meaning. This flexibility permits that in standard English semi-modal get supplies the forms which regular get cannot provide. Although many literature sources assume that semi-modal get can occur in the same contexts as regular get, it is not clear that semi-modal get can be used when modality is caused by internal circumstances and the speaker expresses perfective aspect and passive.

2.2. Different Uses of Semi-Modal Verb GET

As a part of this subchapter, let us first speak about the general get. And then proceed closer to its semi-modal form. As it was already stated above, English semi-modal get has a variety of uses, ranging from ‘onset of possession’ to ‘experience-get’. There are quite as many common uses of the regular get too. Get is one of the 100 commonest words in the English language, and one of the top 20 verbs. It has very diverse meanings, and is used in a variety of ways. Specialists will say that it is not usually good form to use get in writing (as it was mentioned before, get is more common in oral speech), but it is so useful that it is difficult to avoid.
Here is a summary of the main ways get is used in:

1. Get + noun/pronoun - When get is followed by a noun or pronoun, it usually means something like receive, fetch, obtain, or catch…

• I got a postcard from Darren yesterday. • Did you get some flour when you went to the supermarket? • Wrap up warmly so you don’t get a cold.

2. Get + adjective - When get is followed by an adjective, it usually means become…

• I can’t climb those stairs so quickly these days - I must be getting old. • Turn that radiator on so you can get warm .

3. Get + preposition - When get is followed by a preposition, usually some kind of change or movement is implied…

• What time do you usually get up in the morning? • Why don’t you get out of the house and get some fresh air?

4. Get + past participle - A. Get is often used for expressions where other European languages use reflexive verbs. We use this to talk about something we do to ourselves:

• Get dressed; • get lost; • get engaged; • get married; • get divorced; • get confused;

Get can also replace be in passive structures such as…

• The thief got caught when he used a stolen credit card (= was caught). • I got invited to Terry’s wedding (= was invited).

When there is an object before the past participle it can mean to finish doing something…

• It has been so humid lately that it takes days to get the washing dried. • Get your room tidied and we’ll go to the park.
We can use the same structure (get + object + past participle) to talk about arranging for something to be done by somebody else. • I must get my hair cut - it’s looking terrible. • Peter has gone to the garage to ask about getting the car fixed.

5. Other uses:

get + -ing usually has the meaning to start doing something: • You should get going otherwise you’ll miss your train. ( = you should leave now) get + to + infinitive often has the meaning to persuade: • I can’t get my husband to agree on the colour of the carpet.

Now, it is vital to look at the semi-modal side of the verb. Usually semi-modal verb get is involved in a causative construction clause. A construction in which somebody makes somebody else do something. Therefore in the causative construction there are two verbs, one is the causative verb, the other is the main verb (and it occurs in its uninflected form) a “causer”, an agent and a theme notice that the agent is not expressed in the nominative but as a dative complement of the causative verb. Get (like have) and contrary to make and cause can take different types of embedded complements:

• John got to the airport by car • John got ill • John got killed • John’s doctor got him walking again in no time at all • John got the car repaired very quickly Get is used together with "used to" to express that we are becoming accustomed to something. • I am getting used to waking up early. • Martha is getting used to being blind. • Getting used to the new conditions is quite difficult, but we are managing.

Get has a resultative meaning not a stative meaning , it is like cause/make and unlike have in this respect. In other words get means “cause to have”. Get has the same “volitional” effect found with have. Get takes an “indirect” causation, like cause, not a direct one like make.

• John got Mary to trip on the stairs. • John got the water to boil. • How did you get the washing machine to go? • Try as I might, I just couldn’t get the figures to add up Get can be used to show that the object has a possibility to do something or that something has been achieved. This use of get is more common for American English. • I never get to invite him. • Does she ever get to come here? Get can also mean proceeding with doing something. • I can't make him get sleeping. • When will you get working? • Let's get going / moving. Get is used to express obligation and orders. It is used for obligation from the outside. • You got to pay taxes or you'll go to jail! • You got to go to hospital or they’ll force you, your illness can be infectious! Get can be used to express the need. • I got to go to this concert. • I got to have it, this is such a fancy car! A semi-modal get can occur in initial position: it does not then have exactly the same import as the corresponding modal. Semi-modals often carry an ‘unconditional’ sense, while modals may indicate prediction, ability, necessity, etc subject to certain specifiable circumstances. Compare: a) My sister will get married on Tuesday if I go home on that day. b) My sister is going to get married on Tuesday, so I’, going home on that day.

However, this I very much a tendency; there is a great deal of semantic overlap between the two sets of modals (Robert M. W. Dixon, 1992:169). The get of get to never takes the negator or fronts in a question – one must say ‘I didn’t get to see the Queen” not ‘I gotn’t to see the Queen’. Speaking of passives, the get variety is rare – get allowed or get needed or get intended or get expected are at best marginal, while get begun is almost impossible.

Conclusions

The aim of the paper was to provide unified analysis of modal and semi-modal verbs focusing on the semi-modal verb get. According to the objectives introduced, the following has been done: • The study of literature based on the topic of the paper. • Defining different interpretations of modal and semi-modal verbs, explaining the differences, presenting examples; • Unified analysis of all uses of get under the rubric of semi-modal verbs has been conducted ; • Examples of use of get in contemporary English has been provided; • Conclusions presented at the end of the paper. In order to provide detailed conclusions to the paper, two short summaries on both chapters are presented below. Summary for chapter 1: Modal verb is a type of auxiliary verb that is used to indicate modality. Semi-modal verbs differ from modals in many respects: first of all, they involve a purpose clause. Secondly, while both types of modals involve circumstantially accessible worlds, the meaning of ability, as is commonly understood, primarily involves physical and mental capacities, while another interpretation might be more sensitive to surrounding factors, rather than intrinsic factors. Semi-modals include such verbs as: get, ought to, need, dare, etc. Modality should be discussed \ in terms of notions such as non-propositionality, subjectivity and non-factuality. Summary for chapter 2: Get is one of the 100 commonest words in the English language, and one of the top 20 verbs. It has very diverse meanings, and is used in a variety of ways. It is more common in oral speech. Each use of semi-modal get has an inchoative as well a modal version. The fact that get shows systematic modal alternations for a range of complementation types suggests that get is not inherently modal: the modal uses of get are derived uses. Get is commonly used in these senses: motion, permission, causation, passive, obligation, stative possession, onset of possesion, inchoative.

Bibliography

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Get

Onset of possession

motion

inchoative

permission

causation

passive

obligation

Stative possession

Figure 2 The senses of get in present-day English