This study represents an attempt to make explicit, within a contrastive perspective, the various types of meaning which can be expressed by the modal auxiliary verbs of English and Afrikaans. Chapter 1 investigates the potential of contrastive analysis for application in the field of foreign-language teaching and it is found that this linguistic technique is of definite pedagogical relevance because negative learning transfer or interference, which results from differences between source and target languages, is a major cause of learner error. It is also noted here that generally speaking the most acceptable type of linguistic theory within which a contrastive analysis should be framed is one which recognises both surface and deeper levels of structure so that the surface forms in each language can be ultimately related to a common semantic base. The modal auxiliaries of the two languages were selected for study because of the high degree of formal similarity or congruence that obtains between the English and Afrikaans counterparts, a fact which can be expected to lead to a considerable amount of learning transfer. As the semantics of these forms is not always equivalent, however, some of this transfer is bound to be negative, i.e. error-generating. In Chapter 2 the syntactic and morphological characteristics of the English and Afrikaans forms are compared. Although, as Chapter 2 reveals, the modal auxiliaries constitute a fairly well-defined formal class in each language, they relate semantically to an extensive set of other expressions, all of which mark modality, a rather complex concept which may be broadly characterised as relating to qualifications on the truth-value of the basic proposition which a speaker expresses. In Chapter 3 various classifications of types of modality are discussed and a basic distinction is made between epistemic modality (qualification relates directly to the speaker's assessment of the factuality of the proposition expressed) and non-epistemic modality (qualifications relate more specifically to conditions on the process referred to). In both cases the 11 qualification" can be expressed as a kind of "possibility" or a kind of "necessity", and within the framework of our analysis modality is represented at the level of deep-semantic structure by POSS and NEC as higher abstract predicates linked to one another by a set of meaning postulates. The interpretation of these predicates depends on the kinds of arguments which accompany them in the semantic representation and these arguments are classified and labelled broadly in accordance with Fillmore's functionalsemantic definitions of "case". The modal abstract predicates take as arguments a predication which is labelled as a Goal and either an Agent or Instrument as a source. Unlike traditional "modal operators", then, they are two-place transitive-causative predicates and the basic structure of the modal content of sentences is seen to be something of the order of "x makes-possible/necessary y (pre di ca ti on)". . Representations of epistemic modality contain a further BELIEVE predicate as part of the Goal predication. Depending on the prelexical transformations that apply (e.g. whether the modality source is deleted or not) syntactically different modality markers are derived from the same basic semantic representation and so expressions such as John allows Fred ... ,Fred is allowed ... and Fred can ... are shown to be broadly synonymous. Our main concern here is not with the actual transformations but with the "semantic primitives" in terms of which different types of modality may be represented and related to one another. Using the framework outlined in Chapter 3, the semantics of the "possibility" and the "necessity" modal auxiliaries in each language is discussed in Chapters 4 and 5 respectively. Both non-oblique ("present") and oblique ("imperfect") forms are related to one another and to other modality markers. Chapter 6 deals briefly with negative forms of the modal auxiliaries before summarising the semantic similarities and contrasts between the congruent English and Afrikaans forms. It is found that in spite of considerable parallelism in the meaning-form relations expressed by the modal auxiliaries in the two languages, there are also a number of basic differences. The pedagogical implications and applications relating to this study, its findings and its approach, are reviewed briefly by way of conclusion. / Linguistics and Modern Languages

This paper analyses the use of modal auxiliaries in an investment fund prospectus and how they are translated into Swedish. The semantics of modal auxiliaries is a rather fuzzy area. One modal verb such as may or will can have several different meanings, depending on the textual and situational context. Correctly interpreting the modal verbs is an important prerequisite for an accurate translation. A theoretical background founded on linguistic studies and grammatical presentations by Palmer (2001), Huddleston and Pullum (2002), Coates (1983), Teleman et al. (1999) and Wärnsby (2006) and others, provides a framework for analysing the meanings of the modal verbs in the source text and determining the most equivalent expressions in the Swedish modal system. Different types of modality, such as epistemic, deontic and dynamic, are discussed, along with the different textual and situational factors associated with each type. The analysis includes the most frequent modal auxiliaries found in the source text, namely (in the order of frequency from high to low) may, will, should, can, shall and must. Each modal verb is analysed in terms of its meanings and possible Swedish translations are discussed. One interesting aspect highlighted in the study is the close relationship between modality and futurity, which is particularly true for will. Due to the nature of the source text as a legal contract between the investment fund and the investors, the use of modal verbs specific to legal register is also considered in the analysis. The analysis shows that an awareness of the various factors associated with different types of modality and the linguistic features typical for the particular text type can help the translator correctly interpret and translate the modal verbs as accurately and consistently as possible.

<p>The two modal auxiliaries can and could are investigated in this essay. Focus is on the correspondence between descriptions in grammar books and real-life data. </p><p>First four English learner grammar books aimed for Swedish high-schools were analyzed. The uses and translations of can and could found in the grammar books were then compared to real-life examples from an English-Swedish parallel corpus. </p><p>It was found that three of the grammar books categorize the uses of can and could according to ability, possibility and permission in quite general terms and these uses correlated to the majority of the corpus examples. The forth book did not mention the possibility use and stated very specific uses of the modal auxiliaries. This grammar book did not correspond to the corpus data to the same extent as the other three grammars.</p><p>It could be concluded that the assumptions made about use correlated to a greater extent with the corpus than the assumptions made about translations.</p>

The two modal auxiliaries can and could are investigated in this essay. Focus is on the correspondence between descriptions in grammar books and real-life data. First four English learner grammar books aimed for Swedish high-schools were analyzed. The uses and translations of can and could found in the grammar books were then compared to real-life examples from an English-Swedish parallel corpus. It was found that three of the grammar books categorize the uses of can and could according to ability, possibility and permission in quite general terms and these uses correlated to the majority of the corpus examples. The forth book did not mention the possibility use and stated very specific uses of the modal auxiliaries. This grammar book did not correspond to the corpus data to the same extent as the other three grammars. It could be concluded that the assumptions made about use correlated to a greater extent with the corpus than the assumptions made about translations.

The aim of this study is to examine to what extent Swedish writers, who write in English, use the modals must, have to and have got to. The hypothesis being tested argues that the core modal must is not being challenged by the emerging modals have to and have got to in this non-native variety of English. The objective of this thesis is to be accomplished by attempting to answer the following research questions: 1) What is the frequency and usage of the English modals must, have to and have got to in the material? 2) How do the frequencies in the Swedish material compare with the frequencies in the British and American corpora and to the previous studies? 3) How do the Swedish writers use the modals with regard to epistemic and deontic meaning? The study is corpus based, and the corpora used consist of Swedish newspapers in English (SWENC) and material from blogs and tweets which are written in English by Swedes (SESMC). These are compared with the press sub-corpora in BE06 (the British 2006 corpus of CQP web at Lancaster) and in AE06 (the American 2006 corpus of CQP web at Lancaster), which represent British and American native varieties of English. The method is quantitative and the results are presented after the process of normalization. The results show that must, have to and have got to are used in SWENC and SESMC although, to greatly varying degrees. The core modal must is more frequently used in the Swedish corpus than in the British and American sub-corpora. The emerging modal have to is used more frequently than must in all three corpora. The second emerging modal have got to is very seldomly used. Additionally, a qualitative examination of the modals and their meanings reveal that the writers in SWENC and SESMC use the older modal must alongside the newer have to and newest modal have got to, but with a preference for a toned-down style of language. The conclusion drawn is that the core modal must is indeed being challenged by the emerging modal have to even in the non-native variety of English.