Modal verses in English and French

Abstract

The decision to work on the modal verbs and on the semantically related items in French arose From an interest in those verbs and items as a pedagogical problem in teaching both English and French as foreign languages. This led to an interest in theoretical work on their semantics. After the Introduction (section one) the thesis falls into three parts: Part A In sections two to four the individual modal verbs in English and the related French verbs are studied and their meanings are compared and contrasted, together with those of other semantically related categories. Part B In sections five to seven the theoretical background to the study of modality is examined, including the *higher verbs* analysis, the work of Leech (1969), the formulae of modal logic, etc. Tables comparing the two languages are presented, using formulae adapted from Seuren (1969). Part C In sections eight and nine some of the essential ideas from parts A and B are examined in the light of what would need to be contained in a pedagogical grammar and a sample of such a grammar for the English modals is presented.