The Semantic Development of Past Tense Modals in English

Abstract

The English modal auxiliaries, would, should, might, and could are historically the Past Tense forms of will, shall, may and can respectively. 1 However, their meaning and usage in Modem English are not derivable from the combination of past meaning with the meaning of the Present modals. Rather the uses of the Past Tense modals may be divided into three types: (i) hypothetical uses; (ii) present tense uses; and (iii) past tense uses. In Modem English the hypothetical uses are the most common according to the analysis of spoken and written texts done by Coates (1983). They are most obvious in the then-clauses of hypothetical conditional sentences. In some cases the hypothetical meaning occurs along with what is sometimes called the 'root' meaning of the modal. For instance in (I) would indicates 'hypothetical willingness' (Coates 1983: 211), while in (2) could indicates 'hypothetical ability':

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