Bělíková Zuzana The Modal Verb Could and its Equivalents in Translation

I.
 
 
THEORY 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Philosophical Faculty, Palacký University Olomouc 
10 
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MODALITY 
“Modality is centrally concerned with the speaker's attitude towards the factuality or 
actualization of the situation expressed by the rest of the clause.” (Huddleston and Pullum 
2002, 173) 
Huddleston and Pullum (2002, 176) explain two ways how to study modality. The first one 
is that we look for basic meaning of modal verbs. The second one is to study a pragmatic 
part of them. They show the difference between semantic and pragmatic strength in
the example: 
1) You must have one of these cakes.
 (Huddleston and Pullum 2002, 176) 
 
In this example, must as a semantically strong modal is pragmatically weakened 
(Huddleston and Pullum 2002, 177). “The parameter of STRENGTH of modality is 
sometimes used to characterise pragmatic aspects of root necessity meaning.” (Depraetere 
and Verhulst 2008) 
Imre (2012) adds: “Modality is the grammaticalized expression of the subjective attitudes 
and opinions of the speaker including possibility, probability, predictability, necessity, 
obligation, permissibility, ability, desire, and contingency, and it is external to the content, 
being part of the attitude taken up by the speaker.” 
1.1
 
Kinds of Modality 
There are two kinds of modality that linguists agree with one another. There are only 
different terms they use when speaking about these kinds (Huddleston and Pullum 2002, 
178). Huddleston and Pullum (2002, 178) use the terms - deontic and epistemic modality. 
Their common characteristics are subjectivity – in connection with a speaker, and non-
factuality – a commitment to the truth is not necessary (Palmer 1986, 96). Dušková (1988, 
186) mentions that modal verbs can, may, must, will, could, might, would, should and 
ought can express deontic and epistemic modality. Shall, need and dare only make deontic 
one. She does not include dynamic modality into her division. Huddleston and Pullum 
(2002, 178) also present dynamic modality that is a little bit ambiguous. 

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Philosophical Faculty, Palacký University Olomouc 
11