The Meanings and the Usages of the Modal Auxiliary Verbs in the English Speeches of His Majesty King
- Details
- Category: English Language and Literature
- Published: Saturday, 05 May 2012 03:00
- Written by Bushra Radwan Abu-Faraj
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Abstract
The Meanings and the Usages of the Modal Auxiliary Verbs in the English Speeches of His Majesty King Abdullah II
Bushra Radwan Abu-Faraj
Mu'tah University, 2009
This study investigates the usages and meanings of the modal auxiliary verbs in the speeches of His Majesty King Abdullah II. Modal auxiliary verbs are generally used to add a particular sense or information to the context; sometimes, to show the ability, the possibility or the necessity of doing or being something, and sometimes, to ensure or predict an event. It can be said that these auxiliary verbs are helping verbs in which the speaker/writer is able to express the meaning he/she wants to express.
More than ten national and international speeches of His Majesty King Abdullah II were collected and analyzed to find out the different types of modal auxiliary verbs and whether they are used to express the same possible meaning of modals in general. It turns out that the modal auxiliaries which are used in His Majesty's speeches are in consistent with the usages of modal auxiliaries in English language. It is well known that some modals are less used than others. This fact clearly appears in His Majesty's speeches; central modals are frequently used whereas some others like the marginal modals are rarely used and some like the modal idioms and the semi-modals are never used.