The expression of modality in Korean - Institut für ...

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formal differences, of conveying this basic semantic content. A substantial corpus has been
gathered and analyzed to both justify and support this claim. In fact, one of the most
comprehensive studies of this kind (Palmer (1986)) explicitly argues for this hypothesis:
„The second [basic assumption] is that this category [modality] can be identified,
described and compared across a number of different und unrelated languages.“
(Palmer 1986, 1)
Principle 3: Modality as a grammatical category is governed by a set of parameters
From principles 1 and 2 we can clearly deduct that modality is a phenomenon with specific
linguistic qualities, and it is these that we are concerned with. Modality as a grammatical
category is governed by a set of parameters.
Parameter 1: The components of modality
A descriptive account of modality is based on a distinction of the following components 10 :
Component Modal qualification Code
speaker modal subject _ MS
encoded situation modal proposition _ MP
agent in the encoded situation modal undergoer _ MU
view of the encoded situation by the speaker modal attitude _ MA
source of this view modal source _ MSo
These basic components may be illustrated by considering the following example:
(8) ∅ MS ∅ MSo Harvey MU must MA go to Inverness MP
In this sentence, both the speaker and the modal source (which, generally speaking, is usually
either an individual or a set of people or a norm of some sort), are zero components; this is
true for most modal sentences 11 , although „I am saying that“ and „in accordance with his
contract“ may easily be inserted. The modal proposition (i.e. the encoded situation „go to
10 This classification is influenced to a large extent by Werlen (1994).