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some examples) should help the students to get a general view on modality and
the details will be discussed separately for each modal concept.
We will further offer an example of how we can deal with one concept of modality
at a time. We have chosen possibility and its negative counterpart, impossibility.
Theoretical Background
English modal verbs (can, may, could, might) may give the sentence in which they
occur the value of a cautious rather than confident statement suggesting that the
speaker would not be surprised if the event did not occur. There are two types of
possibility 5 :
a. Possibility of the fact (factual):
e.g. “The railways may be improved.”
e.g. “It is possible that the railways will be improved.”
e.g. “Perhaps/ possibly/ maybe the railways will be improved.”
b. Possibility of the idea (theoretical):
e.g. “The railways can be improved.”/ “It is possible/likely for the railways to be
improved.”
Theoretical possibility (can) is weaker than factual possibility (may). In the first
sentence, may suggests that perhaps the railways will be improved, there are
definite plans for improvement. Can, in the fourth sentence expresses the idea that
in theory the railways are “improvable,” that they are not perfect. Can may also be
understood as equivalent of “sometimes” in general statements.
e.g. “Hiking can be boring.”/” Hiking is sometimes boring.”
Can and may express both present and future possibility. May very often replaces
can, except in questions and negations:
e.g. “Dorian can be reading for the exam.”/“Dorian may be reading for the
exam.”
Might and could express a tentative possibility. 6 They show that something is
possible but unlikely:
e.g. “She might/ could have left yesterday.” (It is just possible that she left
yesterday.)
Past possibility is usually expressed by could followed by perfect infinitive but this
possibility is of a smaller degree than that expressed by can and a perfect infinitive.
e.g. “He could have attended the meeting although nobody saw him there.”/“He
can have attended the meeting although nobody saw him there.”
Could followed by perfect infinitive can also show that something was possible, but
it did not happen. 7
e.g. “You were driving like a mad man! You could have had an accident.” (but
luckily you didn’t)
May followed by simple infinitive expresses present and future possibility and when
followed by perfect infinitive, it expresses past possibility:
e.g. “We must leave at once, he may be here any minute now.”
e.g. “He may have already bought the car; I’ll ask him tomorrow.”
5
Geoffrey Leech, Jan Svartvik, A Communicative Grammar of English. (London: Longman, 1994),
128.
6
Ibid., 129.
7
Bob Obee, Virginia Evans, Upstream Upper-Intermediate. (Newbury: Express Publishing, 2005),
205.
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