Four Deontic Modals: A Corpus-based Analysis
AUTHORS
Nam-Kil Kang,Far East University
ABSTRACT
The main purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed frequency analysis of four deontic modals (must, should, need to, ought to) within the COCA, BNC, and TMC. We argue in this paper that should is the most preferred one, whereas ought to is the most undesired one among the four deontic modals. The COCA (1990-2012) clearly shows that the deontic modal should is the most preferred one for American people, followed by need to, must, and ought to, in that order. Thus, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that the most preferable type for American people is the deontic modal should. On the other hand, the BNC (1980-1993) demonstrates that the deontic modal should is the most frequently used type, followed by must, need to, and ought to. Also, this paper argues that should currently has the highest functional load and its use is now the most preferred by educated American people.
KEYWORDS
deontic modals, Corpus of Contemporary American English, British National Corpus, Time Magazine Corpus
REFERENCES
[1] British National Corpus (BNC). https://corpus.byu.edu/bnc.
[2] Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). https://corpus.byu.edu/coca.
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