A Corpus-Based Analysis of Four Modality Types

Abstract

The ultimate goal of this article is to provide a frequency analysis of four modality types within the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and the British National Corpus (BNC) and to reveal how these four types show differences in the accessibility of the speaker or writer. The COCA and the BNC clearly indicate that "it is possible that S" is the most preferred among the four types in America, whereas "it is likely that S" is the most frequently used type in the U.K. These results lead to the hypothesis that American people prefer using a modality type with the weakest certainty, whereas British people prefer using that with stronger certainty. With respect to the types "it is certain that S" and "it is probable that S", on the other hand, it is important to note that they have a lower functional load than the other types, which leads to the hypothesis that they are currently not preferred by both American people and British people because they are modality types with strong certainty, which American people and British people tend to avoid. A further point to note is that Korean learners of English do not support the hypothesis that native English speakers (American people) prefer using a modality type with the weakest certainty but do entertain the hypothesis that native English speakers (British people) prefer a modality type with stronger certainty to that with the weakest certainty. More specifically, they exhibited a strong preference not towards "it is certain that S", "it is probable that S", and "it is possible that S" but towards "it is likely that S". These results thus provide confirmation that "it is possible that S" is the most accessible type for American people, whereas "it is likely that S" is the most accessible one for British people and Korean learners of English. Additionally, it is worth noting that the fact that the modality types with strong certainty are not preferred by American people, British people, and Korean learners of English may reflect Universal Grammar (Chomsky 2013) and the degree of markedness.