Making meaning withbe able to: modality and actualisation

Abstract

This article sheds new light on the usage constraints of be able to, by combining empirical evidence from the British National Corpus (BNC, Davies 2004–) with theoretical insights on the semantics–pragmatics interface. First, we show that be able to does not, contrary to the general assumption, express only ‘ability’ but it shares most of the root meanings usually associated with the possibility modals can and could (Coates 1983: 124). The data analysis shows that what is called ‘opportunity’ in Depraetere & Reed's (2011) taxonomy is the most frequent meaning of be able to. We then turn to the notion of actualisation, which is often claimed to be the main distinguishing feature between be able to and can/could. The qualitative analysis of the BNC dataset provides the empirical evidence, lacking in previous research, for the claim that actualisation is indeed a defining property of the modal periphrastic form. Starting from a reassessment of the semantics–pragmatics interface in terms of a fourfold distinction, we argue that actualisation is a generalised conversational implicature and constitutes conventional pragmatic meaning (that is, conventional non-truth-conditional meaning).

Strategic Intervention for Selected Deviant English Phrases at a rural University

“…The respondents had a full understanding of the phrase 'can be able to' which is a true representation of redundancy errors because both 'can' and 'be able to' represent ability. The finding is in line with Leclercq and Depraetere (2022) who claim that 'be able to' expresses and shares most of the root meanings that are usually associated with the 'possibility' modals such as 'can'. However, it is in contrast with Anis (2021) who suggests that language shadowing becomes a challenging exercise for L2 learners.…”

“…The modal 'can' is usually followed by an infinitive without 'to' as in 'I can chalk your words down' but not 'I can to chalk your words down' because in ungrammatical and meaningless. Additionally, Leclercq and Depraetere (2022) claim that using the modal verb 'can' does not advocate the change of its form in the English language. In this regard, the third-person singular form does not end in '-s'.…”

“…According to EnglishClub (2022), 'can' and its past are modal verbs while 'be able to' is part of an auxiliary/main verb 'be' as in 'We are able to do it now'. In this essence, the phrase 'be able to' expresses and shares most of the root meanings that are usually associated with the 'possibility' modals including 'can' and 'could' (Leclercq & Depraetere, 2022).…”

A Radical Embodied Characterization of German Modal Constructions

“…The kid in question happened to be Kent Daley, member of the high school tennis team (…) (Stephen King, Sleeping Beauties, 2017) As we see in (8a), affordance mapping draws on the agent's prior information on already-witnessed events which are further confronted with new facts (Bayesian inference). Thus, the event is not reconstructed in terms of absolute actualization, but as the result of information-weighing processes (a previously experienced event determines attention, thereby providing the agent conceptualizer with the necessary information to identify the affordances of the new event) (contra Leclercq and Depraetere, 2021). Similarly, in (8b), a person is defined through the assignation of specific affordances, which increases the reliability of the mapping process (e.g., action recognition, see Section 3).…”