Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

Nouns, adjectives and adverbs with modal meanings

noun

adjective

adverb

appearance

apparent

apparently

certainty

certain

certainly

evidence

evident

evidently

inevitability

inevitable

inevitably

necessity

necessary

necessarily

possibility

possible

possibly

probability

probable

probably

He took aim and fired, but it was a difficult shot with no 

certainty of success.

There was no 

evidence that he had been there or done any work.

The most 

likely outcome will be a compromise.

There’s not 

necessarily only one way of doing these things.

Would it be 

possible for me to have a copy of the document?

I can 

probably finish the repair work by Friday, if that’s all right.

A less frequent use of likely (but one which is quite common in North American

English) is as an adverb:

A heavy week for economic data will 

likely keep trading cautious.

FOR CERTAIN, FOR DEFINITE, FOR SURE

407

The expressions for certain, for definite and for sure are also frequently used. For

definite

and for sure are especially common in informal speech. For certain usually

occurs with the verb know:

A: Did he say for definite whether he’s coming next week?

B: I’m not sure. I’ll ask him again.

After a journey like that, I won’t be flying in a two-seater plane again, that’s 

for sure.

Do you 

know for certain that the bus is at ten?

clear(ly)

definite(ly)

doubtless

likelihood/likely

obvious(ly)

seeming(ly)

supposed(ly)

sure(ly)

undoubted(ly)

678 | Modality

Cambridge Grammar of English

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Speech acts

Introduction

408

Ways of realising speech acts

409

Clause types and speech acts

410

Declarative clauses functioning as 

questions 410a

Modal verbs and interrogative 

clauses as directives 410b

Interrogative clauses as 

exclamations 410c

Imperative clauses as offers and 

invitations 410d

Modal expressions and speech acts

411

Modality and directives (commands,

requests, advice)

412

Commands, instructions

413

Declaratives with can 413a

Declaratives with must 413b

Declaratives with will and shall 413c

You’re going to

and would you like 

to

413d

Interrogatives with can, could, 

will

and would 413e

Warnings, advice, suggestions

414

Declaratives with can, could, may

and might 414a

Negative interrogatives with can

and could 414b

Declaratives with must 414c

Declaratives with should 414d

Declaratives with may as well and 

might (just) as well

414e

Declaratives with ought to 414f

You want to

414g

Had better

414h

Permissions, prohibitions

415

Declaratives with can and may 415a 

Interrogatives with can, could, may

and might 415b

Negative forms of can, must and 

may

in prohibitions 415c

Negative forms of shall and will in 

prohibitions 415d

Would you mind

and do you 

mind

415e

Panel: Turn-taking and asking for 

permission to speak 415f

Requests

416

Interrogatives with can, could, will

and would 416a

Negative declaratives with couldn’t and

wouldn’t

416b

Declaratives with might 416c

Would you like to

416d

Want

416e

Panel: Would you mind and do you 

mind

416f

Modality and commissives (offers,

invitations, promises)

417

Offers

418

Declaratives with can and could 418a

Interrogatives with can, could and 

may

418b

Declaratives with ’ll 418c

Interrogatives with shall and will 418d

Do you want

, will you have and 

would you like

418e 

Negative don’t you want, wouldn’t you 

like

and won’t you have 418f

Invitations

419

Would you like to

419a

Do you want to

419b

You must

and you’ll have to 419c

Promises, undertakings

420

Will

, shall and ’ll 420a

Non-modal expressions and speech 

acts

421

What about

, what if, how about 421a

Why don’t

and why not 421b

Speech act verbs (agree, insist, 

promise)

422

Performative verbs 422a

Panel: Speech act verbs and 

politeness 422b

Reporting verbs 422c

Politeness

423

Tense and aspect 423a

Negation 423b

Other syntactic features of 

politeness 423c

Prefaces to speech acts 423d

Panel: Please 423e

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680 | 

Speech acts

INTRODUCTION

408

This chapter (408–423) is concerned with interpersonal meanings of grammar,

that is, how language enables us to get things done by ourselves or by others. 

The term speech act refers to what the speaker or writer is doing in uttering a

particular form of words. For example, an imperative form such as Come here!

usually has the meaning of directing the listener to act in a certain way, and a

clause such as Can you pass me that book? is likely to be a request to someone

actually to pass the book, rather than an enquiry about the person’s physical

ability. Speech acts are concerned with the speaker’s intention rather than the

content-meaning of the utterance. 

In everyday written and spoken interactions, common speech acts occur 

such as informing, directing, questioning, requesting, exemplifying, offering,

apologising, complaining, suggesting, promising, permitting, forbidding,

predicting and so on. 

Speech acts may be divided into five broad types:

● Constatives: 

The speaker asserts something about the truth of a proposition, associated with

acts such as: affirming, claiming, concluding, denying, exclaiming, maintaining,

predicting, stating beliefs.

● Directives: 

The speaker intends to make the hearer act in a particular way, associated with

acts such as: advising, asking, challenging, commanding, daring, forbidding,

insisting, instructing, permitting, prohibiting, questioning, requesting,

suggesting, warning. 

● Commissives:

The speaker commits to a course of action, associated with acts such as:

guaranteeing, offering, inviting, promising, vowing, undertaking. 

● Expressives (or acknowledgements): 

The speaker expresses an attitude or reaction concerning a state of affairs,

associated with acts such as: apologising, appreciating, complimenting,

condemning, congratulating, regretting, thanking, welcoming. 

● Declarations: 

The speaker performs the speech act solely by making the utterance, for

example: I pronounce you man and wife; I declare this meeting closed; I name

this ship x

.

---

This chapter focuses particularly on directives and commissives, as these are the

speech acts in which grammatical choices figure most prominently, especially

involving modal verbs and clause types (e.g. declarative versus interrogative).

The chapter describes how the clause structure contributes to different kinds 

of speech act (such as statements, questions, directives, etc.) (

Û

410

). We also

consider the role of modal verbs in constructing speech acts such as requesting

(Would you hold this for me?), offering (I’ll carry that for you), promising (I’ll buy

you one for your birthday

), suggesting (We could stay in a bed-and-breakfast

place

), permitting (You can stay up till ten o’clock), and so on (

Û

411–420

). 

There are also verbs, referred to as speech act verbs, which a speaker can use to

label a speech act explicitly (I promise you I’ll be there; He denied that he was

involved in any way

) (

Û

422

). When these are used actually to perform the

speech act (e.g. I apologise), they are called performative verbs (

Û

422a

).

The way speech acts are realised also involves politeness and the efforts

speakers make to avoid loss of face, or dignity, for themselves and their

interlocutors. For instance, a speaker who says I was wondering if I could have a

word with you?

will be heard as less direct, more polite and less imposing than

one who says I wonder if I can have a word with you, which in turn is more polite

and less imposing than someone who says I want to have a word with you. Tense

and aspect choices are therefore also implicated in speech acts (

Û

423

).

On the larger scale, speakers need to perform functions such as opening

conversations, closing them, making sure they get their turn to speak, and so on.

These are referred to in passing in this chapter (

Û

423d

) and are dealt with in

greater detail in 

104–122 From discourse to social contexts

. 

Speech acts can only be interpreted in context, and so it is often necessary to

use quite long examples to illustrate how particular acts are realised, especially in

face-to-face conversation, where speech acts such as requests, invitations, advice,

etc. have to be carefully negotiated between speakers and listeners and are not

necessarily realised in one phrase or clause.

Although we also exemplify speech acts in written texts, and although there are

a potentially huge number of possible speech acts which could be discussed, our

emphasis in this chapter will be on the performance of the most common,

everyday, frequent speech acts which occur in spoken contexts, using grammatical

resources. We focus particularly on those speech acts which are interactive,

involving getting others to act in a particular way. 

Typical speech acts which occur in academic contexts are covered in 

140–154

Grammar and academic English

.