Some observations concerning transitivity and modality in scientific writing

fonsuuge Sciences, Volume 13, Number 1, pp. 59-78, 1991 0388~OOW91 $3.00+.00 Printed in Great Britain Pergamon Press plc

Some Observations Concerning Transitivity and Modality in Scientific Writing

David Banks

Universitk de Bretagne Occidentale

ABSTRACT

consideration of a corpus of scientific writing shows that in this register modal verbs are more likely to be passive than non-medals. This is pa~icuiar~y so for verbs of mental process. The passive may and can in mental processes are exclusively of the epistemic type, and cun seems

semantically closer than may to non-modal expression. The active may is much less frequent than

can in mental processes. In material and relational processes, examples of may are predominantly

active. Can is rare in these processes. Other modal verbs show similarly interesting relation-

ships, although the small numbers involved preclude extrapolation.

CORPUS

This study (like Banks 1985, 1986, 1990) is based on a corpus of scientific writing from the field of oceanography. The corpus is made up of 11 academic articles from Vol. 5, Nos 1 and 2 of the journal Oce~log~cu Acta. The articles were selected on

the basis of two criteria:

(1) the article was written in English;

(2) at least one of the authors provided an address in an English-speaking country.

The object of this selection was to isolate those articles which were written by English speakers, so as to avoid possible interference from other languages. The method used is slightly finer than that suggested by Baldauf and Jemudd (1983) (who only consider the first-named author) but not as sophisticated as that suggested by Swales (1985, 1986). Swales’ method, however, seems directly applicable to single- author papers, while 8 out df the 11 articles in this corpus list more than one author.

60 Language Sciences, Volume 13, Number 1 (1991)

The corpus contains the whole of the text of the articles, excluding only the abstract.

I have excluded the abstract since it seems to me that the language of an abstract is

a register in itself, and is not necessarily the same as that of an academic article, even

when both are from the same domain. Gopnik (1972), despite its misleading title, was

devoted exclusively to the language of scientific abstracts.

Oceanography is a hybrid science. The articles which make up the corpus relate to the

disciplines of physics, chemistry, biology, meteorology and paleontology. To some

extent, then, oceanographical writing can be seen as a microcosm of scientific writing.

Thus, whatever hypotheses might be formed on the basis of a study of oceanographical

writing can be taken as working hypotheses for scientific writing in general.

I take it that the structure of the active English verb is:

(modality) (perfect aspect) (progressive aspect) tense

where brackets indicate optional elements. On this basis, all verbs that fit into the

modality slot are counted as modal verbs. This definition includes will and shall in

the category of modal verbs, but excludes ought, which requires the inclusion of the

particle to. However, there are no examples of oughf in the sample, so its exclusion

is not particularly pertinent to this study. The definition also excludes the periphrastic

verbal expression have to, which, in any case, has syntactic features which distinguish

it from the modal verbs properly so-called, and of which only one example occurs in

the corpus.

On this basis, the corpus contains 252 modal verbs, the distributions of which are

given in Table 1. The articles are identified by the first-named author.

TABLE 1

Will Would Shall Should Can Could May Might Must Total

Vassie - - - - 3- 31- 7

Elliott - 1 - 1 2 1 1 - 1 7

Uncles 8 4 - - 18 - 3 2 5 40

Chew 7 3 - - 9 2 11 - 2 34

Rice 4 6 - 8 6 3 3 1 3 34

Gage 2 11 - 2 3 4 14 - 1 37

Bruce - 6 - 4 1 2 - 1 - 14

Campbell 1 3 - 1 4 1 6 - 1 17

Barton 1 5 - - 3 1 8 2 1 21

Thunell - 3 - 1 2 2 1 - - 9

Berger 4 - - 2 15 1 5 3 2 32

Transitivity and Modality in Scientific Writing 61

Table 2 lists the verbs in decreasing order of importance. It will be seen that can

accounts for more than one quarter (26%) of the modal examples, and may is of the

same order of importance (22%). Would and wilE (17 and 11% respectively) form a

middle range of importance, although it will be noticed that would, interestingly, is

considerably more frequent than will. Should, could, must and might occur only in

comparatively small numbers, none of them accounting for as much as 10% of the

modal verbs. Shawl is completely absent from the sample. This is not too different from

the proportions found in a scientific corpus by Huddleston (1971:297), where calz and

may represent 30 and 24 % respectively; would and will 10 and 12 % respectively; and

the other modal verbs less than 10% each, shall being the least frequent with 2%.

It also follows the general lines of the distribution found by Barber (1962:29) for a

small scientific sample, where the only major differences are a comparatively low

percentage of would and a rather higher percentage of must. It is, however, considerably

different from the distribution found by Larreya (1984:261) in a corpus of general

English, where will + would is by far the most common category, and may + might

account for less than 10% of the sample.

TABLE 2

No. %

Can

May Would

Will

Should

Could

Must

Might

Shall

66 26

55 22

42 17

27 11

19 8

17 7

16 6

10 4 - -

MODALITY AND TRANSITIVITY

While the percentage of passives in the corpus as a whole is 31% of finite verbs

(cf. Banks 1985, 1986), 41% of modal verbs occur in the passive form. Since pas-

sivization is related to transitivity, I shall approach this phenomenon using a simple

transitivity network based on Berry (1975) and Halliday (1985).


unrestricted +

r

material -b

L restricted 4

r causative

1 non-causative

r middle

1 effective +

[

transitive

intransitive

mental

relational +

attributive

identifying

All processes are either material, mental or relational. Material processes are either

unrestricted or restricted, i.e. the number of inherent participants is fixed (restricted)

or not (unrestricted). Unrestricted processes may occur with two participants, and thus

be causative:

(1) . . . surface slopes must almost balance the forcing mechanisms. . .

or with a single participant, in which case they are non-causative:

(2) . . the . . slope will similarly increase.

Restricted processes may be restricted to a single participant, and thus be middle:

(3) . . . dissolution can proceed more readily within CO*-rich microenvironments.

Where restricted processes are restricted to two participants (effective process), both

participants may be expressed giving the transitive process:

(4) . . depth averaged models can only provide a guide . .


or only one participant may be expressed giving the intransitive process:

(5) . . . the fine net may not filter effectively .

Relation processes are either attributive, where a qualitative attribute is assigned to

the subject:

(6) . . . the MSL . . . may be flat . . .

or identifying, where the process serves to define the identity of the subject:

(7) . . . organic particles which may constitute their prime source of food.

Only four positions in this network permit a selection between active and passive

voice; they are the causative, transitive, mental, and identifying processes. Table 3

shows the distribution by process and distinguishes between active and passive where

appropriate.

TABLE 3

Caus. Non-caus. Mid. Trans. Intrans. Ment. Attrib. Ident.

Act. Pass. Act. Pass. Act. Pass. Act. Pass.

Vassie - 1 - - 1 - - - 3 1 1 -

Elliott - - - - - 1 - 1 2 1 1 1

Uncles 1 1 1 5 2- - 319 7 1 -

Chew 1 - 2 126 - 58 6 3-

Rice - - 1 237 1 17 10 2-

Gage 1 - - 354 - 5 11 3 5 -

Bruce - 1 - 123 - -4 3 --

Campbell - - - 2 1 1 - 2 4 6 1 -

Barton - - 1 - 1 1 1 37 7 --

Thunell - - - 121 - 2 1 l-l

Berger - - 4 222 - 126 4 --

Total 33 9 17 21 26 2 34 72 49 14 2

It will be seen that mental process accounts for the largest number of cases, 106 (or

42%), followed by the material, 81 (or 33%); and of these, 47 (19% of the total), are

transitive. Relational process accounts for 65 cases (25%), and of these, 49 (or 19%


of the total) are attributive. As has been said, 41% of the modal examples occur in

the passive form. However, this may be to some extent misleading, in the sense that

in four of the process types (non-causative, middle, intransitive and attributive) the

active/passive choice is not available. These are processes which occur uniquely in the

active form; no passive correlate exists. If one considers only those process types

where the active/passive choice is available (i.e. causative, transitive, mental and

identifying), then passive has been chosen in 59% of the cases. This is most noticeable

in the mental category, where 69% of the mental process examples are passive. Of

the other types, causative has few examples, but those that do occur are evenly divided

between active and passive. The transitive cases are also fairly evenly divided, with

a slight bias towards passive (55 %). The identifying cases are not particularly numerous

either, but are more so than causative, and of those that occur, one can say that passive

seems to be rare, occurring in only 12% of the cases.

From these results, a certain number of trends seem to be discernible. There seems

to be some slight correlation between modality and mental process: 42 % of the modal

verbs in the corpus are mental processes, compared with 33% material and 25%

relational processes. In the material process category, active and passive examples

seem equally probable; in the mental process category, there seems to be a strong

tendency towards the passive. On the other hand, passive seems extremely rare in the

relational process.

That there should be some link between modality and mental process does not seem

unreasonable. To the extent that mental processes deal with the human appreciation

of the world, it may well be that this is a situation where the scientist prefers to hedge

his bets, leaving himself an escape route rather than making unqualified statements.

The qualification provided by the modal would then allow for the reader who did not

wish to follow the line of reasoning suggested.

McKinlay and Potter (1987) have shown that when talking about the supposed errors

of others, scientists tend to do so in a non-specific way when speaking in a formal

situation, as opposed to the informal (indeed anonymous) situations studied by Gilbert

and Mulkay (1984), where they tend to be much more specific and assertive. It would

seem reasonable that both written contexts and formal spoken ones, like scientific

conferences, should be situations which lead scientists to be less assertive, to hedge

their bets, on points that might be open to disagreement.

A look at the distribution of the various modal verbs occurring in mental processes

(Table 4) indicates that can accounts for almost half of the modal verbs which occur.

This is true for both the active and passive categories, with 42 and 47% respectively.

However, the figure of 42% for the active category may be misleading, to the extent

that while for the passive category the examples of can are spread throughout the

sample, 10 out of the 14 occurrences of active can appear in a single article, that

identified here as Berger.


TABLE 4

Active Passive

No. % No. %

Total mental

No. %

Will

Would

Shall

Should

Can

Could

May Might

Must

3 9 5 7

7 21 3 4 - - -

3 9 3 4

15 42 34 47

1 3 4 6

4 12 15 21

- - 6 8

1 3 2 3

8 8

10 10 - -

6 6

49 46

5 5

19 18

6 6

3 3

The possibility that Berger is to some extent stylistically different from the other

articles in this sample cannot be excluded. I note in passing that one of the co-authors

of the Berger article is a French-speaker; it would therefore seem not unreasonable

to suppose that this writer had a large hand in drafting the article, thus leading to

this sort of stylistic difference. (This is not the only point on which Berger differs

stylistically from the other articles.) If the figures are recalculated with a sample

excluding Berger, then the percentage of active modal verbs in mental process rep-

resented by can falls to 20 % . This is the same as the occurrence rate of active may

in mental process, and almost half that of active would.

MENTAL PROCESS AND PASSIVE MAY AND CAN

Huddleston (197 1:297-304) claims to isolate six uses of the epistemic may:

1. Qualified generalization: x is true for at least some members of the group but not

necessarily any particular individual.

2. Exhaustive disjunction: x is at least one of the attributes proposed.

3. Uncertainty: the truth of x is not certain (i.e. possibility).

4. Concession: whether x is true or not, y is the case.

5. Legitimacy: x is legitimate, valid.

6. Ability: (we) are able to do X.

The epistemic can has the same uses as may with the exclusion of concession.

Beyond this, Huddleston seems to imply that there is little difference between may and

can. This also appears to be the conclusion of Palmer (1974: 120) (although in Palmer

L3c 1381-E


(1979: 154-6) he links can to the notion of non-assertion). Of the notions suggested

by Huddleston, those of uncertainly/possibility, legitimacy and ability seem to cover

all of the examples found in the sample.

The examples of passive can in the mental process are never of a deontic type. All

of the examples can be classified as epistemic in some form. To the extent that these

can be divided into an ability type and a possibility type (cf., e.g., Quirk et al.

1972:97), both occur.

(8) . . . it can be seen that the semi-diurnal tides propagate . . . in an anti-

clockwise direction . . .

(9) . . the acceleration of the fluid can be neglected.

However, a considerable number of the examples are not easily classified as being one

rather than the other, and seem to combine aspects of both possible interpretations,

or indeed to be neutral as to which one should be selected.

(10) . . . possible similarities can be detected between the oceanic and coastal

measurements . . .

This seems to be open to interpretation, indicating both the ability of an observer

to detect the phenomenon, and the possibility of detection. Indeed both seem feasible

ways of glossing the proposition expressed by (10).

The examples of passive may in the mental process are also exclusively of the

epistemic type, i.e. indicating some form of possibility.

(11) . . the present work may be considered an extension of Owen’s analysis .

Here the majority of the cases of passive may in mental process (12 out of 15) are

examples of the legitimacy use: cf. (11) above, and:

(12) . . . juvenile . . growth may be acceptably modelled by a growth increment . . .

The three remaining cases seem to fall into the ability category (though here again

some cases are not easy to categorize).

(13) The stratification was weaker as may be seen by comparing the

contour plots ,

The examples of passive can in the mental process fall into a similar pattern.

Twenty-eight out of the 34 examples are of the legitimacy type:


(14) . . . other signals . . . can therefore be disregarded.

and six are of the ability type:

(15) . . . has . . . reduced the minimum size of organisms which can be counted.

To the extent that can and may cover similar semantic areas in similar proportions,

it might seem that the “virtually no difference” approach is justified, and it is true

that in many cases substituting may for can or vice versa would make “virtually” no

difference. However, some examples do not lend themselves to this ploy.

(16) . . it can be shown that the procedure . . is reasonable . . .

The substitution of may in (16) sounds distinctly odd, and even if acceptable, would

alter the interpretation. As it stands, (16) is very close to saying that the procedure

is reasonable; it is a justification. The substitution of may places the reasonableness

much more in the domain of possibility, closer in fact to Huddleston’s notion of

uncertainty. This seems to go against Palmer’s use of non-assertion as a distinguishing

feature of epistemic can. My intuitive interpretation of the difference in this example

is as follows. Both express a procedure which is considered legitimate. In the case of

can, this legitimacy is considered to be the only one available in the present state of

our knowledge, and hence is that to be used, until (if ever) it is shown to be less

adequate than some other procedure. This interpretation is supported by the fact that

in many cases there seems to be little difference, or at least only marginal difference,

between the use of can and a non-modal sentence.

Compare:

(17) . these currents have been delineated using a simple linear theory . . .

(18) The extent . . . can be estimated by constituting a trace metal budget . .

In so far as there is a difference in concept between the proposition expressed in (17)

and that in (18), it lies not in the fact that the estimation in (18) is possible, for it has

been carried out just as much as has the delineation in (17), but in the fact that the

possibility can be verified by anyone who wishes to repeat the process. May, on the

other hand, claims that the procedure is legitimate, but does not exclude other

possibilities. The other possibilities are not necessarily known to the author and thus

act in effect as a sort of guard against unforeseen objections. It will be noticed that

this interpretation would not be appropriate in (16) with may substituted for can,

which accounts for the block on the substitution in this case.

This would seem to counter Lewis’s (1986: 113) suggestion that with can the speaker


perceives the existence of a possibility, whereas with may he is volitionally involved

in the creation of a possibility. There may be some justification for saying, as Suzuki

(198621-2) does, that can always retains some nuance of ability. But Perkins

(1982:257, 1983:38) seems closer to the mark when he says that can focuses primarily

on the current state of circumstances, whereas the epistemic may focuses primarily on

the current verifiability of the truth of a proposition.

We seem, therefore, to have a cline of guarding against unforeseen objections, which

has non-modai expression and may at opposite poles, with can at some mid-point.

MENTAL PROCESS AND ACTIVE MAY AND CAN

Mental process, by definition, typically requires an intelligent agent. Scientific

discourse tends to avoid the use of human agent subjects. One might expect then that

active mental process would be rare in this type of document. As far as may is con-

cerned, this is true: there are only four examples in the corpus. In addition, of these

four, only one has a human subject, the other three being cases of what might be called

“untypical animacy” [extending the range of the term used by Berry (1975)l; that is,

in this case, an inanimate subject occurring where the process would normally require

an animate one.

(19) This reinforcement may expfain the steep drop . .

Moreover, one might note that, in terms of Huddleston’s semantic categories, the

three examples of untypical animacy are of the possibility type, while the single

remaining example expresses legitimacy.

(20) . . . we may draw the following conclusions . . .

There is a rather higher number of examples of active CUE in the mental process,

but it must be pointed out that 10 out of the 15 cases occur in Berger, about which

some reserve has been expressed above. One might add here that nine of these Berger

examples have the pronoun we as subject, which constitutes an unusually high concen-

tration for this type of discourse; and one of them is the only example in the whole

corpus of a question with a personal pronoun subject.

(21) Can we conclude from this that the fine fraction dissolves five times more

slowly than the coarse fraction?

However, despite this reserve, and in so far as can be judged from the small numbers

involved, the Berger examples follow the same pattern as the others. Of the 15


examples, 11 have we as subject, and 10 (but not all with we as subject) express

legitimacy

(22) We can now state . . . that . . there is no evidence . . .

(23) The second alternative . not only can account for the increased produc-

tivity . .

while the other five express ability,

(24) . lacking suitable data we cannot quantify this reinforcement .

or are neutral as to an ability or legitimacy interpretation.

(25) We can check whether the loss Profile B is plausible .

The corpus examples then present two basic differences between active may and

active can in mental process. Firstly, may, but not can, occurs more frequently with

untypical animacy ; and secondly, whereas may expresses primarily uncertainty and

secondarily legitimacy, can expresses primarily legitimacy and secondarily ability.

The numbers are too small to warrant extrapolation, but it would be interesting to see

if these results are confirmed in a larger sample.

CAN AND MAY: OTHER PROCESSES

Can is fairly rare outside of mental process. Seven passive and 10 active examples

occur in the corpus. The seven passive examples are all transitive processes.

(26) . . . an inclinometer can be attached to the sledge . . .

However, while (26) is a typical example of transitive process, many of the examples

here might be felt by some readers to be fairly close to the mental process.

(27) . examples can be found in the lower layer flow . . (28) . the region zero bias can be located with sufficient accuracy . . .

This is not as strange as it might at first seem, since scientific experimentation is surely

an area where mental and physical activity are inextricably intermingled. Perhaps one

could say that in scientific experimentation, mental processes are expressed in and

through physical actions, i.e. material processes.


In addition, these seven examples seem exclusively to have an ability reading, with

the possible exception of (26) above, which might be taken to express legitimacy.

There would seem, then, to be a tendency for passive can to express legitimacy in the

mental process and ability in the material (transitive in these examples) process.

Active can, on the other hand, occurs in a wide range of processes, six out of the

possible seven processes being represented in the 10 examples. Only identifying

does not appear. Attributive is the most common, occurring four times. In terms of

Huddl~ston’s semantic categories, the majority (seven) express uncer~inty (or pos-

sibility), in the sense required, it need not be true on every occasion,

(30) . . . low . . . gradients in tidal energy (such as can occur in bays).

(31) . . . the sea surface . . can become heated . .

while the remainder (three), I have categorized as cases of legitimacy. However, two

out of the three cases contain a negative,

(32) . . . cannot be strictly valid . . .

(33) I . . no vorticity effect . . . can balance the Ieading terms in Table 5.

whiie the third has negative bias created by the word only.

(34) . . . depth averaged models can only provide a guide . . .

The result of this is that the legitimacy expressed in the verb is within the scope of

the negative, thus making the reading of the proposition as a whole, in (32) and (33),

express something which is illegitimate, totally out of court.

Here, again, one might notice a difference between the mental process examples,

where acrive can tended to express legitimacy, and the materiai and relational process

examples, where it tended to express unce~ainty.

May is more common than cm outside the mental process, with 36 examples in the

sample. What is more, the may examples are predominantly active: only six are

passive. Even here one example is of doubtful classification:

(35) . . * the increase . . . may have been related to increased continental run-

off . . .

Although morphologically passive, some may prefer to consider this a purely copula

construction. With the exception of (35), all of the passive examples are transitive.

(36) . . . some may have been produced in the water column . . .


In any event, it seems reasonable to say that in material and relational process, may

rarely occurs in the passive. This contrasts with mental process where the majority

of cases (79%) are passive.

The 30 active examples show a bias towards relational process (20 cases) and of

these the majority (14) are attributive:

(37) * . . the calculated currents may be suitable for predicting flushing and

dispersion . . .

(38) . . . which may also be a result of large spatial variability . . .

and six identifying. Of the 10 examples of material process, four are middle.

All of the material and relational process examples of may express uncertainty,

which contrasts with passive may in the mental process, where legitimacy was the

dominant semantic feature.

If one now sets up a table (Table 5) of the main semantic tendencies of active and

passive may and CCIIE, two main facts emerge. (In Table 5 the figures give the fraction

of the sample which corresponds to the trait in question.)

TABLE 5

MAY CAN

Active Passive Active Passive

Mental Uncertainty Legitimacy Legitimacy Legitimacy

(3/4) (12115) (10/15) (28/34)

Material and relational Uncertainty Uncertainty Uncertainty Ability

(30/30) (516) (7110) (6/7)

In the mental process, may and can tend to be used to express legitimacy, except

in active may where, if anything can be said from the small numbers involved, it would

be that they seem to indicate a bias towards uncertainty. In mental and relational

processes, may and can tend to express uncertainty, except passive can which tends

to express ability.

OTHER MODALS

Table 6 shows the distribution of the various modal verbs by process and by

voice.


TABLE6

Material Mental Relational

Act. Pass. Act. Pass. Act. Pass.

Can

May Would

Will

Should

Could

Must

Might

6 7 15 34

10 5 4 15

12 4 7 3

II 1 3 5

I 4 3 3

6 4 1 4

7 2 1 2

- 1 - 6

4 -

20 1

15 1

7 -

8 -

2 -

4 -

3 -

Total 53 28 34 72 63 2

Table 7 shows the distribution of active and passive voice for each verb with the

percentage of active and passive in each case.

TABLE7

Active Passive

No. % No. %

Can

May Would

Will

Should

Could

Must

Might

25 38 41 62

33 60 22 40

34 81 8 19

21 78 6 22

12 63 7 37

9 53 8 47

12 75 4 25

3 30 7 70

While 62% of the can examples and 40% of the may examples occur in the passive,

much smaller percentages of would and will do so. Only eight of the 42 cases of would

(19%) occur in the passive. The examples of would involved in the mental process

seem to indicate a strong collocation with the verb expecr which occurs in five out of

the 10 examples.

(39) Accelerated transfer . . . would be expected to result in a seasonal variation . . .

(40) . ‘. we would expect to find a diatomaceous sapropel D . . .


Huddleston (1971:307-9) found three semantic types represented by his would

examples:

1. Tentativeness.

2. Prediction, including “unreal conditions. ”

3. Real mode, where it is the past element which is uppermost.

Out of the 42 examples of would studied here, 15 were of the tentative type.

(41) It would appear that . . the exchange processes tend to be limited . .

(42) which would further indicate that a finer grid resolution is necessary . .

In two cases, the tentative nature of would was reinforced by probably. These seem

to be another case of the scientist hedging his bets. It is easy to imagine these sentences

occurring in a non-modal form, but the less affirmative modal form leaves the author

an escape route if objections are raised to the statement made.

Just over half of the examples of would (22 out of 42) fall into the prediction

category. However, only a minority have an explicitly stated conditional clause. This

is the case in six examples

(43) If the Nile region was the primary source we would expect to find a

diatomaceous sapropel D

(44) . this would be true of the catch estimates if the odometer failed to operate

properly.

plus one case where an example of the condition’s pertaining is given.

(45) A less dramatic odometer fault, for instance if it lost traction and skidded

slightly . . would be more difficult to detect . .

In the other cases the conditions are deducible from the context, either from explicit

elements in the written context,

(46) it would be expected in the absence of curvature effects.

i.e. if there were no curvature effects; or from the more general context,

(47) the depth averaged currents that one would estimate visually . .

i.e. if visual estimates were carried out. It seems to be the case, then, that although


would indicates a conditional sense in a majority of cases, it is infrequent for the

conditional to be explicitly given in a conditional clause.

Only a small number of real mode examples of would occurred. Five out of the 42

examples were of this type.

(48) The coarse meshes . made it unlikely that the smallest postlarvae . .

would be caught .

There seemed to be a tendency for this type to occur in the introductory section of

the articles.

Twenty-seven examples of will occur in the corpus, of which only six are passive,

and all but one of the passive examples are mental process. In material and relational

processes, will very rarely occurs in the passive.

Three semantic types of will are given by Huddleston (1971:305-7):

1. Future.

2. Induction (including explicit and implicit conditions).

3. Deduction (which gives a conclusion, which may also result from a condition).

Only one example of the deductive type occurred in this sample.

(49) Where both fV and KV* increase downstream, the cross-stream sea level

slope will similarly increase.

Of the rest, 11 are future and 15 induction. Despite the fact that induction is related

to conditions, there was not a single example of an explicitly stated condition in this

corpus.

(50) . . whereas in nature, it will depend on the current structure near the sea

bed

Hence explicit conditions appear to be more closely related to would than will.

In the mental process six out of the eight examples express future. Moreover, in all

of these cases, the future involved is internal to the text itself.

(51) . . as we will later see

(52) the leading terms will be designated by R

In material and relational processes, however, the future reference is external to

the text.


(53) . . . progress will perhaps be made in the near future . . .

(54) . . . most work . . . will continue to be based on data . . .

Although a tendency of this type might be expected from the nature of the processes

involved, the absolute dichotomy found here is striking.

The corpus provides 19 examples of should. The eight relational examples are

exclusively active, while of the material examples, four are passive. The six mental

process examples are equally divided between active and passive.

Three of Huddleston’s semantic categories for should (1971:310-l 1) appear to be

relevant to the examples in the corpus:

1. Obligation.

2. Logical expectation.

3. First person form of tentative wouM.

However, it seems to me that the two examples of the third category which occur

contain a notion of obligation and can thus be assimilated to the obligation type.

(55) . . . we should reject as implausible a result identifying . . .

(56) . . . we should expect no change . . .

When this is done, we find that in the mental process, five out of the six examples

are of the obligation type. On the other hand, the eight active examples of relational

process and the single active material example are all of the logical type.

(57) . . the true density . . . should be about twice that estimated . .

(58) A major malfunction of the odometer should be detectable . . .

The corpus contains 17 examples of could, of which 10 are material process, six

active and four passive. Out of the five mental process examples, four are passive.

Three of Huddleston’s categories (1971:304-5) are relevant here:

1. Uncertainty/possibility.

2. Legitimacy.

3. Ability.

The only general trend that might be discerned from the small numbers involved is

a tendency for active examples to be of the uncertainty/possibility type. Eight out of

the nine examples fall into his category.


(59) A general downslope “drift” . . . could conceivably cause the effect . .

(60) . . local forcing, which could account for about 55% of the variance . . .

Of the 16 examples of musr, nine are material process, of which seven are active.

Taking obligation and logical necessity as the two basic semantic traits involved (cf.

Huddleston 1971:311-12), it transpires that logical necessity is the dominant factor

here. This might be expected on the basis that scientific enquiry is inherently involved

with logical argumentation. In this sample, 13 out of the 16 examples are of the logical

necessity type.

(61) Estimates must at best be approximations . .

(62) . . the dearth . . must therefore have resulted from its inability to collect

these organisms.

This includes all but one of the active examples, and from another point of view,

all but one of the examples of active and passive material and relational process. Out

of the three obligation cases which occur, two are passive mental process.

(63) The computerized data . . must therefore be considered rather qualitative . . .

Out of the 10 examples of might in the sample, the six mental and the single material

process are all passive, while the three relational process are all active.

With uncertainty/possibility and legitimacy (cf. Huddleston 1971:302) as the two

basic meanings of might to be found here, it turns out that only the material example

is of the uncertainty/possibility type.

(64) . energy might be dissipated in this region.

All of the mental and relational examples express legitimacy:

(65) . . it might be anticipated that the effects . will become weaker . .

(66) A sample might have the index “30”

I would not wish to extrapolate the results found for those modals which appear in

small numbers in the sample. However, it would be interesting to see whether the

tendencies found here are corroborated in a larger sample.

CONCLUSION

What I would like to retain from the details of this analysis is the fact that, in

scientific writing, there is a series of relationships between processes (transitivity) and

modality. These are manifested in the form of tendencies, in some cases particularly

strong, for particular processes to have strong collocation with specific forms of modal

choice in scientific writing. Transitivity is then a significant parameter in the analysis

of modality in scientific writing.

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Baldauf, R. B. and B. H. Jernudd

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Barber, C. L.

1962 “Some Measurable Characteristics of Modern Scientific Prose,” in

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Some observations concerning transitivity and modality in scientific writing

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