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Modal adjective
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<h2 id="in-english">In English</h2> <p>Modal adjectives can express modality regarding a situation or a participant in that situation. With situations, some usual syntactic patterns include an <a href="/facts/Extraposition/e4csuqbK">extraposed subject</a>,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3"><sup>3</sup></a> such as the underlined elements in the following examples with the modal adjective in bold. Here the modal adjective is analyzed semantically as a sentential modal operator.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a> </p> <ol><li><i>It's possible that some of them are broken.</i></li> <li><i>It's likely that they will come.</i></li> <li><i>It is necessary</i> (<i>for us</i>) <i>to make a choice</i><i>.</i></li></ol> <p>For participants, however, the usual syntactic construction has the <a href="/facts/Adjective_phrase/CQ8ex13t">adjective phrase</a> in attributive modifier function,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:5" href="#fn:5"><sup>5</sup></a> as in the following examples, where the modal adjective is again in bold and this time the participant in underlined. </p> <ol><li><i>We've found a potential replacement.</i></li> <li><i>They need to file the necessary papers.</i></li> <li><i>We took the obligatory photo.</i></li></ol> <p>Other constructions are also possible. For example, contingency may be expressed as <i>We've made an offer contingent on the sale of our house</i>, which can be paraphrased as <i>Our offer stands if and only if we sell our house.</i> </p> <h2 id="in-japanese">In Japanese</h2> <p>In Japanese, possibility is often expressed with the adjectives 可能 (kanou 'possible') and 不可能 (fukanou 'impossible'), as in: </p> <p>目標</p><p>Mokuhyou</p><p>を</p><p>o</p><p>実現</p><p>jitsugen</p><p>する</p><p>suru</p><p>こと</p><p>koto</p><p>は</p><p>wa</p><p>不可能</p><p>fukanou</p><p>です</p><p>desu</p><p>目標 を 実現 する こと は 不可能 です</p><p>Mokuhyou o jitsugen suru koto wa fukanou desu</p><p>'It's impossible to realize that goal'</p> <p>Impossibility can also be expressed with the modal adjective 無理 (muri 'impossible') as in: </p> <p>円</p><p>en</p><p>を</p><p>o</p><p>7</p><p>nana</p><p>で</p><p>de</p><p>等分</p><p>toubun</p><p>する</p><p>suru</p><p>こと</p><p>koto</p><p>は</p><p>wa</p><p>無理</p><p>muri</p><p>です</p><p>desu</p><p>円 を 7 で 等分 する こと は 無理 です</p><p>en o nana de toubun suru koto wa muri desu</p><p>'a circle cannot be divided into seven equal parts'</p> <p>The modern Japanese particle べき (beki 'should') derives from the traditional modal adjective べし (beshi) but no longer inflects.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:6" href="#fn:6"><sup>6</sup></a> </p> <h2 id="see-also">See also</h2> <ul><li>Modal word</li></ul> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>Matthews, Peter (2003). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. <a href="/wiki/Oxford_University_Press" target="_blank">/wiki/Oxford_University_Press</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>Huddleston, Rodney; Pullum, Geoffrey K. (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 117. <a href="/wiki/Cambridge_University_Press" target="_blank">/wiki/Cambridge_University_Press</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:3"><p>Frana, Ilaria (2017-04-20). Modality in the nominal domain: The case of adnominal conditionals. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198718208.003.0004. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/35943/chapter/309589565" target="_blank">https://academic.oup.com/book/35943/chapter/309589565</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:4"><p>Frana, Ilaria (2017-04-20). Modality in the nominal domain: The case of adnominal conditionals. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198718208.003.0004. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/35943/chapter/309589565" target="_blank">https://academic.oup.com/book/35943/chapter/309589565</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:5"><p>Frana, Ilaria (2017-04-20). Modality in the nominal domain: The case of adnominal conditionals. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198718208.003.0004. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/35943/chapter/309589565" target="_blank">https://academic.oup.com/book/35943/chapter/309589565</a> <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:6"><p>Tranter, Nicolas (2012). The Languages of Japan and Korea. Routledge. p. 293. ISBN 978-1-136-44658-0. <a href="978-1-136-44658-0" target="_blank">978-1-136-44658-0</a> <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>