Why´s that? Hadn´t I read somethings here yesterday??

I don´t know, don´t ask me. The more I looked at it the more stupid it seemed. And I prefer not to look (so very) stupid.

I just had taken a quick look at the text. I told to myself "hey, this looks complicated maybe I should read it some other time".

It´s childish, I know, but you know, this feeling that you sometimes get when you look at your own text...

Ok, considering that

       1. no one else will probably bother to read it

       2. you have already witnessed all my blunders during months, si++,

I guess I still have it somewhere here...(opening and closing miscellanous files). Here. Feel free to read it when you have time.

________

Modality in linguistics means expressions of possibility and necessity and the continuum between them.

In Turkish, two basic grammatical morphemes express modal functions: -meli- for ‘certainty, obligation, no choice’ and –(e)bil- for ‘ability, permission, possibility’. In addition, lexical expressions are used, such as the adjectives lazım and mecbur, the verb gerekmek ‘to be necessary’ and numerous conversational adverbials (belki, elbette).

The modal morphemes are added to the verb stem in a certain order. Closest to the stem we will find expressions of Dynamic modality (I in the table below) which concern the agent’s personal qualities or given conditions. Deontic modalities (II) are consequences of manipulation. Epistemic modality (III) works in the truth values that the speaker gives to the proposition. It hasn’t come to my knowledge that verbal expressions of dynamic and deontic modality differ in Turkish but I keep them separate because they can both have their expression in the same verb.

For more information about the definitions of dynamic, deontic and epistemic modality, see http://dinamico2.unibg.it/anglistica/slin/modgloss.htm.

I collected some examples of typical modal meanings which were handled in this discussion. Notice, that in this table only potential -(e)bil-, necessitative -meli- and negation are used.

It surprised me to see how logical the system is and how the three-button-game (bil, meli, NEG) is played. Not every possible combination, though, is really used in language.

But there is still one joker: certain modal meanings can only be expressed with the help of lexical elements: koşmak zorunda kalabilir, bunu yapması lazım değil and gitmemeli değil rose up in this discussion. The simple table explains them also. You see, whatever combination there is of the three types of modality, –meli- is the last element on the right. Nothing follows it, not even negation. So,

         16. koşmak zorunda kalabilir ‘he may have to run’ ≠ koş + meli + bil

         17. bunu yapması lazım değil ‘he doesn’t have to do this’ ≠ yap + meli + NEG

         18. gitmemeli değil: ‘it’s not necessary for him not to go’ ≠ git + NEG + meli + NEG

because in this simple system of three options –meli- cannot be followed by anything. That’s why roundabout (lexical) expressions have to be used instead.