• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.175-190
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• 2012

The purpose of this article is to explain the meanings and uses of the English auxiliaries will morpho-syntactically, and answer the question of whether will is a tense auxiliary or a modal one. Some writers even exclude will completely from the semantics of the modal auxiliaries. They argue that the semantics of will is fundamentally non-modal and has only a few modal-like uses. There are some people who treat will to be semantically separate from the other modal auxiliaries. In the light of modal will, the semantics of will basically remains anchored in volition because the lack of required speaker subjectivity, but has undergone so much semantic bleaching that it may also express future time without volition. On the other hand, the semantics of will in the exclusionist view is erroneous and that its semantics is in fact closely related to the semantics of the other modals. This view reinforces the argument that the morpho-syntactic kinship of will, can, may and must also reflects semantic kinship. It is suggested that all the modal auxiliaries show that the correspondence relation is non-verified but potential. And the specific place that will holds is that the correspondence is unverified at the time of utterance but will turn out to become verified. The overall conclusion is that idiosyncratic morpho-syntax shared by the modals reflects the semantics and pragmatics of the English modal auxiliaries and is forced also to include will.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.99-122
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• 2006

The purpose of this paper is to explain the meanings and uses of the English auxiliaries SHALL/WILL. The complexity of modern usage of SHALL/WILL has been one of the most disputable themes of traditional English grammar. The paper purported to address the study and analysis of diachronic and synchronic approach to the two auxiliaries. A general view of the figures of Fries'(1925) survey was added for further investigation. The results of the study showed that these auxiliaries express some of various modal meanings associated with the volitional or emotional attitude of the speaker without implying futurity. The findings also suggested that the use of SHALL in present-day English is restricted to non-volitional future with the first person but the practice of this use is also diminished by the expansion of the use of WILL, and the original meaning of WILL, 'to desire or wish', has generally been replaced by other verbs or modal forms. But sentences which seem to indicate futurity are often tinged with modal senses. Therefore, WILL/SHALL should be considered to act either as tense auxiliary or as modal auxiliary depending on situational contexts in which it occurs.