THE SEMANTICS OF THE MODAL AUXILIARIES OF MALAY

• Main Author: Ho, Imran Abdullah (Author)
• Format: Book
• Language: Malay; English
• Published: Kuala Lumpur Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka l993
• Subjects: Malay language > Etymology; Malay language > Semantics; Malay language > Auxiliary verbs
• Online Access: Click Here to View Status and Holdings.

 This book is an attempt to describe the semantic contents of a set of items in Malay which forms the system of modals in the language. Modality is the component in a language which con- veys the speaker's attitudes and opinions. In Malay, modality can be conveyed in a number of ways. This book looks at one of the ways i.e modal auxililiaries and classifies the items into various semantic clusters of modality. Chapter One discusses some theoretical considerations relevant to the study of semantics and modality. Chapter Two discusses some formal criteria for establishing a class of modals in Malay. The semantic contents of the modals in Malay are described and discussed in Chapter 3-6. The description and discussion is based on an investigation of a small corpus of data from a Malay daily newspaper. As such the conclusions reached in Chapter 7 are based not on native speakers intuition (as in the case of most grammar book description of the Malay modals) but on authentic data. Finally, there is not an abundance of sources on the Malay mo- dals, and the book is a small effort towards meeting that shor- tage and providing a better understanding of the semantics of Malay