LINGUIST List 8.195

Sat Feb 8 1997

Sum: needn't, don't have to

Editor for this issue: T. Daniel Seely <seelylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. hiro-t, needn't, don't have to

Dear Linguists,
 One of my colleagues sent me a summary of the question of
English modals, _needn't to_ and _don't have to_ we posted a few 
weeks ago.

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In the middle of January i raised a question about English modals. I
asked you to give some examples where _nedn't_ or _don't have to_ is
used in the epistemic sense, as in:

 (1) "lok at those tracks. That must be a dog." "It needn't / 
 doesn't have to be--It could be a fox.

 Soon after that I got 6 e-mails. Thank you for answering my
question. I would express my sincere thanks to the following people
who supplied useful data:

 firsten1icanect.net (Richard Firsten)
 Carl.MillsUC.Edu(Carl Mills)
 ewb2cornell.edu (E. Wayles Browne)
 cwhiteleytyco.geis.com(Colin Whiteley)
 Pierre Busuttil <pierre.busuttiluniv-pau.fr>
 geoffscogs.susx.ac.uk (Geoffrey Sampson)

Pierre Busttil has given me excerpts from his database. Gerffrey
Sampson has also given me a lot of examples from the LOB corpus. Gisle
Anderson has checked with his own data--The Bergen Corpus of London
Teenage Language. Wales Browne has given me a lot of examples from his
own correspondence.
 All of these has been a great help.

Kenji Kashino, Osaka Shoin Women's University, Japan

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Best Wishes,
Hiroaki Tanaka

Associate Professor,
1-1, Minamijousanjima-cho, Tokushima, 770, Japan
Faculty of Integrated Arts and Sciences,
Tokushima University, Japan

hiro-tias.tokushima-u.ac.jp