MDNE Necessity modals

Biber L53 Xiao B31 MFTE MDNE Bohmann 19 Bohmann 20

Definition

Modals expressing necessity/obligation: ought, should, must, have to, need to.

Detection Rules

mfte

cql[lemma={words} & pos="MD"]
Word list (5 items)
have must need ought should

Requires: lemma, pos

pybiber

cql[word={words} & pos="MD"]
Word list (3 items)
must ought should

Requires: word, pos

Normalization

Per finite_verbs

Examples

You must leave before dawn.

They should have listened to his warning.

He ought to have known better.

You have to understand the danger.

Source: mfte

I really must go.

Source: le_foll_2024

Shouldn’t you be going now?

Source: le_foll_2024

Everybody needed to be needed.

Source: le_foll_2024

Sources

  • biber_1988 — Biber, Douglas (1988) : Variation across Speech and Writing
  • mfte — Le Foll, Elen & Shakir, Muhammad (2023/2025) : Multi-Feature Tagger of English (MFTE) — Python version
  • pybiber — Brown, David West & Reinhart, Alex (2026) : pybiber — Python package for linguistic feature extraction and Multi-Dimensional Analysis
  • xiao_2009 — Xiao, Richard (2009) : Multidimensional analysis and the study of world Englishes
  • grieve_2023 — Grieve, Jack (2023) : Register variation explains stylometric authorship analysis
  • bohmann_2019 — Bohmann, Axel (2019) : Variation in English Worldwide: Varieties and Genres in a Quantitative Perspective

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