Wednesday, July 25, 2012

When I decide to make my son become a doctor, can I say to him "You shall become a doctor"?In both “You shall go to the ball” and "You shall...

To address your initial query: Yes, you may. You may say
to your child, "You shall do ...." You have the power to influence and
control events and circumstances
because you are a parent and therefore
may say "You shall." Remember that in past eras, even into
the early twentieth century, it was quite common for educated people to regularly say,
"You shall" even though in contemporary English usage "shall" is suggested as restricted
to "I shall" and "We shall." Usage of "you shall" in contemporary English currently
depends upon the circumstances and the speaker: the speaker of "You shall" has some
power to influence and control circumstances and the outcome of events.
Remember though, time changes usage of vocabulary since in
earlier eras, "they shall," "you shall," "he shall," and "she shall" were as common as
"they will," “she will,” “he will,” and “you will,” are
today.


One problem you're having in sorting this out is
that when trying to understand the meaning of one modal verb, for instance "shall," you
substitute another modal verb in the paraphrase, for example, as in your statements:
“‘You shall …’ means kind of ‘something ... will...’ and ‘must happen’ is like ‘You
shall ....’” This confuses the attempt to understand because each modal has a
specialized meaning: Modals cannot be substituted for each other in
paraphrases
that are intended to facilitate learning the specialized
meaning of one particular modal verb. [Bear in mind that
sometimes language is used loosely, without due attention to the meanings of modals and
that, therefore, some people advocate that "they all mean same thing and can be used
interchangeably." While this may be true for some people in everyday, commonplace usage,
such a "one size fits all" attitude is not applicable at this moment to you and your
questions.]


Substituting one modal for another confuses the
issue of understanding them. Let’s consider “must.”
Must indicates necessity
and obligation
. By way of illustration, South African public buses carry
signs that say "You must not smoke." The government has imposed the necessity of not
smoking. The public riding on the bus has the obligation to comply and not smoke. How
does this compare to "shall"? Shall
indicates that the speaker has the power to influence and control events. Government
exerted it's authority and says, "None shall smoke on buses." Then government says, "I
shall impose a necessity. Make a sign that tells the public 'You must not smoke.'" The
government further says, "The public now have an obligation. They must not smoke." How
does "will" become involved in this story?
Will indicates freedom to decide,
choose, and act according to one's own volition. The public exerts it right to to choose
what it will do.  The story continues: "What will he decide to do? He will choose to
honor his obligation and not smoke since government has imposed a necessity.
"


You can see each modal has a very particular meaning and
particular implications. You can also see, that while trying to comprehend the
particulars of their meaning and usage, they can not be substituted one for the other
because none means precisely the same thing: "must" indicates that a person has imposed
a necessity that another person has an
obligation to fulfill; "shall" indicates the speaker has
the power to influence or control events or circumstances;
"will" indicates a person has the power of their own
volition
to decide, choose, and act.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Calculate tan(x-y), if sin x=1/2 and sin y=1/3. 0

We'll write the formula of the tangent of difference of 2 angles. tan (x-y) = (tan x - tan y)/(1 + tan x*tan y) ...