238. Using a Verb to Perform its Action

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Three main kinds of verb can effect their action through being used

HOW VERBS CAN HELP THEIR ACTION TO BE PERFORMED

Most people who have studied English are likely to have encountered the traditional description of verbs as “doing words”. What this suggests is a dynamic rather than stative meaning – energy and change as opposed to undisturbed continuity (see 66. Types of Passive Verb Meaning). “Doing words” is, of course, too narrow a term to describe verbs in general, since many verbs do not represent this idea of “doing” (see 21. Active Verbs with Non-Active Meanings). However, it does apply to a large number of verbs.

Verbs whose use can cause their own action to be performed are a subgroup of “doing” verbs. One kind is what linguists call “performative”:

(a) I pronounce you husband and wife.

The actual utterance of this sentence by the appropriate person during a marriage ceremony causes the action centred on its verb pronounce to be carried out, so that the two addressees become married.

With verbs like PRONOUNCE, this effect usually involves a starting I or we. However, there are other verb kinds that can help their own action to be performed without these words:

(b) A bicycle can be defined as a two-wheeled vehicle propelled by human energy.

(c) There will be inter-stellar travel in the future.

In (b), the use of can combined with the passive form of DEFINE tells the reader not just that a definition is being conveyed but also that it is newly created by the writer, just as a husband and wife are newly created by the words in (a). As a result, the definition is understood not to be a standard one used by other people (see 22. Multiple Speakers in a Text).

In (c), another modal verb – will – enables utterance of the sentence to perform the action of a verb, but this action is indicated by will itself rather than by its partner verb (be). The action expressed by will is prediction – the same meaning that is expressed by I predict… (see 147. Types of Future Meaning, #1).

In this post I wish to explore the variety of verbs that can be used like those in the examples. I will look not just at how they perform an action but also at how they do not.

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COMMON ACTION-FACILITATING VERBS

There are numerous verbs that can enable their action to be accomplished through being used with I or we as their subject, like PRONOUNCE in (a). Common ones include the following:

ABSOLVE ADVISE AGREE ANNOUNCE APOLOGIZE APPEAL APPLAUD BEG BESEECH BLESS CALL UPON CLAIM (+ property) COMMAND DECLARE DECREE DEFINE

DISAGREE GRANT INSIST INTRODUCE (+ person) INVOKE NAME NOMINATE ORDER PRAISE PROPOSE PERMIT POINT OUT PRAY PREDICT PROMISE

PRONOUNCE QUESTION RECOGNISE RECOMMEND REJECT REPEAT REQUEST RESIGN SAY SUGGEST TERMINATE UNDERTAKE URGE VOTE VOW WISH

Among these, ANNOUNCE, DEFINE, INTRODUCE, POINT OUT and SAY (except when recommending) are unusual in needing extra words with their introductory I. Placing them after I wish (or would like) to… is always a possibility (many of the other verbs in the list can follow these words too). Alternatively, ANNNOUNCE, INTRODUCE and SAY can follow I am pleased to…. or I have the pleasure to…, while ANNOUNCE and SAY sometimes have I regret to….

I wish… has a variety of uses. It is most obviously action-performing when used by a character in a story about magic to make a wished-for situation real. There must be a following that (often left unsaid) + past tense verb, e.g. I wish (that) I could fly. This combination is also used for expressing “unreal” wishes for an impossible present or past, but the double meaning is not likely to be problematic given the rarity of opportunities to achieve a wish just by naming it! Nevertheless, unreal wishes can if necessary be expressed unambiguously with if only instead of wish that (see 251. The Grammar of “Only”, #1).

Two everyday uses of I wish are requesting. They can be thought of as action-performing if WISH is viewed as a synonym of REQUEST. With a following to verb (I wish to speak to you), the request is formal and polite, usually addressed to a subordinate. With a following you would… (I wish you would go away), a feeling of irritation is informally conveyed.

A fourth use of I wish expresses a desire for another person to avoid disaster in something. The person must be an indirect object after WISH (e.g. I wish you/the visitors…), and the anti-disaster wish follows as an object (e.g. …all success or …a safe journey or …a happy birthday). Such sentences perform not the desired outcome but an assurance of the speaker’s friendly concern.

One meaning that WISH cannot express is hope – the speaker’s belief in the future occurrence of something that is desired but outside anyone’s power to bring about, such as …you will visit again soon. For this, HOPE or LOOK FORWARD TO (-ing) are suitable (see 254. Tricky Word Contrasts 10, #6).

REJECT is often confused today with REFUTE (which cannot be used with I to perform its action). For the difference between the two verbs, see 276. Tricky Word Contrasts 11, #1.

One of the verbs in the above list – DEFINE – is shown in sentence (b) to be also able to assist the performance of its action by being made passive after can. An alternative to can is may. For a full explanation of this use, see 237. Auxiliary Verbs in Professional Communication, #4). For more about defining, see 286. Repeating in Different Words.

A few other verbs – mostly different from those in the list – are usable with can in the same way. They mostly assist naming (CALL, NAME, REFER TO AS etc.), exemplifying (EXEMPLIFY, ILLUSTRATE), describing (DESCRIBE, PORTRAY), classifying (CATEGORISE, CLASSIFY etc. – see 162. Writing about Classifications), and contending (ARGUE, CONSIDER, THINK OF, VISUALISE).

Sentence (c) shows another of the above-listed verbs – PREDICT – replaced by a modal verb (will). A few of the other verbs in the list also have a modal corresponding to their use with I:

COMMAND, ORDER = must, shall, BE TO
URGE = have to
GRANT, PERMIT = can, may
ADVISE, NOMINATE, RECOMMEND = ought to, should
PROPOSE, SUGGEST = could, might
BLESS = may (imperative)
DECREE = will, shall

The occasional correspondence of different verbs to the same modal (e.g. PREDICT/ PROMISE – will) is rarely a problem: the meanings are usually clear from contextual clues (see 147. Types of Future Meaning).

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ALTERNATIVE USE OF ACTION-FACILITATING VERBS

It is possible for some of the above uses to be understood not as helping the verb’s action to be newly performed but as informing the addressee that it has been previously performed. Thus, I predict… can mean not just “I am now predicting…” but also “My longstanding prediction is…”. This use is more a report than a creation of something new, though to avoid confusion with the idea of “reported speech” I prefer to call it a “relay”.

The contrast between action-facilitating and relaying with verbs is similar to that between the way to do…, which is telling one or more particular people how to do something, and the way of doing, which is describing what people generally do (see 217. Tricky Grammar Contrasts, #1).

Not every verb in the first list above has this dual use. It would be hard, for example, to understand the relay use with APOLOGIZE, COMMAND, DECREE, POINT OUT. REPEAT or PRONOUNCE. Others that definitely allow it include APPLAUD, DEFINE, PRAY, PROPOSE and RECOMMEND (see 187. Advising and Recommending). With verbs allowing both uses, the action-facilitating one can often be signalled more clearly by adding hereby.

INTRODUCE used after I have the pleasure… can have either meaning but is likely to change its form: …to introduce when performing the action; …of introducing when relaying.

The same kind of meaning variability exists with the third type of action-facilitating verbs illustrated above: certain modal verbs. Thus sentence (c) is not necessarily creating a prediction, but could instead be relaying a previously-made one.

By contrast, the second type of action-facilitating verb shown above – verbs that have to be in the passive form after can or may – cannot through the same form alternatively convey the idea of a relay. However, these verbs can be used in a slightly different way to express one: either in the passive form without a modal verb – e.g. is defined in (b) – or in the active form with a subject other than I or we, like this:

(d) Doctors call bird flu avian influenza.

(e) Columbus named the first island San Salvador.

In (d), the only possible interpretation is that doctors use a pre-existing name – they are not coining a new one. In (e), although the message is the allocation of a new name, the use is still a reporting one: the naming is not brought about by the very use of named.

Finally, it is to be noted that some modal verbs have a relay function without also being usable to perform their own action. This seems to be the case with BE TO when it describes an arrangement:

(f) The committee is to meet next week.

This could never be understood as actually arranging the meeting in question. The reason perhaps lies in the fundamental nature of arrangements, which are made cooperatively between two or more people, not by one person’s unilateral declaration. For more on arrangements with BE TO, see 119. BE before a “to” Verb, #4.

HAVE TO suggesting a command or instruction, rather than exhortation or advice, nearly always seems to be relaying – indeed I would go so far as to say that the idea of relaying is an inherent part of its command and instruction meanings (see 129. Differences between Necessity Verbs, #2). Consider this:

(g) You have to call the manager immediately.

You have to… here is unlikely to mean I order you to… . The order is usually someone else’s (probably the manager’s) and is merely being relayed.

237. Auxiliary Verbs in Professional Communication

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Writers of professional texts can achieve some special effects with auxiliary verbs

USES VERSUS MEANINGS OF AUXILIARY VERBS

Most readers of this blog probably know plenty already about auxiliary verbs, both “modal” like can and “non-modal” like BE. I feel no need to define or list them. Nor do I particularly wish to compare and contrast their basic meanings. What I am interested in instead is what writers do with them, especially in professional contexts. There is already much on this in other Guinlist posts, but widely scattered and incomplete. I feel it might be useful to bring it all together in one place and then to expand it where I can and where I feel the need.

The concept of “doing” something with auxiliary verbs needs clarification, since it can be understood at different levels of generality. At the lowest level, we can simply take the basic meaning of a modal verb, such as “ability” expressed by can, and combine it with a verb to make it sound like something people do (“expressing ability”). This does not seem helpful at all. At the other extreme we can be too general. For example, “giving opinions” hides a multiplicity of more interesting sub-meanings like “predicting” and “disagreeing”. Such terms are useful for bringing together widely disparate linguistic language items (see 107. The Language of Opinions), but not for understanding auxiliary verb usage. My interest is in what exists between these two levels.

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COMMON USES

1. Repeating a Verb

Just as pronouns allow repetition of a noun’s meaning without repeating the noun itself, so auxiliary verbs allow a verb to be repeated (along with any dependent words like its object, complement or adverbs). DO repeats one-word verbs (excepting BE) and multi-word ones starting with itself; other auxiliaries repeat other multi-word verbs; BE repeats itself.

Repetition with DO is slightly tricky because sometimes it must be followed by so, it or that, sometimes not (see 212. Special Uses of “Do” 1).

One common context for verb repetition is expression of a similarity or difference:

(a) The Rocky Mountains HAVE BEEN FORMED recently, as HAVE The Himalayas.

(b) Reports often HAVE subheadings whereas essays DO not.

The two relevant verbs each time here are capitalised. The second verb in (a) is the same as the start of the first because that is an auxiliary, but is different in (b) because the first is an ordinary verb (see 275. How Computers Get Grammar Wrong 3, #5).

Comparison with as can be tricky. In (a), the repetition of have directly after as, before its subject The Himalayas, says readers are assumed not to know the mentioned feature of The Himalayas. As directly before the subject of the auxiliary verb, by contrast, would indicate an assumption of already-existing reader knowledge (see 159. Exotic Grammar Structures 2, #1).

Various other expressions besides as can introduce a verb-based similarity – but they have only the informing use, with the auxiliary straight after. And so is a direct alternative; and nor or and neither link two similar negative points. For more on expressing similarities, see 149. Saying How Things are Similar.

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2. Speculating and Contending

Both of these state an opinion or belief. The difference, I feel, is that speculating is not backed up by good factual evidence – it is just an idea about what might be true (see 284. Words with a Surprising Meaning) – whereas contending needs a context of evidence and reasoning (see 167. Ways of Arguing 1).

In academic writing, both statement types are often explicitly marked as non-factual (see the end of 96. Making Statements More Uncertain 2). Auxiliary verbs are one of various ways to do this without using informal I think (see 107. The Language of Opinions). Different verbs show different belief strengths: may well (around 70% truth likelihood), may (50%), could well (40%), might (30%) and could (10%). Two common sentence types are:

(c) Intelligent life MAY WELL (etc.) exist on other planets.

(d) It MAY WELL (etc.) be (the case) that intelligent life exists on other planets.

Sentences like (d) are often an attempted explanation of a preceding statement (see 289. Exotic Grammar Structures 8, #2).

Can is also usable with certain passive argument verbs (e.g. can be argued: see #4 below). For a discussion of which ones, see the end of 46. How to Avoid “I”, “We” and “You”. No particular strength likelihood is implied.

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3. Predicting

Predictions are speculations or contentions about the future. They do not have to involve an auxiliary verb (see 147. Types of Future Meaning, #1), but if they do, a choice is again available.

The choice of auxiliary depends on how confident the speaker is that the prediction will be fulfilled. Strong confidence can be shown with will. This is unlikely to be understood as fact-indicating because everybody knows the future is hardly ever certain (see 96. Making Statements More Uncertain 2). Lower levels of confidence can be shown with the auxiliaries listed in the section above, plus should or ought to for around 90% likelihood.

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4. Showing Ownership of an Idea

Sometimes writers need to clearly signal that a point is their own rather than other people’s (see 22. Multiple Speakers in a Text). The simplest way is with I or we (or a derivative like my), but this is often felt to be stylistically inappropriate in professional writing (see 46. How to Avoid “I”, “We” and “You”). A common alternative is making the verb passive, enabling its offending subject to be left unmentioned.

However, the ordinary passive form often reports rather than makes a point – suggesting “by other people” or “by me elsewhere” (exceptions seem mainly to be with thought verbs like BELIEVE, FEEL and RECOGNISE). To overcome this, can or may must be included:

(e) Verbs representing writer actions CAN BE called “writer verbs”.

This use of the naming verb CALL creates the new name “writer verbs” (see 238. Using a Verb to Perform its Action). As a result, the name is attributed to the writer. Replacing can be with are would attribute the name to other people or the writer elsewhere (see 206. Ways of Conveying a Name).

Name verbs (CALL, NAME, REFER TO AS etc.) are one of various types with this possibility. Others introduce contentions (ARGUE, CONTEND, HOLD, MAINTAIN), definitions (DEFINE), descriptions (DESCRIBE, PORTRAY), examples (EXEMPLIFY, ILLUSTRATE), classifications (CLASSIFY etc. – see 162. Writing about Classifications), and perspectives (CONSIDER, THINK OF, VISUALISE).

These last also allow the more tentative could as well as can or may, perhaps because the information is more subjective.

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5. Highlighting a Graphic

Visual information in expository texts needs the reader’s attention at some point, and writers like to say when. A common way is with as + passive verb. The verb may represent a reader action like “understand” or a writer one like “show”. Passives expressing reader actions always need can, may or will, e.g. as can be understood from Fig. 2… (see 104. Naming Data Sources with “as”).

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6. Exemplifying

Might can show an example like this:

(f) Most animals can protect themselves. They MIGHT possess a sting, or be able to run fast.

Without might here, the message would be that most animals have only two means of protecting themselves (stinging or running). Might expresses the fundamental example quality of “much less than all” (see 1. Simple Example-Giving), thus showing that animals have many more than two protection means. For full details, see 228. Exotic Grammar Structures 5, #6.

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7. Low-Level Generalising

Many generalisations are statements about a group, Some give information that is true of all members of the group, but many have to allow for exceptions, and refer instead to “most” or “many” or “some” (see the end of 95. Making Statements More Uncertain 1). They commonly do so with adjectives like most, many and some, or adverbs like usually, often and sometimes. The meaning of “some”, however, is also expressible with the modal verb can:

(g) Mammals can be found in the ocean.

Can here does not express simple ability. The sentence does not mean that all mammals have the ability to be found in the ocean!

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8. Conceding

Concessions accept an inconvenient fact. They are quite common in arguments that they do not support, such as the following criticism of new road construction:

(h) New roads MAY ease traffic congestion, BUT they increase overall traffic volumes.

This suggests traffic-easing is not a good enough reason to support new roads. May is a common way of signalling concessions, along with a later but (or equivalent) introducing a fact in support of the writer’s own belief. For a fuller analysis, see 51. Making Concessions with “May”.

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9. Pressing

This is my term for auxiliary verb uses that try to influence the way people behave. It includes commands and regulations (must, shall, BE to), advice and recommendations (need, ought to, should), suggestions (could, might), and pleas (have to, must).

It is important to distinguish between creating pressure and relaying it. For example, you must read could be the speaker’s command to read, or somebody else’s just being passed on (see 238. Using a Verb to Perform its Action). HAVE TO is particularly (but not exclusively) associated with the latter. For more information about some of these auxiliaries, see 129. Differences between Necessity Verbs and 187. Advising and Recommending.

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10. Requesting

Spoken requests are common in professional contexts. They have different modal verbs according to whether the request is for action by the requesting or the requested person. Compare:

(i) CAN/MAY I ask you a question?

(j) CAN/WILL you look at this essay?

The modal in (i) precedes I (creating a permission request), that in (j) you (creating an assistance request). Both allow can, but only (i) allows may. It is a common error to use may in sentences like (j) (see 303. Confusions of Similar Structures 4, #6). Doing so actually creates not a request but a blessing (or curse).

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11. Indicating Purpose

Purpose-naming verbs after so that or in order that need can, may or will in present time, and could, might or would in the past (see 60. Purpose Sentences with “For”).

If a verb after so that has no auxiliary at all, it is probably expressing a consequence (an actual occurrence) rather than a planned purpose (see 32. Expressing Consequences). Consequence verbs after so that do actually have an auxiliary sometimes, but one with a different auxiliary meaning from that of purpose (see 288. Grammatical Subtleties, #4).

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12. Indicating Possibilities

“Possibility” can variably mean opportunity, ability, permission or choice (see 181. Expressing Possibility). All these can be shown with can, and some allow may too. Examples are:

(k) (OPPORTUNITY) Graduates CAN obtain better-paid jobs.

(l) (ABILITY) Birds CAN fly.

(m) (PERMISSION) Graduates CAN/MAY use the study room.

(n) (CHOICE) Routes CAN/MAY/COULD/SHOULD be via New York or Orlando.

For an explanation of the differences here, see the above-mentioned post. For details of “choice”, see 266. Indicating Alternatives, #2. See also the discussion of was able to in 246. Tricky Grammar Contrasts 2, #2.

For further points about auxiliary verbs, see 65. Verbs that Mean “Must” or “Can” and 192. When BE can be Omitted.