The Semantic Field of Obligation in an English-Swedish Contrastive Perspective

Abstract

The article examines how genre (fiction and non-fiction) affects the distribution and uses of the modal auxiliaries must/maste in the obligation meaning and their more or less grammaticalized alternatives in English and Swedish. In both languages the obligation markers were associated with specific contexts of use depending on genre. In fiction the obligation markers were frequent with first and second person subjects. Must was used for exhortations. Have to was used with generic subjects and instead of must for more general recommendation. In Swedish there was no corresponding distinction. Must usually pointed forwards to something desirable in the context of EU debates. Have to, on the other hand, was also found in negative contexts in the non-fiction data. Swedish maste was used both about positive and negative obligation. In Swedish fa was an alternative to maste when the imposition was not in the hearer’s interest.