modality

Purpose

Finds documents that contain arguments expressing modality, for example, possibility, desirability, permissibility, necessity.

Modality can be expressed both lexically ("perhaps", "maybe") and grammatically (modal verbs like "could", "would", "may", "should", conjunctions "if", "whether").

Syntax

modality()

Arguments

The function has no required arguments.

The function accepts as the first optional named parameters yes that finds arguments expressing any modality and no that finds non-modal arguments. If these parameters are not specified, the function finds all modal contexts. In order to narrow the query, one can also specify terms to be found as the second optional argument.

Returned Value

Documents matching the query.

Examples

modality() matches all arguments with modality.

modality(no) matches all non-modal arguments.

modality(yes, find) = modality(find) matches all occurrences of the word find in modal contexts, e.g. "Because we couldn’t find the mistake when we were working on it", "We need to find out whether there is a new injury", "if you want to find the limits of the machine, you have to go beyond them".

modality(no, find) matches all occurrences of the word find in non-modal contexts, i.e. "I found the same number", "Glasshouse found that 47 percent believed their identity was at risk".

modality(yes, lemma(noun)) = modality(lemma(noun)) matches all nouns in modal contexts, i.e. "The surplus of supply could have an impact on prices", "You can remotely delete sensitive data from the stolen computer if data privacy is a concern".