Grammar: Groups & phrases: Verb group: Adjusting interactions: modality

Expressing 'usuality'

What are the degrees of usuality?

Usuality covers a wide range of meanings, and each area of meaning is associated with a different level of modality: high, mid and low:

	high modality involves indicating that something happens always or never
	mid modality involves indicating that something happens often
	low modality involves indicating something seldom happens

There are various forms used to convey different levels of probability.

Here is a summary of the different levels of usuality, focusing on the modal auxiliaries. You will see that the expression of usuality does not depend on modal auxiliaries - note the presence of adverbs such as often, frequently:

level of modality	Examples
high modality	Bozo just	won't	get up on time - he's always late.
	Kitty simply	won't	do as she is told - she is forever answering back.
mid modality	Bozo	will	often help with the cleaning.
	The bus	will	frequently be late.
low modality	Grandpa	can	be very irritating.
	Miss Lee	can	get very angry sometimes.