| 释义 |
modal, a. and n.|ˈməʊdəl|
Also (sense 4) 6 moodal.
[ad. med.L. modālis, f. L. mod-us: see mode and -al1. Cf. F. modal.]
A. adj.
1. Pertaining to mode or form as contrasted with substance.
1625Laud Serm. (Ps. cxxii. 3–5) 18 There must be..a paring off of foolish and vnlearned Questions, yea, and of many Modal too. 1678Gale Crt. Gentiles III. 6 Moral Bonitie and Vitiositie are differences of human acts merely accidental or modal. 1782Priestley Corrupt. Chr. I. i. 148 Dr. Wallis thought the distinction..was only modal. 1852Robertson Serm. Ser. iv. xi. (1876) 104 A heresy, known in old times by the name of Sabellianism or modal Trinity. 1876E. Mellor Priesth. iv. 172 To discount from the teaching of Christ the words ‘eat’ and ‘drink’, as modal terms enjoining modal operations..is to relinquish the literal interpretation.
2. Law. Of a legacy, contract, etc.: Containing provisions defining the manner in which it is to take effect.
1590Swinburne Testaments 135 Excepte the condition be not conditionall but modall, for (conditio) and (modus) doo greatlie differ. Ibid. 290 When the legacy is not conditional, but modall. 1726Ayliffe Parergon 336 Some think it to be a modal Legacy;..and consequently a Legacy of this kind ought to be paid before the Mode is fulfilled. 1860Wharton Law Lex. (ed. 2), Modal legacy, a bequest with a direction as to the mode in which it is to be applied to the legatee's benefit.
3. Mus. Pertaining to mode.
1597Morley Introd. Mus. Annot., To this daie could I neuer see..a Long set for 3 briefes, with that signe, except it had either a figure of three, or then [read three] modal restes sette before it. 1777Sir W. Jones Ess. Imit. Arts Poems, etc. 198 Each of them has a peculiar character, arising from the position of the modal note. 1880W. S. Rockstro in Grove Dict. Mus. II. 340 The Modal Sign is usually placed after the Clef, like the Time Signature in modern music. 1903Westm. Gaz. 27 Nov. 10/2 A great many genuine old ballads, some so old as to be modal in form—that is, pre⁓existent to the time of the major and minor scale.
4. Logic. Of a proposition: Involving the affirmation of possibility, impossibility, necessity, or contingency. By some writers used in a wider sense, so as to be applicable to any proposition in which the predicate is affirmed or denied of the subject with any kind of qualification, or which contains an adverb or adverbial phrase. Of a syllogism: Containing a modal proposition as a premiss. Esp. in various collocations, as modal logic, that branch of logic which is concerned with the study of modal propositions (see also quots.).
1569J. Sandford tr. Agrippa's Van. Artes 22 b, And of these doo onely approue eight Moodes and laugh at Moodal propositions. 1697tr. Burgersdicius his Logic i. xxviii. 113 These Enunciations..are Modal; because they not only denounce the Predicate to agree or disagree with the Subject, but also declare the Manner how they both agree and disagree. 1774Reid Aristotle's Logic iv. §6 (1788) 95 In a modal proposition the affirmation or negation is modified. 1827Whatley Logic ii. iii. (ed. 2) 106 A Modal Proposition may be stated as a pure one, by attaching the Mode to one of the Terms. 1870Jevons Elem. Logic vii. 69 It has long been usual to distinguish propositions as they are pure or modal. 1932Lewis & Langford Symbolic Logic vi. 153 (heading) Consistency and the modal functions. 1943Mind LII. 265 The ideal textbook in mathematical logic would include extensive discussion of the intensional and modal logics. 1957Jrnl. Symbolic Logic XXII. 176 (title) New foundations for Lewis modal systems. 1957A. N. Prior Time & Modality 133 There are some modal logicians who feel that statements containing sequences of modal operators like MM, MML,..are one and all ‘meaningless’. 1962W. & M. Kneale Devel. of Logic x. 613 We turn to consider the possibility of using quantifiers to operate across modal signs. 1968Hughes & Cresswell Introd. Modal Logic p. xi, Modal logic can be described briefly as the logic of necessity and possibility, of ‘must be’ and ‘may be’. Ibid. ii. 25 Because of the non-truth-functionality of modal operators..the initial account does not lead to any obvious formal definition of validity for modal formulae. 1970J. N. Findlay tr. Husserl's Logical Investigations I. 32 Modal distinctions play a central part in phenomenological theory, and Husserl is now contributing importantly to their own phenomenology.
5. Gram.
a. Of or pertaining to the mood of a verb. Esp. in phr. modal auxiliary.
b. Of a particle: Denoting manner or modality.
1798Tooke Purley ii. (1805) 467 Our language has made but small progress compared either with the Greek or with the Latin..even in this Modal and Temporal abbreviation. 1845Jelf Grk. Gram. I. §184 The Modal vowel, which signifies the modal relations of the verb, and varies accordingly. 1880Expositor XII. 289 Those conjunctive and modal particles in which the Greek language is so incomparably rich. 1933E. H. Grout Stand. Eng. v. 122 The modal auxiliaries may, might, can, could, must, ought,..give a cast to the whole sentence in which they are. 1961R. B. Long Sentence & its Parts vi. 138 A category of modal auxiliaries is often set up for modern English, to include various verbs expressing ideas of possibility, constraint, and desire.
6. a. Statistics. Of or pertaining to a mode (sense 7 c); occurring most frequently in a sample or population.
1897Proc. R. Soc. LXII. 175 Probable error of modal frequency y0. 1900K. Pearson Gram. Sci. (ed. 2) 383 The average value of the character is very frequently taken as determining the type instead of the modal value. 1938A. E. Waugh Elem. Statistical Method iv. 46 In the first place it is necessary to locate the modal class. By this we mean the class which contains the most items. 1954M. Beresford Lost Villages ix. 288 In the receipts of 1377 we have only the constables' names to add flesh and blood to the averages, modal ranges and medians of statistical calculations. 1968Listener 25 July 101/1 The administrators we saw..had averaged only 2·8 years in all their completed jobs in the class; in fact, the modal (most frequently occurring) period in completed jobs was two years. 1973Jrnl. Genetic Psychol. CXXII. 248 The modal age of the youngsters was 13.
b. Representative, typical; modal personality, an imaginary personality in which each component trait or characteristic is present to an extent equal to the modal value of a particular society or group or, more widely, which is taken as in some way representative of it.
1944C. Du Bois People of Alor i. i. 3 Modal personality, then, is the product of the interplay of fundamental, physiologically and neurologically determined tendencies and experiences common to all human beings acted upon by the cultural milieu. Ibid. 5 On such a base line data will show central tendencies that constitute the modal personality for any particular culture. 1948K. Davis Human Society xv. 427 The modal divorce now occurs in the third year of marriage. 1949R. K. Merton Social Theory i. 57 The characteristic (modal) pattern for handling a standardized problem. 1954Inkeles & Levinson in G. Lindzey Handbk. Social Psychol. II. xxvi. 980/2 In our opinion, ‘national character’ ought to be equated with modal personality structure. 1956W. H. Whyte Organization Man (1957) 281 What might be called the modal man, however, is a twenty-five-to-thirty-five-year-old white-collar organization man. 1968McGraw-Hill Yearbk. Sci. & Technol. 50/1 Examples of these typical motor patterns are the deep cooing and bowing of the domestic pigeon, the butting of a billy goat, [etc.]... These motor patterns have been given a wide variety of names, such as modal action patterns..and instinctive movements. 1968J. O. Ellefson in E. Norbeck et al. Study of Personality ix. 142 Field primatologists report impressions of the existence of modal personalities, often designated as temperament, that characterize species. 1970E. McGinnies Social Behavior iii. 70 Linton (1945) has conceived of national character as a modal personality structure, or configuration that appears with considerable frequency in a society. Ibid. 71 Identification of such modal behavior configurations makes it possible to arrive at certain generalizations about any given society and to describe more succinctly the differences between one society and another.
7. Petrol. Of or pertaining to the mode (sense 5 b) of a rock; as indicated by a mode.
1902W. Cross et al. in Jrnl. Geol. X. 609 A Modal Variety..may be defined as a rock having a mode with a slightly different development of the quite subordinate component minerals. 1938Nature 17 Sept. 495/2 The second volume includes all the rocks with more than 5 per cent of modal quartz. 1962A. E. J. & C. G. Engel in A. E. J. Engel et al. Petrologic Stud. 48 The thin sections used for modal analyses of two-pyroxene amphibolites were slightly thicker than is conventional, to accentuate the color difference.
B. n.
1. Logic. A modal proposition (see A. 4).
1725Watts Logic ii. ii. §4 There is no great need of making modals a distinct sort [sc. of proposition]. 1827Whately Logic ii. iii. (ed. 2) 108 When a hypothetical Conclusion is inferred from a hypothetical Premiss,..then the hypothesis (as in Modals) must be considered as part of one of the Terms. 1878S. H. Hodgson Philos. Refl. I. 368 It has the advantage of exhibiting the derivation of the Modals, as they are called, from the reflective mode of consciousness [etc.].
2. Gram. A modal verb (see A. 5).
1959Rep. 10th Ann. Round Table Meeting Ling. & Lang. Stud. (Georgetown Univ. Inst. Lang.) iv. 112 Parallel rules apply to most of the modals and conjugators. 1965N. Chomsky Aspects of Theory of Syntax ii. 63 May is a verbal auxiliary..and..a Modal. 1971J. Anderson in A. J. Aitken et al. Edin. Stud. Eng. & Scots 69 These phenomena are often well documented in grammars purporting to give an account of the modals. |