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GÜNTER RADDEN, Meaningful Grammar

The modal verb may can only be used in the Present Tense, as in (8a).
The form might does not refer to past time but has the effect making
the assessment sound more tentative. We may use a subjective modal
verb to assess past or future situations, but we always do so at the pre-
sent moment. Thus, the sentence Dogs may have been smarter than hu-
mans describes a present assessment about a past situation and, like-
wise, Dogs may be going to be smarter than humans describes a present
assessment about a future situation. As shown in sentence (8b), assess-
ments made by lexical verbs are not tied to the present moment. They
are thus less subjective.
Let us now look at a more intricate piece of evidence: the use of
tag questions. Tag questions are used when we ask the hearer to con-
firm something we just said. Consider the tag questions in the follow-
ing sentences:

(9a) *Dogs may be smarter than humans, aren’t they?
(9b) I believe that dogs are smarter than humans, aren’t they?
(9c) Dogs are clearly smarter than humans, aren’t they?

Sentence (9a) with the subjective modal may is not compatible with
tag questions. Its ungrammaticality is due to the “offstage” position
of the speaker coupled with the maximally subjective assessment im-
posed by may. The hearer can, of course, not know the “hidden”
speaker’s innermost thoughts.
Sentence (9b) with the lexical verb believe still sounds odd but
better than the preceding sentence. Here, the speaker is “onstage” as
a participant of the main clause, and the object of his belief is ex-
pressed in the subordinate clause. Since the content of the assessment
is grammatically separated from the speaker, it has a certain degree
of independence and may, in accordance with the iconic principle of
proximity/distance, be referred to and confirmed by the hearer. This
explains why naming the speaker makes an epistemic assessment
sound less subjective than suppressing the speaker.
In sentence (9c), the speaker’s assessment is evoked by the modal
adverb clearly. However, the speaker is neither onstage nor offstage and
hence is completely backgrounded so that the assessment sounds objec-
tive: The speaker appears to echo a generally held public opinion.

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