Abstract

In this paper I discuss the modal auxiliary may in Shakespeare. My aim is to present the descriptive data of may in Shakespeare's Day and the change of uses from the viewpoint of “subjectification.”
The examples of may presented here are collected from four major works of Shakespeare. I classify them into six categories (i. e. epistemic possibility, root possibility, permission, ability, desirability, and quasi-subjunctive), and give the frequency of each use.
Traugott (1986,1989) has claimed that meanings tend to become increasingly more situated in the speaker's subjective belief, state, or attitude toward the proposition, which tendency she calls “subjectification. ”In this paper I argue that in modern English the number of epistemic uses of may has remarkably increased as compared to Shakespeare's Day. I conclude that this change in the development of epistemic meanings is the process of “subjectification”.