auxiliaires > modaux > valeurs > hypothèse > degrés hypothétiques

would / could / should / may / might / must épistémique

reprise de could / may par might

should + GNS + BV  /  had aux + GNS + p. passé

Larry Wright

Cagle

19.11.2004
http://cagle.slate.msn.com/politicalcartoons/PCcartoons/wright.asp
http://info.detnews.com/wrightoon/index.cfm

The Guardian        Money        p. 9        19.11.2005

may > hypothèse > éventuel, virtuel, incertitude / stase discursive

The Guardian        Sport        p. 5        18 December 2008
http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2008/12/18/pdfs/gdn_081218_spr_5_21488249.pdf

What Do You Expect for $99.23 a Night?

November 20, 2005
The New York Times
By MANNY FERNANDEZ

It was about 4 p.m. when something crawled on the carpet. A large insect of unidentified species made its way across the hotel lobby, and a group of European tourists tracked it with a cheerful curiosity until a gray-haired man in a baseball cap waiting to check in stomped on it.

No one else noticed the dead bug. The lobby - a sensory overload of neon, mirrors, bright lights, televisions, yard-sale furniture and pay phones - was too distracting. Guests streamed in and out with befuddled stares, mild complaints and curious requests. A woman asked a worker for bug killer after finding a roach in her bathroom. She was handed a spray bottle of kitchen cleaner and sent on her way.

In the rooms upstairs, tales of lodging woe unfolded. One guest said his television played the sound from one channel but showed the picture from another. A couple in Room 500 said they were surprised to discover that they did not have a closet. And a businesswoman from Ukraine on the 23rd floor found that she liked her room better in the dark. "If the curtains close, light is off, it's not that bad," she said.

People have been saying for years that the old Times Square - the seedy, lowbrow ancestor of what is now a largely sanitized, Disneyfied tourist haven - is dead. But those people have never spent a night at the Hotel Carter. The 615-room hotel at 250 West 43rd Street offers travelers a cheap room in an expensive city, and something more: an adventure. In the middle of Manhattan and at the neon-bright Crossroads of the World, the hotel has been a little-known source of grimy hospitality, low-budget accommodations and equal numbers of satisfied and dissatisfied customers from around the world.

As a guest of the Hotel Carter, you may or may not have your room cleaned. You may or may not find the multicolored, multipatterned carpet on the floor and the walls agreeable. You may or may not have a working television and telephone. You may or may not have a smooth check-in, since the front desk keeps track of reservations without the benefit of a computer system.

In short, you may or may not have an enjoyable stay. The answer depends on which room you get - the top floors have numerous large recently renovated rooms with splendid views - and on your answer to this question: What do you expect for $99.23 a night?

The Carter, a tan-brick 24-story hotel on a busy stretch of West 43rd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, is popular with foreign travelers, students and tourists on a tight budget, and recent guests either loved it or hated it.

    What Do You Expect for $99.23 a Night?, NYT, 20.11.2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/nyregion/20carter.html

must épistémique

Valeur épistémique de must :

l'énonciateur estime que ce qu'il dit s'est très certainement produit,

va / doit très certainement arriver, est vrai / sera vrai.

La révolution des LED doit avoir lieu, ne peut qu'arriver.

Moi énonciateur, je fais un constat, j'estime que c'est nécessaire et inéluctable :

1 -    The LED revolution must happen. These little devices already provide the gleam behind some computer and

phone screens, as well as traffic lights and giant display screens in public places. They throw a brilliant light but

almost no heat, so they last for 10 years rather than 10 weeks or 10 months. A 10-watt LED will have the shine of a

50-watt incandescent bulb.

    LED at the end of the tunnel: The days of the incandescent light bulb may be numbered but its demise is far from imminent, writes Tim Radford, G, 10.12.2003, http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1103931,00.html

Derrière cette inéluctabilité de façade, une part d'incertitude subsiste : must épistémique est la marque d'un pari.

Pari raisonné, mais pari tout de même : moi, énonciateur, je pense qu'il y a toutes les chances que...

Will indiquerait ici une très forte probabilité, une prévision dénuée de toute subjectivité.

L'énoncé en will paraîtrait plus objectif :

affirmation scientifique, énonciateur en retrait ->

 A 10-watt LED will have the shine of a 50-watt incandescent bulb.

Ne pas confondre must épistémique et must radical, même si ces valeurs se "recouvrent"' souvent,

à des degrés divers.

Ces valeurs ne sont d'ailleurs pas toujours exclusives l'une de l'autre : voir rubrique sur must.

déduction / prévision / présupposition

d'hypothèse en hypothèse > may, should, must, could ?

2.45pm

Bird flu pandemic 'could kill 150m'

James Sturcke
Friday September 30, 2005
Guardian Unlimited

A global influenza pandemic is imminent and will kill up to 150 million people, the UN official in charge of coordinating the worldwide response to an outbreak has warned.

David Nabarro, one of the most senior public health experts at the World Health Organisation, said outbreaks of bird flu, which have killed at least 65 people in Asia, could mutate into a form transmittable between people.

"The consequences in terms of human life when the pandemic does start are going to be extraordinary and very damaging," he said.

He told the BBC that the "range of deaths could be anything between five and 150 million".
 

    Bird flu pandemic 'could kill 150m', G, 30.9.2005, http://www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,14207,1582197,00.html

    A la différence de may, avec lequel l'énonciateur pose (ou prétend poser) pour la première fois une hypothèse,

could permet notamment de re-formuler celle-ci à partir d'un déjà-dit réel ou fictif.

    Le titre de l'article ci-dessus est modalisé en could car il reprend l'hypothèse, souvent émise depuis un an au moins,

d'une pandémie provoquée par la grippe aviaire.

    Le choix entre may et could dépend donc non seulement du sémantisme (degré hypothétique),

mais aussi du point de l'énoncé dans un continuum discursif (reprise, répétition, reformulation).

    Sur le plan sémantique, le titre est sans équivoque.

    Une pandémie n'est plus un risque inédit, théorique, que l'on commence à envisager (fonction de may),

mais bel et bien la conclusion logique d'un raisonnement maintes fois repris (could) :

si il y a pandémie

- et les risques de pandémie sont loins d'être négligeables -,

alors il pourrait bien il y avoir 150 millions de morts.

    On reste certes dans l'hypothétique avec could, mais il s'agit ici d'une hypothèse récurrente, construite, scientifique,

    fondée, qui est à prendre au sérieux.

    L'actualisation de l'hypothèse est très possible, presque probable.

    Could marque la réduction du champ du virtuel :

    à noter d'ailleurs la reprise de could kill (titre) par will kill (première phrase).

    En savoir plus sur la valeur de prévision de will

    Could > valeur de prévision-présupposition > textes scientifiques :

The Nation's Weather

March 24, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:21 a.m. ET
The New York Times

Heavy showers and thunderstorms are likely in the Southern and Central Plains on Saturday, and temperatures could drop as a cold front moves into the region.

Meanwhile, severe weather that brought tornadoes to parts of New Mexico on Friday could affect areas spanning from northern Texas through Nebraska.

Rain is expected in the Rockies, and several inches of snow are likely in higher elevations of New Mexico and Colorado.

A slow-moving front is expected to move through the upper Mississippi Valley, Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic regions. New England could get rain and snow.

Temperatures ranging from the 40s to 60s are expected in the Northwest, and rain is likely in Washington state.

In the Northeast, temperatures ranging from the 30s to 50s is expected, while the Southeast could see temperatures in the 80s.

Temperatures in the lower 48 states Friday ranged from a low of 17 degrees at Farson, Wyo., to a high of 89 degrees at Naples, Fla.

------

On the Net:

Weather Underground: http://www.wunderground.com

National Weather Service: http://iwin.nws.noaa.gov

Intellicast: http://www.intellicast.com

    The Nation's Weather, NYT, 24.3.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Weatherpage-Weather.html


 

    A l'inverse, may place le co-énonciateur dans le spéculatif, l'aléatoire, le virtuel, l'éventualité.

    Dans l'article ci-dessous, publié le même jour (30 septembre 2005) que le texte sur la grippe aviaire,

le titre est modalisé en may car il s'agit d'une hypothèse qui, si elle n'est pas complètement nouvelle,

n'a pas le même degré de récurrence dans les médias.

    Pour le lecteur moyen, peu informé sur l'hépatite C, ce titre en may surprend, attire l'attention.

    Qui plus est, l'emploi de ce modal permet au journaliste de rester prudent sur ce qu'il avance.

Hepatitis C timebomb may kill 150,000

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Published: 30 September 2005
The Independent

Up to 150,000 people in Britain are expected to die over the next 20 years from a treatable disease that most do not know they have.

A silent epidemic of hepatitis C, a blood-borne virus, has infected an estimated 500,000 people in the UK and new cases are rising faster here than in other European countries, specialists said yesterday.

Typical victims of the illness are middle-class professional men and women who dabbled in drugs in their youth and contracted the infection through sharing needles. Other people became infected through contaminated blood transfusions before testing for hepatitis C was introduced in 1991.

The disease is already the main reason for liver transplants, and it will kill more people than Aids by 2020.

The scale of the problem has been recognised by the Government, which published an action plan to tackle it last year. But in a report published yesterday, the Hepatitis C Trust, a charity for sufferers, said that Britain was at the bottom of the European league on treatment, with fewer than 2 per cent of cases receiving drugs, compared with 15 per cent in France.

Drug treatment costs £6,000 to £12,000 per case, and cures more than half of sufferers. It has been approved for use on the NHS by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), but the disease has no symptoms in its early stages and only one in 10 sufferers knows they are infected.

    Hepatitis C timebomb may kill 150,000, I, 30.9.2005, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article316089.ece

    Dans l'article ci-dessous, qui traite de la présence de méthane sur Mars,

deux voix énonciatives se répondent, celles du journaliste et de l'astronome Andrew Coates.

    §2 - Première hypothèse du scientifique :

d'après ce que l'on sait aujourd'hui de l'atmosphère de Mars,

moi, astronome, je suis en mesure d'avancer que

la présence de méthane doit être de courte durée, elle doit durer tout au plus quelques centaines d'années.

            "Methane should be short-lived in that atmosphere. It should last for less than a few hundred years,"

    L'énonciateur n'est pas complètement certain de ce qu'il dit,

il ne dit pas is, il modalise : should indique ici qu'il reste une marge d'erreur.

La validité de ce qui est énoncé reste relative.

§3 - Constructions hypothétique et linguistique.

    A partir de cette première hypothèse, l'astronome en déduit une seconde :

puisque il y a du méthane sur Mars, et que ce gaz disparaît rapidement (en temps astronomique) dans l'atmosphère martienne,

c'est qu'il a dû être émis récemment :

donc / par conséquent (so), il doit nécessairement / certainement (must) il y avoir une source récente, peut-être même actuelle.

            So there must be a very recent source, perhaps even a current source.

    Le modal must, qui est ici utilisé dans sa valeur épistémique (moi, énonciateur, j'estime que...),

marque aussi le passage logique de la première à la seconde hypothèse : si 1, alors 2.

    Le scientifique poursuit sa déduction.

Si il existe une source d'émission, il n'y a que deux possibilités connues :

activité volcanique ou forme de vie. Le champ du possible est ici délimité par could.

            The two possible sources could be volcanism - very recent or current volcanism - or life.

    Traduction : Les deux sources possibles pourraient être le volcanisme ou une forme de vie.

    A l'inverse, l'astronome ne modalise pas lorsqu'il affirme - c'est une donnée scientifique -

que toute forme de vie sur Terre produit du méthane (présent simple : produce + s).

            "All life as we know it on Earth, even down to the tiniest microbe, produces methane as a byproduct."

§5. Autre voix énonciative : le journaliste utilise can pour présenter ce qui est, selon lui, une caractéristique inhérente de Mars.

Quelle que soit la réponse au problème - volcanisme ou vie -, moi, journaliste,

je puis désormais vous affirmer que la planète rouge ne peut plus être considérée comme une planète morte.

        Either way, the red planet can no longer be considered a dead planet.

Le journaliste, ou le sub-editor, reste prudent dans le titre :

un gaz pourrait fournir un indice... (may, qui indique ici un degré hypothétique élevé).

    Gas may yield clue to life on Mars

§7. Dernière phase de la déduction :

étant donné qu'il y aurait (conditionnel) des signes d'une activité volcanique relativement récente

- tentative evidence of relatively recent, small-scale volcanism -,

il y a de fortes chances pour que le méthane soit d'origine volcanique.

    Glose : le méthane pourrait bien être d'origine volcanique.

        "So there is certainly a good chance that it could be volcanism," Dr Coates said.

Gas may yield clue to life on Mars

1.    Scientists yesterday confirmed the presence of methane on Mars, raising two possibilities - volcanos, or life on the red planet.

    Headline and first §§, G, 10.9.2004, http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1301417,00.html

Pluto may have three moons, instead of one

Mon Oct 31, 2005 10:59 PM ET
Reuters
By Deborah Zabarenko

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pluto, that cosmic oddball at the far reaches of our solar system, may have three moons instead of one, scientists announced on Monday.

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope glimpsed the two new satellites back in May, and were intrigued when the pair of possible moons appeared to move around Pluto over three days in what looked like a nearly circular orbit.

If confirmed by the International Astronomical Union, they will get official names based on classical mythology, joining Pluto's moon Charon, which is named for the ferryman of the dead. Pluto is named for the lord of the underworld.

For now, the new satellites are called simply P1 and P2. One of the scientists who discovered the satellites couldn't resist making some spooky allusions with the announcement.

"It's ... strictly coincidental that Pluto of course was named for the god of the underworld and we're describing these Halloween moons," said Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in a telephone news conference.

Pluto's first known moon, Charon, was discovered in 1978. Charon is about half Pluto's size, making it less like a satellite and more like a sibling, and many scientists consider Pluto and Charon to be a binary system, with the moon orbiting about 12,000 miles from the planet.

The newfound putative satellites are likely much smaller than Charon, ranging in size from perhaps 30 miles to 100 miles in diameter. Scientists are still trying to figure this out.

Charon is about 745 miles across, and Pluto is about 1,430 miles across.

The discovery of the two additional satellites means Pluto is the first known object of the Kuiper Belt -- a ring of rocky debris circling outside Neptune's orbit -- with more than one moon, said Hal Weaver, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

However, the new finding does little to clear up Pluto's planetary status. While it was discovered in 1930, Pluto has such an eccentric orbit around the sun that some have questioned whether it deserves to be called a planet.

The International Astronomical Union, which considers such matters, calls it a planet, but the specific definition of what constitutes a planet is under review.

Mere multiple moons do not change Pluto's status, according to Stern, who serves on an astronomical panel that is working on the new definition.

"Whether or not an object has a moon is not part of the criteria that we've considered, because so many small objects in the solar system have moons," Stern said. "But I think, just on a visceral level, the fact that Pluto has a whole suite of companions will make some people in the public feel better about its status of planethood."

More information and images are available online at http://hubblesite.org/news/2005/19/ .

    Pluto may have three moons, instead of one, R, 31.10.2005, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2005-11-01T035901Z_01_FOR175292_RTRUKOC_0_US-SPACE-PLUTO.xml

would > forte probabilité garantie par l'énonciateur

The Guardian        Weekend        p. 70        5.11.2005

should + GNS + BV   /   had aux + GNS + p. passé

HOUSTON, Texas (Reuters) - Texas Gov. Rick Perry granted a rare stay of execution to a Houston woman just hours before she was scheduled to die on Wednesday night by lethal injection for the 1987 murder of her husband and two children.

Frances Newton, 39, has protested her innocence since she was charged in the shooting deaths of her husband Adrian, 23, son Alton, 7, and daughter Farrah, 21 months, in what prosecutors said was an attempt to collect $100,000 from life insurance policies on her family.

Had she been put to death, Newton would have been the first black woman to be executed in Texas and the fourth woman to be executed in the state since 1863.

    Governor Stays Texas Woman's Wednesday Execution, R, Wed Dec 1, 2004 06:35 PM ET, http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=L0RJGJTLY4NXKCRBAEKSFFA?type=domesticNews&storyID=6971566

Accidents will happen and illness can strike, but many of us seem to assume that our charmed lives will last for ever. According to research from the Alliance & Leicester bank, almost a third of Britons haven't got life assurance.

Of course, no one wants to dwell on thoughts of what might happen should they die, but the beginning of National Breast Cancer Awareness month ought to remind us that it's vital we do think the unthinkable if we don't want our loved ones to struggle financially.

    So you think disaster will never strike? : A third of us have no life cover.
Yet if we die, our families could lose their homes and be wrecked financially. Melanie Bien reports, IoS, 3.10.2004, http://money.independent.co.uk/personal_finance/insurance/story.jsp?story=568286

may

extralinguistique > éventualité, hypothèse

linguistique > forme première

could

extralinguistique > potentialité du référent du sujet, probabilité / probabilité

linguistique > forme seconde, anaphorique

The Guardian        p. 1        11.1.2007

The Guardian        p. 3        7.12.2005

Scientists link plastic food containers with breast cancer

A chemical widely used in food packaging may be a contributing factor to women developing breast cancer, scientists have suggested.

    Headline and §1, G, 30.5.2005, http://society.guardian.co.uk/cancer/story/0,8150,1495256,00.html

Decoded at last: the 'classical holy grail' that may rewrite the history of the world

Scientists begin to unlock the secrets of papyrus scraps bearing long-lost words by the literary giants of Greece and Rome

For more than a century, it has caused excitement and frustration in equal measure - a collection of Greek and Roman writings so vast it could redraw the map of classical civilisation. If only it was legible.

Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed.

In the past four days alone, Oxford's classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost for millennia. They even believe they are likely to find lost Christian gospels, the originals of which were written around the time of the earliest books of the New Testament.

    Headline, sub and first §§, IoS, 17.4.2005, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=630165

The true horror emerges

· Number killed tops 60,000
· Children may make up a third of dead, says UN
· Disease could double toll

The death toll in the Asian tsunami disaster topped 60,000 last night, with world health chiefs warning that disease could kill as many people again if fresh water and medicine do not reach stricken areas soon.

Across the Indian Ocean rim, stories of incredible devastation emerged as one of the largest and most complex relief efforts ever undertaken swung into action.

The worst-hit area appeared to be the Aceh province of Sumatra, where one town alone, Meulaboh, reported 10,000 dead. The Indonesian government put the death toll in the country at more than 27,000, with another 1,000 missing. Some towns still have not been heard from, and many bodies remain buried under rubble and mud.

The UN said that at least a third of the victims across the region could be children. Carol Bellamy, executive director of Unicef, said: "We're concerned about providing safe water and preventing the spread of disease. For children, the next few days will be the most critical."

India's death toll of 11,500 included at least 7,000 on the Andamans and Nicobar archipelago. On one island, the surge of water triggered by Sunday's undersea earthquake killed two-thirds of the population. In Sri Lanka, the confirmed toll was 21,000 and rising, with another 2,000 in the Tamil north.

The government of the Maldives expressed concern that it still had not heard from 19 inhabited islands and said there was a real danger some of its low-lying islands could be lost forever. British disaster assessment experts were on standby last night to fly there.

(...)

The World Health Organisation said the focus now should be on preventing the spread of disease, especially malaria and cholera. Dr David Nabarro, the WHO head of crisis operations, said: "There is certainly a chance that as many could die from communicable diseases as from the tsunami."

    The true horror emerges, G, 29.12.2004, headline, sub and first §§,  http://www.guardian.co.uk/tsunami/story/0,15671,1380508,00.html

could > possibilité soumise à condition (if...)

Is it a bird? Is it a spaceship? No, it's a secret US spy plane
· Sightings of flying object over Britain worried MoD
· Questions threatened to strain relations with US

James Randerson, science correspondent        The Guardian        Saturday June 24, 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1804926,00.html

The Guardian        p. 1        13.8.2005

The Guardian        p. 21        18.11.2004

The Guardian        Film & Music        p. 15        28.10.2005

may > valeurs > possibilité, éventualité, risque, chance

The Guardian        p. 14        25.9.2004

may marque l'hypothèse

- et souvent la première étape d'un parcours hypothétique -,

l'éventualité, la théorie, la possibilité, l'aléatoire.

Les énoncés en may laissent (ou prétendent laisser) le co-énonciateur libre de croire ou non à ce qui est dit.

You may think that :

Moi énonciateur je vous donne le droit de penser ça,

vous pouvez bien penser ça, ça m'est bien égal.

énoncés hypothétiques

Hundreds of people were killed in the Maldives, Myanmar and Malaysia.

The arc of water struck as far away as Somalia and Kenya.

Fishing villages, ports and resorts were devastated, power and communications cut and homes destroyed.

The tremor, the biggest in 40 years, may have caused the Earth to wobble on its axis,

permanently accelerating its rotation and shortening days by a fraction of a second, U.S. scientists said.

    Race to Bury Asia's Dead as Toll Hits 68,000, R, Tue Dec 28, 2004 11:06 PM ET, http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7196017&pageNumber=2

Human brain result of 'extraordinarily fast' evolution

Emergence of society may have spurred growth

    Headline and sub, G, 29.12.2004, http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1380427,00.html

Smoke and fire

Addiction to nicotine may be in the genes

MARK TWAIN once observed that giving up smoking is easy. He knew, because he'd done it hundreds of times himself. Giving up for ever is a trifle more difficult, apparently, and it is well known that it is much more difficult for some people than for others. Why is this so?

Few doctors believe any longer that it is simply a question of will power. And for those people that continue to view addicts as merely “weak”, recent genetic research may force a rethink. A study conducted by Jacqueline Vink, of the Free University of Amsterdam, used a database called the Netherlands Twin Register to analyse the smoking habits of twins. Her results, published in the Pharmacogenomics Journal, suggest that an individual's degree of nicotine dependence, and even the number of cigarettes he smokes per day, are strongly genetically influenced.

(...)

The human genome is huge. It consists of billions of DNA “letters”, some of which can be strung together to make sense (the genes) but many of which have either no function, or an unknown function. To follow what is going on, geneticists rely on markers they have identified within the genome. These are places where the genetic letters may vary between individuals. If a particular variant is routinely associated with a particular physical feature or a behaviour pattern, it suggests that a particular version of a nearby gene is influencing that feature or behaviour.

(...)

Results such as Dr Vink's must be interpreted with care. Association studies, as such projects are known, have a disturbing habit of disappearing, as it were, in a puff of smoke when someone tries to replicate them. But if Dr Vink really has exposed a genetic link with addiction, then Mark Twain's problem may eventually become a thing of the past.

    Headline and first §§, E, 25.11.2004, http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3423177

Thousands warned of possible vCJD infection

    Headline and §1, G, 21.9.2004, http://society.guardian.co.uk/publichealth/story/0,11098,1309422,00.html

The report, Smoking and Reproductive Life, says studies show that smoking may cause impotence through damage to the blood circulatory system caused by exposure to the many toxins in cigarettes, including carbon monoxide. It estimates that 120,000 men aged between 30 and 50 in the UK are impotent because of the effects of smoking.

    Smoking linked to impotence in young men : BMA report says cigarettes damage nearly all aspects of sexual health, G, 12.2.2004, http://www.guardian.co.uk/smoking/Story/0,2763,1146091,00.html

British officials are circulating a story that Saddam Hussein may have been hoodwinked into believing that Iraq really did possess weapons of mass destruction.

The theory, which is doing the rounds in the upper reaches of Whitehall, is the result of an attempt to find what one official source called a "logical reason" why no chemical and biological weapons had been found in Iraq.

(...)

The hypothesis, which is being spread privately by officials, is open to the interpretation that the government is searching for an excuse, however implausible, for failure to discover any WMD in Iraq.

    New theory for Iraq's missing WMD: Saddam was fooled into thinking he had them, G, 24.12.2003, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1112467,00.html

Officials fear al-Qaida may hijack planes again to target US interests

The US has deployed anti-aircraft missiles around Washington and other possible terrorist targets in fear of another attack using a commercial plane,

but there is disagreement among intelligence officials about how direct the threat is to America.

    America deploys missiles around airports, sub, G, 24.12.2003, http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1112431,00.html

Rich diet 'may harm' low weight babies

Small dietary changes during pregnancy might have a dramatic effect on a baby's life expectancy

- at least in mice, according to research linked to Addenbrooke's hospital.   

    Headline and sub, G, 29.1.2004, http://society.guardian.co.uk/publichealth/story/0,11098,1133795,00.html

Iran death toll may reach 50,000

The death toll from Friday's devastating earthquake in Iran could reach 50,000, government officials said today.

    Headline and §1, G, 30.12.2003, http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1114003,00.html

might > deux valeurs différentes

degré hypothétique supérieur (très improbable)

ou hypothèse très probable (présupposition / anaphore)

reprise de may par might

différence avec may

Comics ci-dessous, première case (référence à l'épisode antérieur) :

Mark suspects that Birdie's husband might be shipping drugs inside mounted animal trophies

Le modal might est ici présupposant et anaphorique (renvoi à un déjà dit) : ... pourrait bien ...

Cette légende est un résumé des épisodes précédents, et n'apprend rien au lecteur.

A l'inverse,

He may be going to pick up drugs (dernière case > ouverture narrative)

est une hypothèse première, d'où l'emploi de may.

Mark Trail        Jack Elrod        Created by Ed Dodd in 1946        5.12.2004
http://www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/mtrail/about.htm

Elderly might not benefit from regular aspirin [ reprise de may par might ]

Fri May 20, 2005
9:59 AM ET
Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A daily baby aspirin is often recommended by doctors to help prevent heart attacks or stroke, but for people over 70 years old the benefits may be offset by bleeding risks, investigators report. "The balance of harm and benefit could tip either way," they say.

Elderly individuals are at increased risk of having adverse reactions to drugs, Dr. Mark R. Nelson, from the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia, and colleagues note in the Online First edition of the British Medical Journal. However, most of the clinical trials looking into the prevention of cardiovascular events with aspirin have involved middle-aged subjects.

To further investigate the matter, the research team constructed a mathematical model based on clinical trial data and demographics to compare risks and benefits of low-dose aspirin in a theoretical cohort of 10,000 men and 10,000 women ages 70 to 74. The virtual participants were "followed" until they died or reached 100 years of age.

The model suggested that, for men, routine low-dose aspirin therapy would prevent 389 heart attacks and 19 strokes; for women, the numbers were 321 heart attacks and 35 strokes.

However, this benefit was offset by an extra 499 episodes of gastric bleeding in men and 572 in women. On top of that, the team calculated that 76 more men and 54 more women would suffer bleeding in the brain.

"On balance, there was no indication of a net benefit or harm in terms of deaths, years of life saved, or years of healthy life saved," the researchers report.

Their findings highlight the need for a randomized clinical trial of aspirin use in elderly patients, they add, and "underscore the importance of targeting preventive treatment to those for whom the potential balance of benefit versus harm is optimal."

SOURCE: BMJ Online First, May 19, 2005.

    Full text, R, 20.5.2005, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=healthNews&storyID=2005-05-20T135902Z_01_B564335_RTRIDST_0_HEALTH-ELDERLY-ASPIRIN-DC.XML

PARIS (Reuters) - Yasser Arafat remained in a critical condition as uncertainty mounted

over who might succeed him and where he might be buried should he die.

One aide to the Palestinian president said he was "between life and death" in a coma,

though one from which he could still recover.

Others, hoping to calm fears of chaos back home, said his life was not in danger.

    Arafat Stable Amid Puzzle Over Burial and Successor, R, Fri Nov 5, 2004 06:51 PM ET, http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=ZCM5JYNZ5SFBQCRBAEZSFEY?type=topNews&storyID=6733214

All 50,000 troops who served in the first Gulf war might have been exposed to low levels of chemical warfare agents

during the fighting and its aftermath, a US investigation has suggested.

    50,000 troops in Gulf illness scare, G, §1, 11.6.2004, http://www.guardian.co.uk/military/story/0,11816,1236274,00.html

A possible new cattle disease which might pose a risk to human health is being urgently investigated by government vets.

    Vets investigate mystery brain disease in cattle, G, 8.6.2004, http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/news/0,8363,1233761,00.html

The Guardian        p. 9        28.8.2004

might

peut aussi marquer la présupposition (pourrait bien / vraiment) :

The Guardian        p. 19        16.7.2005

The Guardian        p. 3        14.10.2004

Revealed: The real cost of air travel

It might be cheap, but it's going to cost the earth.

The cut-price airline ticket is fuelling a boom that will make countering global warming impossible.

    Headline and §1, I, 28.5.2005, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=642009

When fed to rats it affected their kidneys and blood counts. So what might it do to humans? We think you should be told

The secret research we reveal today raises the potential health risks of genetically modified foods. Here, environment editor Geoffrey Lean, who has led this paper's campaign on GM technology for the past six years, examines the new evidence. And he asks the questions that must concern us all: why is Monsanto, the company trying to sell GM corn to Britain and Europe, so reluctant to publish the full results of its alarming tests on lab rats? Why are our leaders so keen to buy the unproven technology against the wishes of consumers? And why is the man who first raised these concerns six years ago shunned by the scientific establishment and his former political masters?

    Headline and sub, IoS, 22.5.2005, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=640402

Mandrake        Fred Fredericks        Created by Lee Falk        7.5.2005 > Suite : 9.5.2005
http://www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/mandrake/about.htm

Comics ci-dessus > Bande dessinée 1, publiée un samedi :

1. indicating they might explode at any moment!

might > anaphore textuelle (as sparks begin to fly from...)

+

anaphore visuelle

=

présupposition

Traduction : ... qu'ils pourraient bien exploser à tout instant !

Bande dessinée 2, publiée un lundi (pas de Mandrake le dimanche) :

"remise à zéro" de l'énonciation avec may,

retour à une hypothèse première fictive

+

intensification avec

un verbe à particule (blow up) et deux points d'exclamation :

2. The abandoned refrigeration plant may blow up at any moment!!

Steve Roper and Mike Nomad        Fran Matera        6.10.2004
http://www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/sroper/about.htm

would / could / should / may / might / must épistémique

autres énoncés

Spiderman        Stan Lee        18.9.2004
http://www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/spidermn/about.htm

Smoking ban 'would save 5,000 lives a year'

Banning smoking in public places could save more lives more quickly than the creation of a single new anti-cancer drug,

campaigners said today.

    Headline and §1, G, 15.8.2004, http://society.guardian.co.uk/publichealth/story/0,11098,1304965,00.html

Environment Agency accepts that Thorp reprocessing plant could be closed before it finds a way to control release of Krypton 85

    BNFL to continue releasing 'killer' gas, G, 3.4.2004, http://www.guardian.co.uk/nuclear/article/0,2763,1296360,00.html

Earth-like planet could harbour life

European scientists have found a planet circling a distant star that could be home to life.

    Earth-like planet could harbour life, G, 31.8.2004, http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1293976,00.html

Paedophiles could be barred from net   

    Headline, O, 7.3.2004, http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,1164018,00.html

Prison suicide 'could have been avoided'

    Headline, O, 7.3.2004, http://society.guardian.co.uk/crimeandpunishment/story/0,8150,1164031,00.html

Collision with comet may have hastened first plague epidemic

A collision between Earth and a passing comet in the 6th century AD

may have caused the collapse of agriculture, mass famine

and indirectly led to the bubonic plague in Europe, a study has suggested.

Scientists have calculated that a relatively small comet, or fragment of a comet,

could have caused huge amounts of dust and debris to be ejected into the atmosphere, blocking the sun for months at a time.

The resulting crop failures and famine would have allowed bubonic plague to spread easily among a physically weakened population.

    Headline and first §§, I, 4.2.2004, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=487550

Britain should escape the worst of today's predicted gale force winds,

but forecasters have warned that a storm tonight could be more severe than had been expected.

    UK set to miss worst of gales, G, 12.1.2004, http://www.guardian.co.uk/weather/Story/0,2763,1121278,00.html

A knife-wielding murderer who targets lone women joggers in public parks could strike again, police in north London warned yesterday.

    Women warned after second park stabbing, G, 8.12.2003, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,2763,1102142,00.html

Al-Qa'ida may be poised to attack, US warns

Concern about aterror attack occurring in Saudi Arabia, possibly imminently,

was growing yesterday as the United States issued a warning that it could happen as early as today.

    Headline, §1, IoS, 26.10.2003, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=457303

Global warming could create 150 million environmental refugees - but the countries responsible are in no hurry to carry their share of the costs

    Unnatural disasters, G, 15.10.2003, http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1063181,00.html

Finally, consider the economic consequences in the US. A good war would obviously help President Bush, but maybe not as much as he expects. After a victory in Iraq, attention might quickly refocus on problems in the economy and Wall Street. Bush could still suffer the same fate as his father unless he can rapidly trigger a convincing recovery.

A bad war would be almost as catastrophic for Bush as for Blair. The stock market and the economy would plunge, almost certainly triggering a double-dip recession. Fiscal policy would be unable to compensate, since Democrats would refuse to legislate tax cuts. The only recourse would be massive monetary easing, as recently suggested by the Federal reserve. The dollar would fall sharply. Meanwhile trade policy would lurch towards protectionism in response to domestic recession and Europe's perceived betrayal of the US. Export industries would be devastated around the world. Unemployment in continental Europe would rise to a level last seen in the 1930's. And who knows what "rough beast" might rise again?

    War could mean the end of the economic world, T, p. 27, 2 derniers §, 18.3.2003.

    -> "rough beast" fait référence au poème de Yeats 'The second coming' :           http://www.well.com/user/eob/poetry/The_Second_Coming.html

Had Philippoussis nailed to serve at this juncture to take a 3-0 lead

the Australian might have gone on to win the first set. Instead Federer forced him to volley long.

    Federer finds steel to galvanise his skill, GW, p. 36, 10/16.7.2003.

Heading for disaster ... biotechnology could bring death on a previously inconceivable scale

    Caption, Oliver Morton is enthralled by the proposition that this century will be our last: The end of the world as we know it?, GI / Review, p. 11, 14.6.2003.

Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) have been supplied with DIY pregnancy tests

in case the enforced intimacy of space travel prompts mixed crews to try for the 200-mile-high club.

The test sticks have been included in the station's medical pack in one of the first admissions that its astronauts might have sex in orbit.

    Sex in space: thin blue line keeps crews in check, T, p. 13, 3.9.2001.

As the crackle of anti-aircraft and machine-gun fire moved closer to the centre of Baghdad, it was clear that the battle was drawing nearer.

It was also clear how it might go. The signs had been there since Saturday morning:

a motorway on the southern extremities of Baghdad, dotted with the blackened carcasses of Iraqui army vehicles,

gruesome souvenirs of the American army's brief jaunt through the suburbs.

    'They had cannon, rockets and faith. But next time the US tanks come it won't be enough, GE, p. 1, 7.4.2003.

'Decapitating' the regime may not end war quickly

    Headline, T, p. 10, 25.3.2003.

U.S. May Face Nuclear Blackmail

    Headline, NYT/Le Monde, p. 3, 16-7.3.2003.

Invasion May Be Al Qaeda's Best Recruiting Tool

    Headline, NYT/Le Monde, p. 1, 23-4.3.2003.

A meteor barrage may have led to volcanic eruptions and the subsequent extinction of dinosaurs.

    If the Meteors Didn't Get Dinosaurs, the Lava Did, NYT/Le Monde, caption, p. 6, 23-4.3.2003.

War could mean the end of the economic world

    Headline, T, p. 27, 18.3.2003.

As a social fund officer he had seen claimants by the thousand. (...) I had arranged a hypothetical interview with him to find out what the social fund would give me if I was down on my luck arriving in an empty council flat with few possessions. I might be a woman fleeing a violent husband. I might be a refugee family. I might have had my home repossessed after losing my job and defaulting on my mortage. "How much can you give me to furnish my empty flat?" I begin.
"Nothing at all".

The other side of the tracks, GE/GE2, p. 2, 13.1.2003.

 

    Contexte : la journaliste se fait passer pour une personne sans-abri, qui pourrait être une femme battue,

réfugiée ou expulsée de sa maison.

reprise de could par might

déduction, inférence, conséquence, degré hypothétique supérieur

If it is done properly, the privatisation of Japan Post could boost competition in the country's financial markets.

Trouble is, it might not be

hypothèse relative au passé

would / must épistémique / may / might

+ have aux + p.passé (actif)

+ have aux + been + p.passé (passif)

Mark Trail        Jack Elrod        Created by Ed Dodd in 1946        5.12.2004
http://www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/mtrail/about.htm

Abigail Witchalls, the 26-year-old mother who was left paralysed after being stabbed in the neck, has failed to pick out one of the main suspects in the investigation during a photo identity parade, police said last night.

Richard Cazaly, a 23-year-old gardener who lived near the scene of the attack, has been a suspect since he killed himself in Scotland a few days after the assault. In one suicide note he wrote: "I'm terribly sorry. I must be two people. I can't remember. But I must have done it."

Mrs Witchalls was shown the photograph in hospital yesterday afternoon.

A police spokesman said: "Surrey police officers investigating the attempted murder of Abigail Witchalls on 20 April 2005 have now conducted a formal identity parade in which Abigail was shown a photograph of Richard Cazaly along with eight others.

"Abigail did not pick out Richard Cazaly as the man who attacked her.

    Witchalls ID parade fails, first §§, G, 10.6.2005, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,2763,1503452,00.html

Day from Hell May Have Killed Off Dinosaurs

Wed Oct 27, 2004
09:32 AM ET
Reuters

One minute you're a big T-Rex, the next you're toast.

Challenging conventional theory, new scientific research suggests the dinosaurs may have been scorched into extinction by an asteroid collision 65 million years ago that unleashed 10 billion times more power than the Hiroshima nuclear bomb.

Earth's temperatures soared, the sky turned red and trees all over the planet burst into flames, said atmospheric physicist Brian Toon of the University of Colorado.

Among the few survivors would have been animals living in water or burrowed in the ground like turtles, small mammals and crocodiles.

(...)

Creatures living near ground zero would have been vaporized immediately while those in the Caribbean area and southern United States would have drowned in 330-feet-high (100-meter) tsunamis when the asteroid impacted near today's Gulf of Mexico shoreline at a speed of 33,750 mph (54,000 kph).

Then, a column of red-hot steam and dust soared thousands of miles into space and most of it fell back toward Earth within a few hours, turning the heavens into hell.

GIANT FIRE

"The entire sky would be radiating at you. It would be like standing next to a giant fire; you'd be burned very severely," Toon said, whose research is based on mathematical and computer models.

    Headline and first §§, R, 27.10.2004, http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=6628797

SEOUL (Reuters) - A huge explosion rocked North Korea near the border with China three days ago,

producing a mushroom cloud that sparked speculation Pyongyang might have tested an atomic weapon, Yonhap news agency reported on Sunday.

    Big Blast, Mushroom Cloud Reported in N.Korea, R, 12.9.2004, http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=VFOHTDTUBTYJWCRBAE0CFFA?type=topNews&storyID=6211175

Had Guy Fawkes succeeded in blowing up the Palace of Westminster 398 years ago today, large parts of Central London would have been flattened, new calculations show.

Westminster Hall, the Abbey and surrounding streets would have been destroyed, with damage spreading into Whitehall, according to experts at the Centre for Explosion Studies at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth.

There would have been complete destruction of all buildings within 135ft, and partial collapses of walls and roofs of houses out to 354ft. Ceilings would have fallen in and glass been damaged up to 1,600ft away.

    What if Guy Fawkes had got away with it?, T, p. 1, 5.11.2003.

Voir aussi

Reprise de may par might / could

Traduire le verbe "devoir" en anglais

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