Un estudio contrastivo de los verbos de deseo en inglés y español

FACULTAD DE FILOLOGÍA GRADO EN ESTUDIO INGLESES TRABAJO DE FIN DE GRADO CURSO: 2024/2025 A CONTRASTIVE STUDY BETWEEN ENGLISH AND SPANISH VERBS OF DESIRE Alumna: YOLANDA BASTIDA SÁNCHEZ Tutor: JOAQUÍN COMESAÑA RINCÓN Contents ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................... 1 1. INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................... 1 2. VERBS OF DESIRE IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH...............................................2 2.1 Verbs of desire in English......................................................................................2 2.2 Verbs of desire in Spanish..................................................................................... 8 3. A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF ENGLISH AND SPANISH VERBS OF DESIRE.......................................................................................................................... 13 3.1 Limitations of the English and Spanish classifications....................................... 14 3.2 General characteristics of verbs of desire............................................................14 3.3 Syntactic differences............................................................................................15 3.4 Semantic differences............................................................................................16 4. FROM DESIRE TO INTENTION...........................................................................18 4.1 Impact of syntactic structures on meaning.......................................................... 19 4.2 Analysis of epistemic and deontic modality in relation to verbs of desire..........20 5. CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................21 REFERENCES.............................................................................................................. 22 ABSTRACT This paper presents a contrastive study of verbs of desire in English and Spanish, focusing on their grammatical patterns and their relation with modality. These verbs are used to express wishes, intentions, and unrealized events. The aim of this study is to examine how these verbs function syntactically and semantically, and see their connection with the epistemic and deontic modality. The analysis for these verbs is based on studies by different linguists such as Levin (1993), Dixon (2005), Palmer (2001), the RAE (2009), and Bosque and Demonte (1999) among others. The structures used in each language to express desire are compared in order to show that while there are similarities, Spanish tends to use the subjunctive mood in subordinate clauses, although English prefers the use of infinitive constructions. These differences are important to understand how each language expresses desires and intentions. 1. INTRODUCTION Language is a fundamental tool that shows human communication and the way emotions, thoughts, and intentions are expressed. Verbs of desire are necessary to articulate wishes, aspirations, and goals. Verbs like want, wish, or hope in English and querer, desear, or esperar in Spanish form an essential group for expressing universal human attitudes. These verbs are particularly interesting due to their semantic and syntactic properties, as well as their frequent use in everyday language. Verbs of desire help understand how people organize their thoughts and emotions through language. They provide insight into mental processes by verbalizing concepts such as intentionality, desire, and expectation. They play an important part in understanding how language structures concepts such as intention and expectation. These verbs frequently appear in infinitive (I want to go) or in that-clauses (I wish that you were here), influencing meaning and interpretation in different contexts. This study deepens our understanding of language structures and its functions. These verbs have been analyzed through contrastive grammar, highlighting both similarities and differences between English and Spanish. In English, research has primarily focused on verbal complementation and semantics (Levin, 1993), while in Spanish, studies have centered on the use of the subjunctive and its pragmatic 1 implications (Bosque and Demonte, 1999). However, there is still limited research from a contrastive perspective, underscoring the relevance of this study. The structure of this work will be the following: first, a proposal for a classification of both English and Spanish verbs of desire (section 2); next, the limitations of the classifications stipulated will be discussed and will be compared to see their differences and similarities (section 3); following this, a semantic analysis will explore the connection between desire and intention in both languages (section 4); and finally, the main conclusions will be presented in the final section of this paper (section 5). 2. VERBS OF DESIRE IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH This section will individually examine both the syntactic and semantic characteristics of verbs of desire in English and Spanish. Additionally, it will propose a possible classification of these verbs in each language. By analyzing their structural and functional properties, this section aims to highlight key similarities and differences in order to facilitate their contrastive study. 2.1 Verbs of desire in English Verbs of desire in English are a category of verbs that express emotions, aspirations or attitudes toward events or states that are not real yet. These verbs normally articulate an intention, expectation or wish of the referent, and are essential to communicate goals, preferences or personal longings. They are closely linked to modality1, since they often indicate hypothetical situations that can be possible or irrealistic and therefore impossible to occur. In this study, a range of linguistic perspectives will be considered to analyze these verbs in depth, drawing from key resources from Levin (1993), Quirk et al (1985), and Palmer (2001) among other relevant linguists. 1 Modality does not describe an event itself but rather the speaker’s perception or evaluation of it. Verbs of desire fall into this category because they refer to hypothetical, unrealized, or future events rather than concrete ones. (Dixon, 2005: 1, 13) 2 As stated by Levin (1993: 194-195), verbs of desire are related in some way with “psych-verbs”2 due to the fact that they are related to the personal feelings of the subject-referent and they also typically involve two arguments3. The two arguments involved in sentences with a verb of desire are the experiencer and the stimulus. The experiencer is a semantic role of a participant that feels a sensory, psychological or emotional experience, while the stimulus is another semantic role of an entity that encourages the participant (experiencer) with an emotional, sensory, or psychological experience. On the one hand, Levin (1993: 194-195), classified them into two different semantic groups, one of them as “transitive verbs” that she categorized as want verbs (covert, crave, desire, fancy, need and want), and the other as “intransitive verbs” categorized as long verbs that needed the preposition after (dangle, hanker, lust, thirst, and yearn) or for (ache, crave, fall, hanker, hope hunger, itch, long, lust, pine, pray, thirst, wish, and yearn). In this paper, the “transitive verbs” and “intransitive verbs” classification made by Levin will be studied as “simple transitive verbs” and “prepositional transitive verbs” for a more accurate analysis. On the other hand, Dixon (2005: 188-195), classified verbs of wanting into different semantic sets, according to the characteristics presented by each set of verbs, and he included verbs like wish (for), demand, require, deserve, expect, wait (for), dread, intend, plan (for), aim (for), prepare (for) and pretend, that were not in Levin’s work. Additionally, Quirk et al (1985: 1180-1182), when talking about the suasive verbs4, mentioned the verbs ask, beg, desire, intend, pledge, pray, prefer, propose, request and vote as private verbs5 that described states of or desire. Since there is not a clear classification for verbs of desire, the following one is proposed in this study: 5 Private and public are a subdivision of suasive verbs. When a suasive verb is private, they describe states of volition or desire. An example for that are the verbs desire or beg, that do not only indicate the intention to get someone to do something but also reflect an internal desire of the subject. That means that they are private in the sense that the desire is not apparently visible. (Quirk et al, 1985: 1181-182) 4 Suasive verbs are verbs used to imply an intentional change in the future. For example, in the sentence “she is begging him to stay”, the verb to beg is a suasive verb that has the intention to get “him” to do something. (Quirk et al, 1985: 1180) 3 An argument is an entity that refers to a unit, element or another entity of the external world. For instance, in the sentence “I want to eat something”, “something” is an argument (Comesaña, 2023). 2 Psych verbs are verbs that express emotional or psychological states, typically involving two arguments: an experiencer and a stimulus. For example, in the sentence “The party cheered the boy”, “the party” is a stimulus that causes an emotional change in the experiencer, which is “the boy”. (Levin, 1993: 188-1993) 3 Verbs of desire in English Category Verbs Simple transitive verbs aim, ask, beg, covert, crave, demand, deserve, desire, dread, expect, fancy, hope, intend, need, plan, prefer, prepare, pretend, propose, request, require, vote, wait, want, wish Prepositional transitive verbs With ‘after’: dangle, hanker, lust, thirst, yearn With ‘for’: ache, aim, ask, beg, crave, fall, hanker, hope, hunger, itch, long, lust, pine, plan, pray, prepare, thirst, vote, wait, wish, yearn Table 1. In this table, it can be seen how the verbs hope, long, pine, wait, plan, aim, prepare, crave, demand, deserve and dread require for after the verb. However, for is used to introduce clauses in English, and that means that one for must be omitted in the case of verbs that require it. 1. a I long for [for Sarah to come to my party]. → I long for [Sarah to come to my party] b I intended [for Sarah to come to my party]. When using the verbs wish, desire, intend and pretend followed by NP, the preposition for is not required, but it can be used in certain contexts, often with a slight change in meaning. According to Dixon (1991: 248-249), in the sentences where for is omitted (i.e. 2.a and 2.c), the sentence relates directly to the referent of that NP (e.g. Sarah) and might be used in addressing a group of people that included Sarah. In contrast, the examples where for is retained (i.e. 2.b and 2.d) are more likely to be used to express hypothetical statements that the subject would like to take place. 2. a I wish Sarah to come. b I wish for Sarah to come. c I intended Sarah to like the book. d I intended for Sarah to like the book. 4 In some cases, the preposition can be omitted. Verbs like want, need, require, and expect do not include for before an object NP. However, the preposition for can appear when an adverb intervenes between the main predicate and the complement clause. It can also occur after anaphoric omissions of the predicate. 3. a I want Sarah to give me a gift. b I want very much for Sarah to give me a gift. c Sarah wanted herself to thank Michael, not for Rachel to thank her. Regarding common structures with verbs of desire, that-clauses and infinitive clauses are by far the most recurrent that involve those verbs in English. In the case of that-clauses in active sentences, that can be omitted when introducing an object clause (as in 4.a), but in passive constructions where the that-clause becomes the subject, that cannot be omitted (as in 4.b) However, that becomes optional again (as in 4. c) when using extraposition (Quirk et al, 1985: 1179). 4. a I hope (that) you come to my party. b That he would come to the party was wished by everybody. c It was wished by everybody (that) he would succeed. Nevertheless, a that complement may not appear with certain verbs like want, need, prepare, crave, long, deserve and aim as it can be considered less natural or old-fashioned in fluent everyday English, although it could be grammatically correct. Therefore, a common alternative to that-clauses is the to-infinitive construction. When the complement clause referent matches the main clause referent, it is typically omitted. 5. a She wants him to go to the party. b *She wants that she goes to the party. c She wants to go to the party. Another common situation in which infinitive constructions may appear takes place with the verb want. Although it is syntactically the main lexical verb, sometimes it functions like a pragmatic particle6 when followed by to + infinitive. In these cases, its 6 According to Quirk et al. (1985: 147-148), a pragmatic particle is a word or expression that is not used with its usual meaning. Instead, it helps the speaker express something like advice, a warning. For example, in the sentence “You don’t want to go to the party”, the verb want does not really mean “desire.” 5 meaning is less literal and more context-dependent. For instance, in 6.c it conveys a warning or piece of advice, rather than a literal desire. It is considered a pragmatic particle as it is impossible to obtain an equivalent meaning when the sentence is changed into the past tense or into the progressive aspect, as it happens in 6.a. (Quirk et al, 1985: 148) 6. a *You are wanting to go to the party. b You want to go to the party. c You don’t want to be going to the party. The verb need can function both as a lexical verb and as a modal auxiliary, depending on the structure and context. As a lexical verb, it takes to + infinitive, carries tense and agreement (e.g. needs), and requires the dummy do7 in negative and interrogative constructions, as in 7.a. However, need can also behave like a modal verb, particularly in negative or interrogative structures, where it loses inflection, and does not require the auxiliary do, as it can be seen in 7.b and 7.c. This second usage is closer to modal verbs like must or can, and its auxiliary value is confirmed by its ability to form questions and negatives without the use of dummy do. 7. a She needs to go to the party. b Need she go? c She needn’t go. The verbs need, require and deserve show a parallelism with necessity and obligation modals like must or should. Nevertheless, there are some distinctions in their use and tone. While need often conveys emotional urgency in a more personal or informal sense, require implies formal obligations with an impersonal tone. Additionally, deserve indicates that an action is justified as a result of a previous behaviour. (Dixon, 2005: 194-195). 8. a You should pass the exam. b You need to pass the exam. 7 The dummy do is the use of the verb do, that does not carry meaning, but it is necessary to form the grammatical structure of a sentence in negative forms, questions when there is no other auxiliary verb present, as in sentences like “do you want to come?” or “I don’t want to go”. It works more like a warning. This shows that want is not acting like a normal verb, but more like a pragmatic marker to change how the message is received. 6 c You require to pass the exam. d You deserve to pass the exam. A less common structure is the case of -ing complement clauses. It is possible with certain verbs such as intend, plan (for), aim (for), and prepare. In the case of aim, it is necessary to add at before the -ing (like in 9.b). These constructions are less common in casual English but can appear in more formal contexts. Other verbs like need, require and deserve allow the use of -ing clauses when they function as a passive with a to-infinitive clause. 9. a She intends going to the party. b She aims at going to the party. c The room requires cleaning d The room requires to be cleaned. A relevant and distinct property of some verbs of desire is that they are compatible with the be to construction. In contrast to non-desire verbs, which allow both active and passive usages of this construction, verbs of desire typically appear in agentless passives. This happens with verbs such as hope, expect and desire. Nonetheless, there can be marginal cases such as wish and dread, where the context influences the appropriate use of this construction, as it can sound awkward or overly formal. 10. a It is to be hoped that she goes to the party. b It is to be wished that she goes to the party. It is important to note that some verbs of desire allow the use of elliptical constructions. These constructions frequently appear with wish, hope and pretend, and their completing structures are deleted when the context is clear or to imply an anticipated event. Additionally, these completing structures can be substituted for the pro-form so to substitute something that has already been mentioned. 11. a I hope she passes the exam. b I hope she passes (the exam). c I hope so. 7 variations in the way these verbs operate, especially in relation to their verbal complements and the use of modality. This paper will highlight the key differences and similarities between the two languages. 3.1 Limitations of the English and Spanish classifications One of the major challenges of the study of verbs of desire lies in the absence of a universally accepted classification for this type of verbs. In English, authors such as Levin (1993) and Dixon (2005), proposed different categorizations based on the syntactic alternation and the semantic properties of the verbs. However, in Spanish, the RAE (2009) and studies such as the one by Bosque and Demonte (1999) have approached this topic from the perspective of the subjunctive and volition constructions, without focusing explicitly in the verbs of desire. These differences impose limitations on a contrastive analysis. Likewise, another potential limitation is the fact that some verbs are transitive prepositional. In English, some verbs such as long for, pine for or crave for require a preposition to introduce the complement of desire. In Spanish, the use of prepositions also varies depending on the verb, as in soñar con, tratar de o luchar por. This limits the cross-linguistic study of these verbs as it can cause an impact on language acquisition. Learners may usually make errors when attempting to translate these constructions literally. 3.2 General characteristics of verbs of desire A key point to consider is that verbs of desire share certain properties in both languages. One of them is their connection to modality, more specifically the deontic modality, which refers to meanings of obligation or permission. Unlike verbs that describe events in specific that have already taken place, verbs like want or querer do not refer to actual facts. Instead, they express the attitude or intention of the subject-referent toward an action that is hypothetical, unrealized, or expected to occur. In this way, the meaning of the verb does not lie in what has actually happened, but in what the subject-referent wants to happen. For example, in 1.a and 1.b, the verbs express a desire for something that has not taken place yet. These sentences do not describe a concrete action, but rather the wish or expectation of the subject about something that has not happened yet. 14 1. a I want you to come early. b Quiero que vengas temprano. In general, these verbs express a subjective emotional state in the subject-referent known as experiencer (see footnote 2), who is the one who feels the desire or need for a certain action to occur. Likewise, they require a complement that expresses the desired thing, that is associated in many cases with hypothetical or unrealized events, and that is known as the stimulus (see footnote 2). This type of construction, SUBJECT (experiencer) + COMPLEMENT (stimulus), is the same in both languages when using a verb of desire is used in order to articulate a wish, necessity or expectation. 2. a [Sarah] (experiencer) wishes [to pass the exam] (stimulus). b [Sarah] (experiencer) desea [aprobar el examen] (stimulus). 3.3 Syntactic differences Firstly, something to take into account is that Spanish allows for subject deletion, as it is a pro-drop language. This means that the subject does not need to be explicitly stated in a sentence, as it can be inferred from the inflections of the verb. In contrast, English is not a pro-drop language, which means that the subject must always be explicitly stated, regardless of verb inflection. Even when the third-person singular -s appears in the present tense, the subject cannot be omitted. This difference is relevant in sentences where the subject is clear from the context in Spanish but would be ungrammatical if omitted in English. 3. a Él quiere ir a la fiesta. b Quiere ir a la fiesta. c He wants to go to the party. d *Wants to go to the party. While in English the use of infinitival constructions to express desire is predominant, in Spanish, these constructions are only used when the subject of both clauses is the same. When verbs of desire introduce subordinate clauses with a different subject from the main clause, the subordinate clause must be constructed with que followed by a verb in the subjunctive. In contrast, English uses an infinitival clause 15 regardless of whether the subject is the same or different, and the verb of the subordinate clause does not mark any mood. 4. a I want to go to the party. b Quiero ir a la fiesta. c I want Sarah to go to the party. d Quiero que Sarah vaya a la fiesta. Nevertheless, the equivalents of some English verbs in Spanish can show some differences. For instance, prefer allows different types of subordinate constructions, such as that-clauses, for to-clauses, and -ing complement clauses (Whitley, 1986: 282). 5. a I prefer that Sarah goes to the party. b I prefer for Sarah to go to the party. c I prefer Sarah going to the party. On the other hand, want only accepts to-clauses and cannot be used with a that-clause, unlike its synonym desire, which does allow it. Something similar occurs with try, that does not accept that-clauses either. In Spanish, querer, desear and intentar, do accept subordinates introduced by que (Whitley, 1986: 282). 6. a I want you to go to the party. b *I want that you go to the party. c I desire that you go to the party. d Quiero que vayas a la fiesta. e Deseo que vayas a la fiesta. In the case of that-clauses in English, that can be omitted. Nonetheless, the Spanish conjunction que can be omitted in some situations as is grammatically correct, but it sounds awkward and its use is not frequent. 7. a I hope (that) you are okay. b Espero (que) estés bien. 3.4 Semantic differences The semantic differences between Spanish and English verbs of desire can be analyzed from various perspectives, including the intensity of the desire, the 16 expectations of the subject, and the influence it has on the addressee, as well as making a distinction between desire and necessity. In English, the verbs of desire can be classified depending on their specific semantic properties. For instance, Dixon (2005: 188) divided those verbs in seven semantic sets: (i) Want, wish (for), desire, crave, long (for) and pine (for): express a general or intense desire for something. (ii) Hope (for): oriented to expectations in the future. (iii) Demand: expresses authoritative desire for something that must happen. (iv) Need, require, and deserve: more related to necessity rather than simple desire. (v) Expect, wait (for) and dread: deal with anticipation, either positive or negative. (vi) Intend, plan (for), aim (for), one sense of mean and prepare (for): express an intention or goal, rather than spontaneous desire. (vii) Pretend: expresses a false appearance of desire. In Spanish, even though there is not a division as the one made by Dixon (2005), there can be semantic distinctions as well. The most notable way to change the degree of intensity of desire that a verb intends to express is with tense. When a verb appears in the future indicative form, it indicates a level of expectation or anticipation about a future event. Also, if the conditional is used followed by perfect infinitive and conditional perfect + infinitive (as seen in section 2.2), the implication is that an event that is no longer possible to carry out but is still desired. That means that the same verb can be conjugated in different ways in order to express a different kind or degree of desire. 8. a Quiero ir a la fiesta. b Querré ir a la fiesta seguramente. c Querría haber ido a la fiesta. Verbs of desire in English, such as want and need, present characteristics that differentiate them from the Spanish verbs. One major distinction is that these verbs can sometimes behave as auxiliaries, functioning similarly to modal verbs. Specifically, 17 need can act as a semi-modal verb in certain contexts, particularly in negative and interrogative constructions as seen in section 2.1. In these cases, need lacks tense inflection and behaves like an auxiliary, aligning it with modals like must or should. This auxiliary behavior does not occur in Spanish, not even with querer. Rafael Cano (1987: 202) stated that there are many reasons not to include it as an auxiliary verb for the way it behaves. Some of these reasons are that it retains the same basic meaning across different contexts, and it behaves in a different way than other auxiliaries in the passive, as it can be seen in 9.b and 9.d. 9. a Sara puede atacar a Lucas. b Lucas puede ser atacado por Sara. c Sara quiere atacar a Lucas. d Lucas quiere ser atacado por Sara. Additionally, English verbs such as need, require, and deserve express necessity or obligation in a similar way to modal verbs like must or should. Similarly, deserve conveys an evaluation of what should happen based on merit or circumstances, implying a justified obligation. In Spanish, however, necesitar, requerir, and merecer do not exhibit this semi-modal function. Instead, necessity and obligation are more commonly expressed through the subjunctive mood. 10. a This book needs to be returned today. b Este libro necesita que lo devuelvan hoy. c She deserves to be recognized for her work. d Ella se merece que la reconozcan por su trabajo. Thus, the ability of certain English verbs of desire to function in modal-like ways represents semantic distinction from Spanish. While both languages use these verbs to express volition, necessity, and evaluation, English verbs allow them to adopt auxiliary roles that do not have direct equivalents in Spanish. 4. FROM DESIRE TO INTENTION The study of verbs of desire in English and Spanish reveals that these verbs are not limited to expressing a simple wish or expectation, they can also express intention. 18 In many cases, the syntactic structure chosen can convey interpretations that go beyond a simple desire, pointing instead to intended actions. 4.1 Impact of syntactic structures on meaning The way a sentence is structured has a big impact on its meaning. According to Laca (2005: 24-25), when a modal or a verb of desire is used in the past or conditional form with a perfect clause, it can suggest a counterfactual situation. For instance, examples such as 1.a and 1.b illustrate the same syntactic sequence and may suggest an unrealized possibility and the referent’s intention. Therefore, both of them are expressing a desire, which is going to the party, that being the intention as well. This demonstrates that the form and the arrangement of clauses directly influence whether a verb is understood as expressing a simple desire or an intention that contrasts with reality. 1. a Sarah querría haber ido a la fiesta. b Sara wished she had gone to the party. Moreover, according to Grano (2017: 594), English verbs of desire such as want can appear in anankastic conditionals14, which are conditional sentences that express the necessary action required to fulfill a goal or intention. For example, in sentence 2.a, the clause with want expresses a goal, and the main clause (you must save...) states the necessary condition to achieve that goal. This construction also works with other verbs of desire such as intend, hope, plan, or aim, which, as discussed in section 2.1, can be considered semantically related to desire. 2. a If you want to buy a car, you must save a lot of money. b You must save a lot of money to buy a car. This kind of structure can be applied to Spanish verbs of desire as they function the same way. The example 3.a presents the same structure as 2.a, showing how the pattern of English anankastic conditionals is possible in Spanish, using a verb of desire to articulate the subject’s intention as well. In 3.b, Spanish uses a different structure: para + infinitive, which introduces a purpose adjunct. According to the RAE, this is 14 The word “anankastic”, comes from the Ancient Greek word ἀνάγκη, which means “necessity”. (Huitink, 2005). An anankastic conditional is a type of conditional sentence that shows what someone must do in order to get what they want. It usually has the form If you want X, you must do X. The first part shows the goal, and the second part shows the condition to achieve that goal. (Grano, 2017: 594) 19 called a Complemento Circunstancial de Finalidad, and it is used to express the goal or intention behind an action. 3. a Si quieres comprarte un coche, tienes que ahorrar mucho. b Tienes que ahorrar mucho dinero para comprarte un coche. 4.2 Analysis of epistemic and deontic modality in relation to verbs of desire According to the RAE (2009: 18), modality refers to the speaker’s attitude towards the content of a statement. It is divided into”modalidad de la enunciación”, which relates to the different speech acts performed (such as declaring, questioning, or commanding), and “modalidad del enunciado”, which are expressed through verbal inflection, auxiliary verbs, and certain adverbs that convey necessity, possibility, or obligation. Within this second type, the RAE recognizes subtypes such as epistemic modality, which reflects the speaker’s degree of certainty about what is being said, and deontic modality, which conveys notions of obligation, permission, or necessity. This section focuses on the analysis of these two subtypes of modality in particular: the epistemic and the deontic. As Palmer stated (2001: 7-8), the epistemic modality is one of the two main types of “propositional modality”, which was previously mentioned as “modalidad del enunciado” in Spanish, and it expresses the speaker’s judgement about the truth value of a statement. It includes speculative, deductive, and assumptive judgements. In other words, this modality is concerned with the degree of certainty, possibility, or probability that the speaker assigns to a statement. The deontic modality, based on Palmer's words (2001: 9-10) refers to obligation or permission imposed by an external source, such as laws or authority. Deontic modality includes permissive and obligative expressions. It is important to note that the deontic authority often comes from the speaker themselves. 4. a I want you to finish your homework. b Quiero que termines tu tarea. The difference between epistemic and deontic modality can be explained using "possible" and "necessary." Epistemic modality is about how likely something is, while deontic modality is about whether something is allowed or required. (Palmer, 2001: 7) 20 5. a I hope that is true. b Espero que sea cierto. Desires are connected to modality because they refer to events that have not yet happened or may never happen. Since they express something unrealized, they can be linked to both deontic and epistemic modality. Specific grammatical structures, like the subjunctive in the case of Spanish, are used to indicate wishes. For instance, when expressing a desire about someone else's actions, the verb in the subordinate clause appears in the subjunctive (as in 6.c and 6.d). This pattern shows how modality plays a role in expressing hypothetical or desired situations. (Palmer, 2001: 13) 6. a I wish you were here. b He wants me to arrive on time. c Deseo que estuvieras aquí. d Quiere que llegue a tiempo. Additionally, it was also mentioned by Bosque and Demonte (1999: 3261) that deontic modality, especially when related to necessity and obligation, is closely connected to volition, as both involve a sense of intent or requirement for an action to take place. On the other hand, epistemic modality is linked to uncertainty, possibility, and projection into the future. In epistemic contexts, the indicative is used to indicate the referents’ certainty, while the subjunctive highlights doubt or lack of certainty about something, supporting Palmer’s words. 5. CONCLUSION The analysis of verbs of desire in English and Spanish has revealed both structural and functional similarities, as well as important differences. In both languages, these verbs are used to express wishes, expectations, and intentions that are articulated through unrealized or hypothetical situations. One of the most important findings is their connection to modality, more specifically the deontic and epistemic, which reflect how speakers convey desire as either obligation, permission, or possibility. Syntactically, the use of the subjunctive mood in Spanish, contrasts with the more flexible use of infinitival constructions in English, which is a relevant difference. Moreover, while English verbs such as need can function as modals or semi-modals, 21 this behaviour has no equivalent in Spanish. 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