As far as my knowledge goes, English has modal auxiliaries (must, may, can), modal verbs (seem), modal adjectives (probable, likely, certain), and modal adverbs (unfortunately, happily) but not modal particles. In English grammar, a particle is like the third item in "put up with", wit the second in this case being a preposition. The traditional classification of parts of speech in terms of open-class (e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) and closed class (e.g. articles, prepositions, particles) makes provisions for them as an unproductive class. It seems that this classification of particles within the closed class does not allow for them to have an attitudinal dimension as a modality because they lack the lexical semantics of the lexical items of the open class.

Zouheir's analysis is partially correct.  As he stated, English does not have modal particles.  The inclusion of modal adjectives is a bit controversial because this treatment of adjectives is considered non-traditional in some linguistic circles.  Van Linden (2012), for example, classifies dynamic and deontic adjectives as modal.

English particles, however, are verb elements.  In Zouheir's example ("put up with), "up" is the particle, whereas "with" is a preposition.  Ex. Rita put up with Fred's bad behavior because she loved him." 

Thanks for this alert. In fact, Quirk et al's A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language considers them "phrasal-prepositional verbs, because they contain, in addition to the lexical verb, both an adverb and a preposition as particles" (p. 1160, section 16.6). This makes "up" an adverb in their terminology and "with" a preposition as you rightly said, but both adverb and preposition are considered particles.   

Zouheir, I think that one of the things that makes linguistics interesting is the inability of linguists to agree on much of anything--not even terminology!

True, James (if I may). But beyond terminology, we might realize that we are talking about almost the same thing.

Thank you both for your answers. It appears that English lacks the lexical/morphological items that abound in languages like German (doch, aber), Russian (razve, li), or Hungarian (hát,.már). A modal particle is only similar to the related adverb, conjunction, etc. that it derives from. Presumably English syntax does not allow for such modal particles to develop in English.

Phrasal modals, maybe? 

English arguably has two modal particles, just and now. Both are used in ways that are reminiscent of modal particles in Dutch and German:

Just come over here! You should just stop and think.

Now listen to me!

There's a good discussion in Daniël van Olmen's PhD thesis, The imperative in English and Dutch: a functional analysis in comparable and parallel corpora, which you can find on line.

"Just" and "now" are exactly the type I had in mind. Great! Thank you very much.

There may be other modal particles like "there" (used to express consolation, e.g.). Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a comprehensive list of all modal particles out there.

Karoly, the modal particles you refer to in German, etc. are sometimes referred to under the broader notion of "pragmatic markers" - Aijmer & Simon-Vandenbergen (2009) in the Handbook of Pragmatics Online provide a nice overview of the present state of research on these elements (in English) as well as a brief discussion of cross-linguistic studies and terminological differences.

Kate, thank you for the reference. Funnily, they are "pragmatic" ontologically. They tend to assume a special role and acquire modal content by occupying an "unexpected" position in the utterance.

Thanks Linda, it is great. Very grateful to all answerers.

*Certainly* there are. Could I *possibly* refer you to Adverbs and Modality in English (1997) by Hoye?

;-)

William Vande Kopple referred to many of these words and phrases as modality markers.  Here's a link to his 1997 assessment of these features: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED411539.pdf

John & James,

Thank you both.

*Typically*, "certainly" and "possibly" function as modal adverbs, rather than particles.

The point is how and where you draw the borderline.

I agree, Karoly. One vital point about particles is that they don't have the syntactic freedom of adverbs like "certainly" and "possibly". In German, they have to occur in the 'middle field'. Another thing is that they cannot be stressed. That's why I (still) think that "just" and maybe "now" are the only modal particles in English.

You are right. They do not have the (kind of) syntactic freedom typical of adverbs. In fact, they have a syntax totally different from that of traditional parts of speech. As for your list of English modal particles reduced to one (or, possibly, two) items, I would consider including 'only', cf.

If you could come, we might...

vs.

If only you could come, we might...

Prospective candidates would be also 'then' (as in 'Go then') and 'so' (So what?, So what is the problem?).

A suitable description of their "terms of use" might provide a basis for setting English modal particles aside from their adverb, conjunction, etc. counterpart.

Hi Mohammad,

I'd still say that 'just' and 'now' are modal particles, especially in expressions like 'Can I just take a look?' or 'Come along now!'. where they seem to have the same functions as what are recognized to be modal particles in Dutch and German, in this case mitigating and reinforcing functions respectively. Polar or polarity particles are concerned with affirmation and denial, like 'yes' and 'no', as well as French 'si' (which serves to deny a denial).

It's true that 'particle' is also used for the non-verb part of a phrasal verb in English, like 'off' in 'switch off' or 'up' in 'turn up'. These can indeed be 'extraposed' or at least placed to the right of an object as in 'She switched off the light and turned up the music'. And, as you say, topicalization is impossible: *Off she switched the light and up she turned the music.

What both kinds of particle have in common is that they are invariable and have a relatively fixed position in the syntax. Nevertheless, particles are a controversial word class in linguistics, often having a negative definition. Once all the nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc. have been identified, what is left are called particles.

Hi Karoly,

Maybe you would like to find out the interrelationship between modal particles and intonation. Maybe the answer to your question is there. For example, how English people translate German utterances with modal particles.

I mean, maybe the English modal link or connection to modal particles are not exactly words, but other linguistic means like intonation or gestures.

If you like, you could read this paper written by Maria Schubiger: English intonation and German modal particles: A comparative study. Phonetica 12, 65-84.

Thanks, José, for the reference, certainly will take a look.

What I am mostly interested in is the "genesis" of modal particles: they predominantly come from other parts of speech and undergo a syntactic & semantic change. The result is a small subset of elements whose conditions of use remain more or less hidden from non-natives.

I am not sure it is true that English does not have modal particles. Consider the following examples (two of them culled from another discussion of modal particles) when the italicized words are not stressed. 

Now that's just stupid. 

What's your name then? 

Well that's just too bad.

I'll get him but good.

Now, you do what I tell you and keep your smart mouth shut!

Now then, noble cousin, cease your weeping.

Now if thou wert a poet, I might have some hope thou didst feign.

What's the point of that, then?

Now what's the point of that, I wonder?

If you would only just leave well enough alone!

I believe each of these sentences contains at least one word fitting the usual criteria for modal particles in German. That being said, they are clearly far more prominent in German than in English.

Thank you, Corvin.

These examples clearly contain modal particles, perhaps, except the one with "but".

Thanks a lot.

Karoly.

Just curious, what is your reasoning on the example with "but"? (This is one of the examples I actually took from someone else's discussion of modal particles.) This is dialectal American, I believe, but here "but" does not carry any of its normal senses and can be dropped from the sentence with no change in meaning - "I'll get him good", (= I will make him pay, I'll get my revenge, etc.). The "but" here is only an intensifier. There are other examples like this in English, though most often they are analysed as "not but", with "not" dropped, where "but" means "except". Some examples from the OED:

"For well I wot that I am but dead."

"A but plausible argument, dressed up in fine similitudes."

The question, then, is whether in some usage this contraction of "not but" > "but"  is only a historical fact and has passed into a particle when used as an intensifier. Be that as it may, the usage is certainly marked as dialectal and old fashioned.

By the way, here is a perfectly colloquial sentence with three modal particles:

Well that's just too bad now, isn't it?

Indian English may also have other examples, possibly the word "only" which has a unique usage in South Asia:

"You will find it there only."

"Only" is here understood to function like the particle "hi" in Hindi (similar particles exist in other South Asian languages). It does not carry any of the normal senses of "only"; it is simply emphatic, and can be deleted without changing the meaning of the sentence. Indeed, in my experience, it is class marked in South Asia as less cosmopolitan English usage as it is closer to non-English mother tongues; people who are exclusively schooled in English and live most of their personal lives in English are not likely to use it.

Thanks a lot for this explanation. This use of 'but' was unknown to me.

Such particles do inherit some elements of the meaning of the word they are derived from, and, in this case, there appeared to be no palpable trace of meaning modification.

Thanks a lot, indeed. Great!

Karoly, I have been thinking about "if only" and I am not sure it fits. One clue is that the "only" is always stressed, even if other elements intervene, e.g. "If we could only...". I don't think it escapes a conjunctive function introducing a wish or a counterfactual and forcing certain verb forms. Although if we consider the following examples, we see it does not seem to alter semantic content, only modality. 

If only you came, we would be so happy. 

If you came, we would be so happy. 

If only you would come, we would be so happy. 

*If you would come, we would be so happy. (This sounds dubious to my ears, unless the stress falls emphatically on the first "would".)

*If only you come, we will be so happy.

If you come, we will be so happy.

If only you had come, we would have been so happy.

If you had come, we would have been so happy.

There are English varieties where "only" can be used purely as an intensifier, like South African English. (See the OED entry for "only" for examples). However, without knowing more, it is not possible for me to appraise these examples.

Contemplating "there" as a possible modal particle, I have yet to be convinced by many examples. An example given elsewhere is "What have you got there?" when spoken to a child, but "there" in such examples seems to always retain its deictic force.

It comes closest in various fixed phrases like:

"There you go", "there you have it", "there it is" (expressing variously resignation, confirmation, emphasis, etc.); and "there, there" (don't be so sad).

For suitable examples, see https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/there

This brings us to the point, whatever we can make of it, that many of these words exist in fixed expressions that can stand alone:

If only! (I wish!)

Now, now. (Don't get carried away.)

Well, well. (Look what we have here.)

Now, then! (Listen up! To the matter at hand!)

Well, then. (If that is so,...)

Corvin, thanks a lot for your comments.

As far as 'only' is concerned, the underlying mechanism is clear and universal. Since it involves restriction, the restrictive sense is interpreted as the opposite, i.e., a kind of 'extension' or emphasis. This conversion into the opposite is quite frequent in other languages also with word pairs like 'yet' & 'already'. The trick is the same: you experience expectation where the context does not allow for such interpretation. Therefore, you associate the situation with a kind of "unlicensed expectation" and decode it as a kind of "unexpected/unwanted addition". Then 'yet' is interpreted as adding a terminal element to a hypothetical list, and 'already' is interpreted as adding a new element to a hypothetical list,

Cf. HU:

Még mit nem! (Yet what [else] not!) ~ No way!

Azt már nem! (That already not!) ~ No way!

In this way, the opposite sense is eliminated on the expression level.

Thanks, Karoly, that is helpful. 

By the way, it occurs to me that if "eigentlich" is accepted as a modal particle in German, then the ubiquitous "actually" in English should be too:

That's actually not a bad idea.

Actually, can you give me that book?

I actually can't help you with that.

The borderline setting modal particles from other items apart is fuzzy. Traditionally, they are left-overs and a bother for generative linguistics.

On the other hand, they are items that cannot be ignored in semantic terms.

When you hear 'just'' as a mp in a sentence you infer a lot about the message and the speaker.

E.g., if you use 'razve' and 'neuzheli' in RU, e.g., in

Razve my priekhali? (We've arrived, have we?) vs.

Neuzheli my priekhali? (We've arrived, have we?) 

your interlocutor will know you know (razve) vs. you do not know (neuzheli) the place.

MPs are a great fun and puzzle.

Another example that I just came across. 

"I'd love to hear more about that, but maybe not tonight."

Here "maybe" is unstressed and does not mean "maybe". The speaker definitely does not want to hear more about it tonight, but like German "mal" this is simply softening the statement and communicating that the speaker is not actually hostile to the idea of hearing more about it.