Indicating obligation and willingness

Using modal verbs to indicate willingness

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Indicating mid willingness

With mid willingness, the speaker or person referred to is partly, but not completely committed to the course of action. This can be glossed as intention.

The only modals which are typically used to indicate intention are will and shall.

Note that when will is used in this way, there is often a suggestion that the speaker has made up their mind at the moment of speaking, As the dialogue in the following example indicates, the first speaker makes a spur-of-the-moment decision to telephone the consulate:

A:	You can get a visa from them just ...
B:	Yeah but the consul was away at the time you see.
A:	Oh - they should be there now - I'll just check though, to see if you do need it. (Bank of English)

I will now try to summarize what I have said about how an animal finds its way about. (Microconcord Corpus B)

Note that the presence of modal adverbials is very often an indication of the level of willingness:

I will probably put them on the table. (Microconcord Corpus B)

For further information about using adverbials, see Indicating obligation and willingness: Using adverbials to indicate likelihood.

Introduction
Degrees of willingness
Indicating strong willingness
Indicating mid willingness
Indicating low willingness