Abstract
This article presents the problem of modal verbs in Spanish from the perspective of Langacker's cognitive grammar. Langacker defines modal verbs as grounding elements that can express implicit meanings and thus increase the degree of subjectivity of the utterance.
Unlike English modal verbs, which are completely unanchored and fully grammaticalized, Spanish modal verbs exhibit verb inflection. The aim of this article is to compare the construals with and without a modal verb and to point out the differences between the positions of conceptualizers (speaker and addressee).
For these purposes several graphical representations are proposed throughout the article. As the proposed schemes show, the position of conceptualizers plays a key role in the conception of any construal.
It is concluded that a construal with a modal verb has a more subjectively anchored interaction between the two conceptualizers and that the speaker is always a completely implicit part of the utterance.