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I'm reading a book titled Comprehensive High School English Grammar & Composition. The author, who is Indian, says this on the use of the modal verbs can and could:

Can is used to express "empty use":

  1. I can walk.
  2. I can feel summer heat.
  3. Birds can sing in the trees.

Could is used to express "empty use":

  1. I could feel the touch of cool breeze.
  2. They could enjoy soothing showers.

But I'm not getting what the meaning of the phrase "empty use" is, and why the author used this term here, and whether it's a standard term or concept, or unique to this (non-native) author.

Is "empty use" a recognized term among linguists? If so, what does it mean?

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    My take is "empty use" means the author doesn't understand how modal verbs are used, and assumes you could omit them from those example sentences without changing their meanings. If he does think that, he's wrong, of course (and he should also have used the standard term "dummy" rather than "empty").
    – Dan Bron
    Commented Jun 18, 2015 at 12:42
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    This is wrong. You can argue that I can feel summer heat, I can see the ocean, and I could feel the touch of a cool breeze are "empty uses" because they mean almost exactly the same thing as I feel summer heat, I see the ocean, and I felt the touch of a cool breeze. However you can't delete can/could in the other examples without changing the meaning. You can tell that whoever wrote those phrases isn't a native speaker of standard English, because they wrote of cool breeze rather than of a cool breeze.
    – Peter Shor
    Commented Jun 18, 2015 at 13:09
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    Ditch the book. Look on ELU for modal usage, but this will take some time. You'll have to (1) find them all and (2) sort out the level they're pitched at – don't start with one of tchrist's '100 usages of the modal X'.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jun 18, 2015 at 13:19
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    @PeterShor We use the first because it emphasizes the novelty and value of the ability to see the ocean from our present position. The other two constructions do not express that. And we don't use the present progressive because we're not interested in the temporal aspect.
    – Dan Bron
    Commented Jun 18, 2015 at 13:37
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    YOu had better get a different book. That one seems to be full of the author's (and the author's teachers') favorite myths and terminology. Certainly "empty use" is a useless term -- what can it possibly mean?
    – John Lawler
    Commented Jun 18, 2015 at 15:20

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Can/Could is a modal, a type of auxiliary verb that is used to indicate modality – that is, to indicate likelihood, ability, permission, or obligation.

But in 'I can smell burning', the author is really merely expressing what he smells, not his ability to do so (in the more usual usage). 'I can smell burning' is same as 'I smell burning' (although the former is by far the more usual way of expressing this, and sounds more natural). See the difference in this usage? Here, 'can' is just an extra/dummy word that may be omitted without changing the meaning. Hence, the term 'empty use' (though John Lawler's terminology is better). Similarly with the other two sentences. You can omit the 'can/could' and they still make sense.

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    Sense verbs and verbs involving producing and understanding languages are the same whether or not they're preceded by a Possible-style modal. Thus I can speak Spanish is the same as the generic I speak Spanish, and I can smell smoke is the same as the present I smell smoke. One more strange modal fact; English has thousands.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Jun 19, 2015 at 15:08

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