Modality in Spanish and Combinations of Modal Meanings

Modality in Spanish and Combinations of Modal Meanings PDF Author: Kratochvílová, Dana
Publisher: Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press
ISBN: 802463869X
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : es
Pages : 160

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Book Description
This monograph focuses on modality in Spanish. It presents the theoretical approach to this category formulated by Bohumil Zavadil and, consequently, it analyses its possible application to Spanish. We concentrate on specific areas of the Spanish modal system where two modal meanings combine. Theoretical analyses are combined with corpus-based studies concentrating on the choice of mood or contextual interpretation of selected constructions. We veryfied that areas where two modal meanings meet are a natural part of the Spanish modal system and that the combination of modal meanings has consequences on the mood selection.

Modality in Spanish and Combinations of Modal Meanings

Modality in Spanish and Combinations of Modal Meanings PDF Author: Kratochvílová, Dana
Publisher: Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press
ISBN: 802463869X
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : es
Pages : 160

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Book Description
This monograph focuses on modality in Spanish. It presents the theoretical approach to this category formulated by Bohumil Zavadil and, consequently, it analyses its possible application to Spanish. We concentrate on specific areas of the Spanish modal system where two modal meanings combine. Theoretical analyses are combined with corpus-based studies concentrating on the choice of mood or contextual interpretation of selected constructions. We veryfied that areas where two modal meanings meet are a natural part of the Spanish modal system and that the combination of modal meanings has consequences on the mood selection.

The modal verbs can and may in English and Spanish

The modal verbs can and may in English and Spanish PDF Author: Andra Stefanescu
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638054691
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 89

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Book Description
Diploma Thesis from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1, University of Bucharest (Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures), language: English, abstract: Modality is a semantic concept that covers notions such as possibility, probability, permission, ability, volition, necessity and obligation. The class of modals is in many languages both syntactically and semantically highly irregular and unpredictable: modals frequently have idiosyncratic conjugational patterns and are subject to highly specialized syntactic rules. One of the main characteristic of modal verbs is their relatively imprecise and indeterminate meaning, their ambiguity: the same modal can be deontic (i.e. based on rules and regulations), but it may also involve processes, sets of knowledge or belief systems, and thus get an epistemic interpretation. In order to define the class of modals or to provide a set of environments in which a modal may be correctly or appropriately used, one must refer to many levels of language: the purely syntactic environment, as well as the logical structure, the context of the utterance, the assumptions that are shared by the speaker and the addressee, the social situation assumed by the participants in the discourse, the impression the speaker wants to make on the addressee, and so on. There is also the question of the appropriate context environments, that is, the semantic-pragmatic issue. Therefore, a complete analysis of a particular modal can only be achieved by looking both at its syntactic features and at its semantic structure; in other words, the syntax of a modal verb is based on its semantics, and these two dimensions are inseparable.

Corpus Linguistics and Sociolinguistics

Corpus Linguistics and Sociolinguistics PDF Author: Beke Hansen
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900438152X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 437

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Book Description
In Corpus Linguistics and Sociolinguistics, Beke Hansen provides an in-depth analysis of variation and change in the expression of modality in second-language varieties of English by adopting an integrated sociolinguistic and corpus-based approach.

Re-Assessing Modalising Expressions

Re-Assessing Modalising Expressions PDF Author: Pascal Hohaus
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027260524
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Mood, modality and evidentiality are popular and dynamic areas in linguistics. Re-Assessing Modalising Expressions – Categories, co-text, and context focuses on the specific issue of the ways language users express permission, obligation, volition (intention), possibility and ability, necessity and prediction linguistically. Using a range of evidence and corpus data collected from different sources, the authors of this volume examine the distribution and functions of a range of patterns involving modalising expressions as predominantly found in standard American English, British English or Hong Kong English, but also in Japanese. The authors are particularly interested in addressing (co-)textual manifestations of modalising expressions as well as their distribution across different text-types and thus filling a gap research was unable to plug in the past. Thoughts on categorising or re-categorising modalising expressions initiate and complement a multi-perspectival enterprise that is intended to bring research in this area a step forward.

Adverbs and Modality in English

Adverbs and Modality in English PDF Author: Leo Hoye
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317893603
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
This new study on modality in English represents a departure from more traditional approaches to the subject, where the modal auxiliaries have been the usual focus of attention, by examining in detail the nature of their association with different categories of modal adverb. Modality is notoriously complex but the present work offers an accessible introduction to the topic, a comprehensive account of modal-adverb co-occurrence, and a reappraisal of the English modal system. The descriptive framework draws fresh insights from syntactic, semantic and pragmatic approaches to the study of language and communication, and from recent work in corpus linguistics. The book includes contrastive reference to the expression of modality in Spanish and a discussion of modality in such applied contexts as language teaching. A major feature is its reliance on authentic spoken and written language data. The study is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate students of linguistics, English language, communications studies and related disciplines.

Modality and the English Modals

Modality and the English Modals PDF Author: Frank Robert Palmer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN:
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
This is the result of an investigation of a set of written and spoken texts in order to attain a solution to the problem of the system of modals. The texts are drawn from the Survey of English Usage in University College London. This edition has been revised and the theoretical chapters rewritten.

Modality in English and Chinese

Modality in English and Chinese PDF Author: Renzhi Li
Publisher: Dissertation.com
ISBN: 9781581122350
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
Modality is a grammatical, or semantic-grammatical, category. It is an important component of human languages. This is at least the case in most European languages. To what extent is it a near-universal? This thesis is to contribute to the question. It focuses on modal verbs in English and Chinese, two genetically and geographically unrelated languages, and analyzes what these two languages have in common and how they differ in their systems of modality. To achieve the aim, the thesis adopts the theoretical framework proposed by van der Auwera (1996, 1998 with Plungian, 2001) for the typological study of modality. Its language-specific descriptions involve the morphosyntactic features, notional functions, modal logic, and diachronic development. With these descriptions, it constructs a cross-linguistic database in a uniform, parallel structure. Then on the basis of this database, it deals with the cross-linguistic issues about modality in English and Chinese. Like many of the studies in this area, this research makes use of the well-sampled data in the relevant literature, thereby assuring the same degree of representativeness. When the data do not meet this need, it resorts to computer-based corpora. In the diachronic study of Chinese modality, quantitative analysis is adopted in proposing a development path for the senses of a modal. English translation is given particular attention in the description of Chinese modality and cross-linguistic analyses. It is found in this study that the modal systems in English and Chinese are very different things in their hyperonyms, distinctive properties, and syntactic behavior in the assertive, the non-assertive, and the passive. However, the concepts remain useful with respect to semantic functions, pragmatic uses, temporal reference, voice neutrality, and the expression of the meanings concerned with factuality, subjectivity and performativity. In terms of the theory of possible worlds, logical representations, and logical relations, modality can be viewed as a fuzzy set of the semantic domains that involve possibility and necessity. Suppletion and misplacement have nothing to do with the grammatical placement of the negator. Van der Auwera & Plungian's (1998: 98) semantic map is good, but the present study shows that it needs some refinements in the stages of premodal sources, modal developments, and postmodal uses. The harmonic combination of monosyllabic Chinese modals and the lexicalization of the negative modals deserve a position in the map, too. The grammaticalization and degrammaticalization of modality seems to involve a restricted group of notions. This study also shows that when one does cross-linguistic work on grammar, the basis is a semantic map. The rather special types of double, and triple, negation in Chinese are phenomena that previous typological work on modals had not given attention to. One can only know one's own language only if one compares it with other languages. The present study is conducive to a better understanding of English and Chinese. It contributes not only to the investigation of language universals, but also to the study of human cognition and other linguistic or applied linguistic issues.

Modality in English

Modality in English PDF Author: Raphael Salkie
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110213338
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
This volume presents two kinds of studies on English modality. On the one hand, there are strongly empirical, corpus-based studies of individual uses of English modal auxiliaries and modal constructions, such as may in interrogatives, might in concessive clauses, shall and may vs must in legal English, the use of surprised if and surprising if constructions, the use and history of adhortative constructions, or the modal-aspectual use of come to in I came to realize that X. The book also contains work that presents new views on some of the classical issues, like the relations between modality and time, modality and commitment, modals and (inter)subjectivity. A special place is given to work that approaches the English modals from the perspective of the 'Theory of Enunciative Operations' developed by the French linguist Antoine Culioli and his colleagues. Thus the book provides new perspectives and answers on basic questions about modality, in general, and its expression in English, in particular.

Adverbs and Modality in English

Adverbs and Modality in English PDF Author: Leo Hoye
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131789359X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
This new study on modality in English represents a departure from more traditional approaches to the subject, where the modal auxiliaries have been the usual focus of attention, by examining in detail the nature of their association with different categories of modal adverb. Modality is notoriously complex but the present work offers an accessible introduction to the topic, a comprehensive account of modal-adverb co-occurrence, and a reappraisal of the English modal system. The descriptive framework draws fresh insights from syntactic, semantic and pragmatic approaches to the study of language and communication, and from recent work in corpus linguistics. The book includes contrastive reference to the expression of modality in Spanish and a discussion of modality in such applied contexts as language teaching. A major feature is its reliance on authentic spoken and written language data. The study is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate students of linguistics, English language, communications studies and related disciplines.

Modality in Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics

Modality in Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics PDF Author: Werner Abraham
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108861083
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 455

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Book Description
What do we mean when we say things like 'If only we knew what he was up to!' Clearly this is more than just a message, or a question to our addressee. We are expressing simultaneously that we don't know, and also that we wish to know. Several modes of encoding contribute to such modalities of expression: word order, subordinating subjunctions, sentences that are subordinated but nevertheless occur autonomously, and attitudinal discourse adverbs which, far beyond lexical adverbials of modality, allow the speaker and the listener to presuppose full agreement, partial agreement under presupposed conditions, or negotiation of common ground. This state of the art survey proposes a new model of modality, drawing on data from a variety of Germanic and Slavic languages to find out what is cross-linguistically universal about modality, and to argue that it is a constitutive part of human cognition.