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.

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

Get Book Here

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.

Recent Advances in the Syntax and Semantics of Tense, Aspect and Modality

Recent Advances in the Syntax and Semantics of Tense, Aspect and Modality PDF Author: Louis de Saussure
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 9783110195255
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
This book is an up-to-date milestone for the studies of temporality and language, in particular regarding syntax and semantics. Tenses, aspectand modality are investigated both at the theoretical and at the descriptive levels, involving many differe

The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax

The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax PDF Author: Marcel den Dikken
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107354587
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1412

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Book Description
Syntax – the study of sentence structure – has been at the centre of generative linguistics from its inception and has developed rapidly and in various directions. The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax provides a historical context for what is happening in the field of generative syntax today, a survey of the various generative approaches to syntactic structure available in the literature and an overview of the state of the art in the principal modules of the theory and the interfaces with semantics, phonology, information structure and sentence processing, as well as linguistic variation and language acquisition. This indispensable resource for advanced students, professional linguists (generative and non-generative alike) and scholars in related fields of inquiry presents a comprehensive survey of the field of generative syntactic research in all its variety, written by leading experts and providing a proper sense of the range of syntactic theories calling themselves generative.

Modality Across Syntactic Categories

Modality Across Syntactic Categories PDF Author: Ana Arregui
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191028037
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
This volume explores the linguistic expression of modality in natural language from a cross-linguistic perspective. Modal expressions provide the basic tools that allow us to dissociate what we say from what is actually going on, allowing us to talk about what might happen or might have happened, as well as what is required, desirable, or permitted. Chapters in the book demonstrate that modality involves many more syntactic categories and levels of syntactic structure than traditionally assumed. The volume distinguishes between three types of modality: 'low modality', which concerns modal interpretations associated with the verbal and nominal cartographies in syntax; 'middle modality', or modal interpretation associated with the syntactic cartography internal to the clause; and 'high modality', relating to the left periphery. It combines cross-linguistic discussions of the more widely studied sources of modality with analyses of novel or unexpected sources, and shows how the meanings associated with the three types of modality are realized across a wide range of languages.

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.

Modality in English Syntax

Modality in English Syntax PDF Author: Lyle Jenkins
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description


Time and Modality

Time and Modality PDF Author: Jacqueline Guéron
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402083548
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
Here is a unique work of reference. Not only does it unite studies which explore the syntax and semantics of tense or modality, but it is the first book of its kind to embrace the interaction of tense and modality within a coherent generative model.

Recent Advances in the Syntax and Semantics of Tense, Aspect and Modality

Recent Advances in the Syntax and Semantics of Tense, Aspect and Modality PDF Author: Louis de Saussure
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110198762
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
It is a fact that tense, aspect and modality together form one of the most recurring and active areas of research in contemporary syntax and semantics, as well as in other disciplines of linguistics. A large number of syntactic and semantic phenomena are concerned by the temporal-aspectual-modal level of representation: information about time, aspect and modality is part of virtually all sentences; inflexion is quite widely considered as the core of syntactic projections. Because of this very crucial situation and role in the sentence structure, temporal-aspectual and modal information concerns virtually any part of the sentence and this information has scope over the whole characterization of the eventuality denoted by the sentence. This book is an up-to-date milestone for the studies of temporality and language, in particular regarding syntax and semantics, but with incidental hints to pragmatics and theories of human natural language understanding. Through this very tight selection of 15 papers (originally delivered during the 6th Chronos colloquium), tenses, aspect and modality are investigated both at the descriptive and theoretical levels, involving many different Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages. The volume sheds light on a wide array of phenomena that remained too little explored until now. These include the following: modal subordination in Japanese, epistemic modals in Dutch and English in Free Indirect Speech contexts, aspectual readings of idioms, adverb-licensing with the German perfect, French imperfective past compared with English progressive past, infinitival perfect in English, Adult Root Infinitives, economy constraints on temporal subordinations, future modality, past interpretation of present tense in embedded clauses, and time without tenses in Mandarin and Navajo. The book is of interest to scholars and advanced students in the fields of linguistics (general linguistics, semantics, syntax) as well as philosophy and logic.

Modes of Modality

Modes of Modality PDF Author: Elisabeth Leiss
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027270791
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 519

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Book Description
The volume aims at a universal definition of modality or “illocutionary/speaker’s perspective force” that is strong enough to capture the entire range of different subtypes and varieties of modalities in different languages. The central idea is that modality is all-pervasive in language. This perspective on modality allows for the integration of covert modality as well as peripheral instances of modality in neglected domains such as the modality of insufficieny, of attitudinality, or neglected domains such as modality and illocutionary force in finite vs. nonfinite and factive vs. non-factive subordinated clauses. In most languages, modality encompasses modal verbs both in their root and epistemic meanings, at least where these languages have the principled distribution between root and epistemic modality in the first place (which is one fundamentally restricted, in its strict qualitative and quantitative sense, to the Germanic languages). In addition, this volume discusses one other intricate and partially highly mysterious class of modality triggers: modal particles as they are sported in the Germanic languages (except for English). It is argued in the contributions and the languages discussed in this volume how modal verbs and adverbials, next to modal particles, are expressed, how they are interlinked with contextual factors such as aspect, definiteness, person, verbal factivity, and assertivity as opposed to other attitudinal types. An essential concept used and argued for is perspectivization (a sub-concept of possible world semantics). Language groups covered in detail and compared are Slavic, Germanic, and South East Asian. The volume will interest researchers in theoretical and applied linguistics, typology, the semantics/pragmatics interface, and language philosophy as it is part of a larger project developing an alternative approach to Universal Grammar that is compatible with functionalist approaches.

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.