Download or read book Modality aspect Interfaces written by Werner Abraham and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The main topics pursued in this volume are based on empirical insights derived from Germanic: logical and typological dispositions about aspect-modality links. These are probed in a variety of non-related languages. The logically establishable links are the following: Modal verbs are aspect sensitive in the selection of their infinitival complements – embedded infinitival perfectivity implies root modal reading, whereas embedded infinitival imperfectivity triggers epistemic readings. However, in marked contexts such as negated ones, the aspectual affinities of modal verbs are neutralized or even subject to markedness inversion. All of this suggests that languages that do not, or only partially, bestow upon full modal verb paradigms seek to express modal variations in terms of their aspect oppositions. This typological tenet is investigated in a variety of languages from Indo-European (German, Slavic, Armenian), African, Asian, Amerindian, and Creoles. Seeming deviations and idiosyncrasies in the interaction between aspect and modality turn out to be highly rule-based.

Download or read book Interfaces with English Aspect written by Debra Ziegeler and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The field of verbal aspect has been a focus for the derivation of a multiplicity of theoretical approaches ranging over decades of linguistic research. From the point of view of recent studies, though, there has been relatively little emphasis on the nature of the interaction of aspect with other categories, and the ways in which our knowledge of aspect acts as a primary semantic contributor to the creation of other basic verbal parameters such as tense and modality. This book aims to cross some of the categorial borders, using a collection of studies on the interfaces of English aspect with other grammatical domains. The studies in the book have been assembled in order to answer two central issues surrounding the nature of English aspect: the possibility of the historical co-existence of a perfective and imperfective grammatical distinction in English, and the derivation of modality as an inference arising out of specific conflicts and combinations of lexical and grammatical aspect. In answering these questions, a data-driven, rather than a theory-driven approach is favoured, and the general principles of Gricean pragmatics and grammaticalisation are applied to a wide range of empirical sources to propose alternative explanations to some long-established problems of English historical linguistics and semantics.

Download or read book Manual of Grammatical Interfaces in Romance written by Susann Fischer and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2016-09-12 with total page 755 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Different components of grammar interact in non-trivial ways. It has been under debate what the actual range of interaction is and how we can most appropriately represent this in grammatical theory. The volume provides a general overview of various topics in the linguistics of Romance languages by examining them through the interaction of grammatical components and functions as a state-of-the-art report, but at the same time as a manual of Romance languages.

Download or read book Covert Patterns of Modality written by Werner Abraham and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2012-11-15 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This typological overview compares the degree to which different languages have means to give expression to modality (possibility, necessity) without lexical and direct inflectional means. The criterial patterns derive from a variety of languages such as German, English, Chinese, French, Scandinavian, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Polish, and Gothic as well as Old High German. They encompass mainly the auxiliaries HAVE and BE, together with either an infinitival embedding of a full verb linked by the infinitival preposition TO, or other aspectual means. It is demonstrated that what appears as typical covert modal expressions in the Germanic languages, and the Indo-European ones in a wider sense, cannot be seen as a recurrent pattern in non-Indo-European languages. Yet, there are recurrent and plausible forms that allow for generalizations.

Download or read book Cognitive Approaches to Tense Aspect and Epistemic Modality written by Adeline Patard and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume addresses problems of semantics regarding the analysis of tense and aspect (TA) markers in a variety of languages, including Arabic, Croatian, English, French, German, Russian, Thai, and Turkish. Its main interest goes out to epistemic uses of such markers, whereby epistemic modality is understood as indicating “a degree of compatibility between the modal world and the factual world” (Declerck). All contributions, moreover, tackle these problems from a more or less cognitive point of view, with some of them insisting on the need to provide a unifying explanation for all usage types, temporal and non-temporal, and all of them accepting the premise that the semantics of TA categories essentially refers to subjective, rather than objective, concerns. The volume also represents one of the first attempts to gather accounts of TA marking (in various languages) that are explicitly set within the framework of Cognitive Grammar. Ultimately, this volume aims to contribute to establishing an awareness that modal meaning elements are directly relevant to the analysis of the grammar of time.

Download or read book Modes of Modality written by Elisabeth Leiss and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2014-01-15 with total page 519 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Diachronic Development of Modal Expressions in Chinese written by Barbara Meisterernst and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2024-11-18 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present study is the first to apply a syntactic approach to the grammaticalization of Chinese modals, based on hypotheses on cross-linguistic diachronic developments of modals from lexical to functional categories as upward movement on a functional spine. The temporal framework of the study covers Late Archaic and Middle Chinese. Early Middle Chinese is a crucial turning point for the development of Chinese from a more synthetic to a more analytic language. This change is attributed e.g. to the loss of a former morphology, which also affects the modal system. Against this background, the negative cycle of Chinese, the relevance of polarity contexts, and the development of a new system of deontic, epistemic and future markers are analyzed. In addition to a comprehensive analysis of the syntactic processes involved in the diachronic changes of the Chinese modal system, the study also provides a comparison with the syntax of grammaticalization of the thoroughly discussed Germanic modals. This constitutes a broad basis for further analyses of the changes in the Chinese language during its long written history, but also for cross-linguistic studies on the syntax of grammaticalization and on linguistic universals.

Download or read book Converging Grammars written by Debra Ziegeler and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2015-07-01 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a much-needed, critical overview of the field of constructions and construction grammar in the context of Singapore English, and poses the question of identifying a construction in contact when the lexicon is derived from one language and the syntax from another. Case studies are illustrated in which the possibility of a 'merger'-construction is offered to resolve such problems. The book is intended for students of construction theories, variation studies, or any researcher of contact grammars

Download or read book Modality in Syntax Semantics and Pragmatics written by Werner Abraham and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-17 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Aspectuality and Temporality written by Zlatka Guentchéva and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2016-03-09 with total page 754 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together a collection of articles exploring tense and aspect phenomena in a variety of non-related languages: Indo-European (Albanian, Bulgarian, Armenian, English, Norwegian, Hindi), Hamito-Semitic (Berber, Zenaga Berber, Arabic varieties, Neo-Aramaic), African (Wolof, Langi), Asian (Badaga, Korean, Mongolian languages – Khalkha, Buriat, Kalmuck – Thaï, Tibetic languages), Amerindian (Yucatec Maya, Sikuani), Greenlandic (Eskimo) and Oceanian (Nêlêmwa). Each article is grounded in solid empirical knowledge. It offers an in-depth study of aspectual and temporal devices as manifested in many diverse and complex ways from a cross-linguistic perspective and seeks to contribute to our understanding of the domain under consideration and more broadly to linguistic typology and theoretical linguistics, especially the enunciative approach. The book gives readers access to a collection of data and is of particular interest to scholars working on aspectuality and temporality, on pragmatics, on areal linguistics and on typology.

Download or read book Modality and Theory of Mind Elements across Languages written by Werner Abraham and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2012-05-29 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modality is the way a speaker modifies her declaratives and other speech acts to optimally assess the common ground of knowledge and belief of the addressee with the aim to optimally achieve understanding and an assessment of relevant information exchange. In languages such as German (and other Germanic languages outside of English), this may happen in covert terms. Main categories used for this purpose are modal adverbials ("modal particles") and modal verbs. Epistemic uses of modal verbs (like German sollen) cover evidential (reportative) information simultaneously providing the source of the information. Methodologically, description and explanation rest on Karl Bühler's concept of Origo as well as Roman Jakobson's concept of shifter. Typologically, East Asian languages such as Japanese pursue these semasiological fundaments far more closely than the European languages. In particular, Japanese has to mark the source of a statement in the declarative mode such that the reliability may be assessed by the hearer. The contributions in this collection provide insight into these modal techniques.

Download or read book Certainty uncertainty and the Attitudinal Space in Between written by Sibilla Cantarini and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2014-11-15 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The selected papers of this volume cover five main topics, namely ‘Certainty: The conceptual differential’; ‘(Un)Certainty as attitudinality’; ‘Dialogical exchange and speech acts’; ‘Onomasiology’; and ‘Applications in exegesis and religious discourse’. By examining the general theme of the communication of certainty and uncertainty from different scientific fields, theoretical approaches and perspectives, this compendium of state-of-the-art research papers provides both an interdisciplinary comparison of the latest investigations, methods and findings, and new advances and theoretical insights with a common focus on human communication.

Download or read book English Historical Linguistics 2008 written by Ursula Lenker and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2010-10-28 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fourteen studies selected for this volume – all of them peer-reviewed versions of papers presented at the 15th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics 2008 (23–30 August) at the University of Munich – investigate syntactic variation and change in the history of English from two perspectives that are crucial to explaining language change, namely the analysis of usage patterns and the social motivations of language change. Documenting the way syntactic elements have changed their combinatory preferences in fine-grained corpus studies renders the opportunity to catch language change in actu. A majority of studies in this book investigate syntactic change in the history of English from this viewpoint using a corpus-based approach, focusing on verbal constructions, modality and developments in the English noun phrase. The book is of primary interest to linguists interested in current research in the history of English syntax. Its empirical richness is an excellent source for teaching English Historical Syntax. Volume II to be announced soon.

Download or read book A Typological Approach to Grammaticalization and Lexicalization written by Janet Zhiqun Xing and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-01-20 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on comparative analyses of diachronic data, the articles in this volume address both theoretical and methodological issues in the study of grammaticalization and lexicalization in both Eastern and Western languages. The central question raised and discussed in this volume is how, if any, typological properties of the two genetically unrelated language families interact with the processes of grammaticalization and lexicalization.

Download or read book Topics in Kwa Syntax written by Enoch O. Aboh and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-11-27 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book grew out of a concern we have had that very many theoretical and descriptive work on the Kwa languages were not accessible to the general linguistic community. As a result, these languages were only referred to in the context of very specific discussions such as serial verb constructions. But as the reader of this book will notice, syntactic topics discussed in the context of Kwa range from bare nouns, relative clauses, negation, discourse markers and the interaction with the clausal periphery, to argument structure. Many issues remain that need to be brought to the fore of the community and we hope that this book will trigger the curiosity of the reader to get to know more about these languages. Much of the work presented here could not have been possible without the help of many colleagues and the contri- tors whom we thank warmly for joining this enterprise. We are also grateful to the editors of the series, Marcel den Dikken, Joan Maling, Liliane Haegeman to have offered us this platform to initiate the debate about Kwa. We will also like to thank Helen van der Stelt and Jolanda Voogd from Springer for their kind collaboration and patience. We are also very grateful to Joscelyn Essegbey and Leston Buell for helping with editing the manuscript. Enoch, O. Aboh James Essegbey v Contents 1 The Phonology Syntax Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Enoch, O. Aboh and James Essegbey 2 The Morphosyntax of the Noun Phrase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Enoch, O.

Download or read book Telicity Change and State written by Violeta Demonte and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-07 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents new work by leading researchers on central themes in the study of event structure: the nature and representation of telicity, change, and the notion of state. The book advances our understanding of these aspects of event structure by combining foundational semantic research with a series of case studies from a variety of languages. The book begins with an overview of the theoretical issues central to the volume, along with a brief presentation of the remaining chapters and the points of contact between them. The chapters, developed within several different theoretical perspectives, promote cross-theory as well as cross-linguistic comparison. The work will interest scholars and advanced students of morphology, syntax, semantics, and their interfaces. It will also appeal to researchers in philosophy, psycholinguistics, and language acquisition who are interested in the notions of telicity, change, and stativity.

Download or read book Modality and the Biblical Hebrew Infinitive Absolute written by Scott N. Callaham and published by Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. This book was released on 2010 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alongside several related ancient languages, Biblical Hebrew possesses two infinitive forms. The rarer of the two is the infinitive absolute, for which no analogous structure exists in modern translation receptor languages such as English. In studying its use, Hebrew grammarians have long noted that the infinitive absolute often appears in modal contexts. However, until the present study this phenomenon has not received further scholarly attention. Employing contemporary cross-linguistic research on modality, Callaham's study presents a new and comprehensive analysis of the function of the infi nitive absolute in Biblical Hebrew. Collected data strongly imply that the combination of an infinitive absolute and a cognate verb is a construction expressing verb focus, which includes focus on any modality present in the cognate verb. Infinitives absolute can also function as full substitutes for finite verbs. Accordingly, these independent uses are also highly modal. Through wide-ranging interaction with previous research and exhaustive examination of textual data, this study advances new findings on the interplay of modality and infinitive absolute employment in the Hebrew Bible.