Modes of Modality

Editorial page

Title page

LCC data

Table of contents

Introduction

Elisabeth Leiss & Werner Abraham

part i

Formal properties of modality

Interpreting modals by phase heads*

Daigo Akiba

Evidentiality straddling T- and C-domains*

Nadia Varley

part ii

Typological surveys

The syntax of modal polyfunctionality revisited

Evidence from the languages of Europe

Björn Hansen

Mora da as a marker of modal meanings in Macedonian

On correlations between categorial restrictions and morphosyntactic behaviour*

Björn Wiemer

Modal semantics and morphosyntax of the Latvian DEBITIVE

Ilze Lokmane & Andra Kalnača

Deontic or epistemic? habēre as a modal marker of future certainty in Macedonian

Liljana Mitkovska & Eleni Bužarovska

Epistemic, evidential and attitudinal markers in clause-medial position in Cantonese

Foong Ha Yap & Winnie Oi-Wan Chor

part iii

Interfaces between mood and modality

Modal particles in rationale clauses and related constructions*

Patrick Grosz

Modal particles in causal clauses

The case of German weil wohl*

Mathias Schenner & Frank Sode

part iv

Modality conceptualizations

Enablement and possibility

Raphael Salkie

The modal category of sufficiency

Chantal Melis

part v

Diachronic derivation

From agent-oriented modality to sequential

The polysemy of the marker ni in Kakabe (Mande)

Alexandra Vydrina

part vi

Covert modality

A rare case of covert modality

Spoken Polish and the novel periphrastic past with mieć ‘have’

Werner Abraham & Jadwiga Piskorz

(C)Overt epistemic modality and its perspectival effects on the textual surface*

Sonja Zeman

Dimensions of implicit modality in Igbo

Chinedu Uchechukwu

Introduction

1. General background

2. Formal properties of root vs. epistemic and evidential modality

3. Modality in typological survey

4. Interfaces between speech act, conditional, and modality

5. Modality reconceptualized

6. Covert modality

References

Interpreting modals by phase heads*

1. Introduction

2. Root vs. epistemic modals

2.1 Structural positions

2.2 Scope

2.2.1 Tense

2.2.2 Adverbs

2.2.3 Quantifiers

2.3 Interim summary

3. The phase-based approach to modal interpretations

3.1 Phase-by-phase modal interpretation

3.2 Butler’s (2003) analysis

3.3 Modal interpretations by phase heads

4. Conclusion

Abbreviations

References

Evidentiality straddling T- and C-domains*

1. Introduction

2. Approaching the object of inquiry

2.1 What is evidentiality?

2.2 Evidential types

2.3 The ASP/TNS/Mood triplet and evidentiality

2.3.1 Theoretical background

2.3.2 The perfect paradigm and evidentiality

2.3.3 Usages of the -l morpheme in Bulgarian

2.3.4 On mirativity

2.3.5 Modality and evidentiality

3. The proposal

3.1 Speas (2004)

3.2 Deixis

3.3 On the 1/2PRSN vs. 3PRSN asymmetry

3.4 Person geometry and evidential “vouchers”

3.5 The structural position(s) of evidentiality

3.5.1 Epistemic and root modality

3.5.2 A pervasive asymmetry: i-EVID vs. h-EVID

3.5.2.1 The doings of the left periphery. The main claim of this paper is that there is a sharp distinction to be drawn between hearsay/quotative evidentiality and inferential evidentiality (with mirativity yet a way higher, cf. §2.3.4). This also means t

3.5.2.2 Explaining (and redressing) the ‘boojum’. In a sequence of papers, ­Friedman (1982, 1986, 2001) consistently argues that the Bulgarian evidential is an elusive ‘boojum’, and auxiliary suppliance in conjunction with -l participles subject to (styli

3.6 Interim considerations

4. Crossroads of evidentiality

4.1 Logophoricity, logophoric domains, and control

5. Concluding remarks

Abbreviations

References

The syntax of modal polyfunctionality revisited

0. Introduction

1. The typological data

2. Approaches to modal polyfunctionality

2.1 The tradition in Germanic linguistics

2.2 The typological perspective

3. A classificatory typology of modal constructions

3.1 Subject encoding

3.2 INFL: Subject-predicate agreement

3.2.1 Subject-predicate agreement marking in modal constructions without copula

3.2.2 Subject-predicate agreement marking in modal constructions with copula

3.3 INFL: Tense (TAM) marking

4. Searching for syntactic features that correlate with modal polyfunctionality

4.1 Modals and the auxiliary-main verb distinction

4.2 Modals and complexity mismatch (raising vs. control)

4.3 Modals and the coherence of verbal complexes

5. Conclusion

Abbreviations

References

Mora da as a marker of modal meanings in Macedonian

1. Introduction and formulation of the task

2. Mac. mora (da): A survey of its meaning range and syntactic behaviour

2.1 On the Macedonian system of TAM-forms and grammatical evidentiality

2.2 mora da and restrictions on AT-forms

2.2.1 The perfects

2.2.2 Aspect (pfv.: Ipfv.) in the present tense

2.2.3 Confirmative past tenses

2.2.4 Future and conditional/potential

2.2.5 Interim summary

3. Lexical vs. grammatical status of mora (da)

3.1 Stepwise reduction of verbal features on mora

3.2 Other distributional facts

4. Conclusions

Abbreviations in glosses (not covered by the Leipzig Glossing Rules)

References

Modal semantics and morphosyntax of the Latvian DEBITIVE

1. Introduction

2. The grammatical moods in Latvian

3. Description of the Latvian debitive

3.1 Sub-moods of the debitive

3.1.1 Combination of the debitive and oblique

3.1.2 Combination of the debitive and conditional

3.2 The debitive in the passive voice

3.3 Problems of description of the debitive in Latvian grammars

4. The debitive and modality

4.1 The root modality reading

4.2 The epistemic modality reading

4.3 Modal and evidential meanings of the debitive combinations

5. Distributional traits of the debitive

5.1 The argument structure in debitive constructions

5.2 The choice between the Nominative or Accusative argument

5.3 The debitive and patterns of agreement

6. Concluding remarks

Abbreviations

References

Deontic or epistemic? habēre as a modal marker of future certainty in Macedonian

1. Introduction

2. Theoretical background

3. Goals and methodology

4. Grammaticalization of ima

4.1 Components of ima da-constructions

4.2 Overview of the grammaticalization stages

5. The semantics of uninflected ima

5.1 Uninflected ima compared to closely related modal expressions

5.2 The meaning of ‘future certainty’ as a distinctive mark of uninflected ima

6. Semantic differences between inflected and uninflected constructions

7. Conclusion: Uninflected ima as a marker of futural epistemic necessity

Abbreviations

References

Epistemic, evidential and attitudinal markers in clause-medial position in Cantonese

1. Introduction

2. Epistemic, evidential and attitudinal parentheticals derived from complement-taking psych verbs

2.1 Parenthetical epistemic marker ngo5 gok3dak1 ‘I feel/think’

2.2 Parenthetical epistemic and evidential marker (ngo5) paa3 ‘I’m afraid’

2.3 Parenthetical attitudinal marker (ngo5) m4zi1 (‘I don’t know’)

2.4 Insubordination, subject ellipsis, topic constructions, and the grammaticalization of parenthetical stance markers

3. Postverbal directional particles as attitudinal markers

3.1 Postverbal faan1 as a marker of speaker’s positive evaluation

3.2 Postverbal maai4 as a marker of speaker’s pejorative attitude

3.3 Verbal complementation and the emergence of postverbal attitudinal particles

4. Summary discussion and conclusion

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

References

Modal particles in rationale clauses and related constructions*

1. Background: On the connection between force, modality and mood

2. The core puzzle: ‘Imperative particles’ in rationale clauses

2.1 Introducing the German particles ‘ruhig’, ‘JA’ and ‘bloß’

2.2 Rationale clauses with ‘ruhig’, ‘ja’ and ‘bloß’ – The empirical scope

2.3 Rationale clauses with ‘ruhig’, ‘JA’ and ‘bloß’ – The core puzzle

3. The solution in a nutshell

4. Rationale clauses as modalized expressions

4.1 Introducing the rationale clause modal

4.2 The variable nature of the rationale clause modal

5. bloß/JA/ruhig as modal modifiers

5.1 The general pattern

5.2 The semantics of ‘bloß’/‘JA’/‘ruhig’

5.3 A note on the formal implementation

6. Alternative views

6.1 Portner (2012)

6.2 Schwager (2010)

7. Conclusion

References

Modal particles in causal clauses

1. Introduction

2. Theoretical background

2.1 Causal clauses

2.2 Modal particles

3. Modal particles in causal clauses

3.1 Modal particles and Force-based licensing

3.2 Causal clauses may contain illocutionary wohl

3.3 On the semantic clash of weil and wohl

4. Dynamics to the rescue: Toward solving the puzzle

5. Conclusion and further directions

References

Enablement and possibility

0. Introduction

1. Enablement

2. Enablement in different languages

3. Theoretical implications

3.1 Necessary conditions

3.2 Does can express a type of “root” modality?

3.3 Impliciture, saturation and free enrichment

3.4 Types of possibility

3.5 Modality, semantics and pragmatics

4. Previous treatments of can and may

5. Conclusion

References

Appendix – More corpus examples

The modal category of sufficiency

1. Introduction

2. The quantitative dimension

3. The modal component: Antecedents

4. Proposal

5. Enough and so … that constructions

6. Insufficiency and excess

7. Polar adjectives

8. Implicative readings

9. Conclusions

References

From agent-oriented modality to sequential

1. Introduction

2. Kakabe predicative categories

3. The primary uses of ni

4. Predicative marker ni after clauses with the temporal-conditional predicative marker mani

4.1 Semantics of the predicative marker mani

4.2 The predicative marker ni in the mani construction with deontic modal meaning

4.3 The predicative marker ni in the mani construction with the meaning of entailed result

4.4 The predicative marker ni in the mani construction with past iterative meaning

4.5 The predicative marker ni in the mani construction with past (non-iterative) meaning

5. Interpretation

5.1 Semantic bleaching

5.2 The increase of meaning scope, subjectification (from statement about external world to speaker’s assessment of the situation)

5.3 From propositional to textual meaning and the development of a clause linker

5.4 Comparative evidence

5.5 Modality and clause linking

6. Conclusions

References

A rare case of covert modality

1. Introduction

2. The grammaticalization of a new periphrastic past in Polish. A contribu­tion to the evolutionary logic of temporal and modal periphrasis

3. Signs of a newly emerging analytic past in spoken Polish

4. Grammaticalizing into the new analytic active past in Modern Polish

5. Signals testifying to the new development of analytic tensing in Polish

6. mieć+V as modal construal in root and epistemic interpretation

7. The logic underlying covert modality

7.1 A few words ahead

7.2 Covert epistemics presupposes finiteness – the “epistemic non-finiteness gap”

7.3 BE-TO- and HAVE-TO-infinitive

7.4 Old High German ‘sein + zu-infinitive’

7.5 Summary: Form and morphologically explicit modality early on: HAVE/BE(+DP)+zu-infinitive

8. The mieć+PP past and its covert modality

8.1 The facts without the infinitival preposition

8.2 The facts with the infinitival preposition do German “zu”, English “to”

8.3 Attempt at an explanation of the covert modality of mieć+PP/non-finite V

8.4 Summary: The grammaticalizing features of mieć + PP and the derived classification

9. Conclusions: Criticism – and its status after this

9.1 Resultative Past or Resultative Passive?

9.2 Periphrastic cycle in Polish?

9.3 The role of transitivity in grammaticalization?

9.4 Is mieć a true modal verb?

9.5 mieć by itself is not a modal verb

9.6 All root modal is futural, while epistemic modality is not

9.7 Factors weakening the “Aspect-Mo­dal­ity-Cor­relation Generalization”

9.8 Is epistemic modality really a derivative of root modality?

9.9 Pure reliance on usage obscures the need to search for profound, cross-linguistically more generali­zable links

9.10 Are the Polish modals calques from German?

9.11 The wide range of epistemicity in Polish

9.12

Primary sources

References

(C)Overt epistemic modality and its perspectival effects on the textual surface*

0. The universal character of modality

1. What is (c)overt modality?

2. The essence of modality2

3. Perswpectival effects of (c)overt modality2 in grammar, sentence, text

3.1 (C)Overt modality2 and its effects of perspectivization in grammar

3.2 (C)Overt modality2 and its perspectival effects on the sentence level

3.3 (C)Overt modality2 on the textual surface

4. Conclusion: The silent ubiquity of epistemic meaning in human language

References

Dimensions of implicit modality in Igbo

1. Modality in Igbo: The gradual history of recognition of a grammatical category

2. Covert and implicit modality

3. The explicit modal structures of the Igbo language

4. In search of covert modality in Igbo

4.1 Translational covert modals

4.1.1 Wh-infinitival complements → Wh-complement construction

4.1.2 Subject infinitival relatives → Simple relative construction

4.1.3 Purpose clauses

4.2 More generally, Igbo covert modal structures

4.2.1 Covert Modality in the verb -kwé ‘agree, admit’

4.2.2 Covert modality with the BVC

4.2.2.1 The Characterization of BVC in Igbo Linguistics

5. Summary and Conclusion

References

Index