Possibility and Necessity: Concepts and expressions of modality ISBN:9789027228260
学術書籍 言語学 (John Benjaminsシリーズリスト) Studies in Language Companion Series
Possibility and Necessity: Concepts and expressions of modality
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Description
Researchers in the fields of logic, philosophy and linguistics have for many years been pondering over the elusive nature of modality and grappled with ways of capturing it. This book provides a broad overview of issues relevant to the study of modality and reflects the diversity of theoretical frameworks and the heterogeneity of linguistic phenomena included under the general heading of modality, a concept which, in one of its most frequent definitions, corresponds to the fields of possibility and necessity. The key concepts dealt with are the structure of the semantic notion of modality and of modal subcategories, force dynamics, evidentiality, mirativity, modal auxiliaries and verbs, modal uses of verbs and constructions (hedged performatives, capacitive structures, conditional constructions) and modal polyfunctionality across languages. Articles deal with observations taken from a variety of languages, including Danish, English, French, Italian, Latin and Slovak. The wealth of data and the critical evaluation of existing analyses of modality will be of interest for researchers and graduate students alike.
Contents:
Part 1. The concept of modality — possibility, necessity and other related concepts
Chance, necessity, mirativity and a few other modal notions
Paul Larreya | pp. 12–27
Necessity and possibility: variations and mirror games
Viviane Arigne | pp. 28–51
English copular perception verbs: At the crossroads of evidentiality and epistemicity
Christelle Lacassain | pp. 52–86
The argumentative anchoring of possibility and necessity indications in French, Italian and Slovak
Corinne Rossari, Claudia Ricci and Iveta Walther (Dinzikova) | pp. 87–116
How true is scientific discourse? A comparative study of epistemicity in on-page and on-screen media
Stefania Consonni | pp. 117–137
Part 2. Modal verbs and auxiliaries
Preterite-presents and modality
Pierre Cotte | pp. 140–165
On the semantics of English modal expressions: Towards an integrative grammar
Gregory Furmaniak | pp. 166–185
Hedged performatives across time: Report on a pilot study
Lucie Latouche and Ilse Depraetere | pp. 186–216
Entailment, necessity and time relations in some non prototypical conditional constructions
Christiane Rocq-Migette | pp. 217–234
Interroger la modalite a partir des verbes modaux danois
Benedicte Van Gysel | pp. 235–251
Part 3. Modal constructions and expressions
A propos de convenit, il convient, prosekei, et les autres: Preverbation de ‘venir’ et marquage de la congruence
Philippe Bourdin | pp. 254–292
From possibility to necessity: The development of to relative infinitives in Old English
Olivier Simonin | pp. 293–309
The cabins (can) sleep four — possibility in the capacitive structure in English
Caroline Marty | pp. 310–325
Enablement and (im)possibility: The case of let. Studies on a Keatsian corpus
Katrina Brannon | pp. 326–335
‘Can I just finish?’: The interplay between modality and force dynamics in strategies for holding the floor in political discourse
Robert Butler | pp. 336–366