Modality in Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics: 165 (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, Series Number 165)
Cambridge University Press, 9/17/2020
EAN 9781107021228, ISBN10: 1107021227
Hardcover, 300 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
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.
Part I. Modes of Modality
Introduction
1. Pragmatics
modality and speaker orientation
2. (Inter) subjectification and foreign consciousness alignment
3. Modality as distance – from aspect to modality
Part II. Verbal Modality
4. The syntax-semantic-pragmatic interface of modal verbs
5. The perspectival specifics of verb modality in German
6. The syntax of modal verbs in German, Dutch, and English
7. Modal verb semantics
Part III. Adverbial Modality Distance
From Apect to Mpp
8. Modal particles
the enigmatic category
9. The attitudinal force of modal particles
10. Modal particles between context, conversation, and convention
11. Modal particles outside of finiteness
Part IV. Covert Modality
12. Covert patterns of modality.