Modal Concord is syntactic agreement (original) (raw)
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A syntactic approach to logical modality
Atlantis, 2005
This paper argues for a structural analysis of the sentence which differs from most of the current generativist proposals on the subject in that it projects two core features in the illocutionary shell: [±assertive] and [±indicative], to be found in the categories Force Phrase and Mood Phrase, respectively. We explore the relationship between these features and the rest of the functional categories in the representation, focusing on the particular behaviour of Tense Phrase in each of the cases. We also examine the syntactic implications of these features, to eventually provide an approach to logical modality which integrates sentences with modal verbs, that-subjunctive clauses and to-infinitives.
Sentences containing two (or more) modal elements of the same modal type and quantificational force often yield a concord reading, where the semantics of the sentence seems to contain only one modal operator, rather than a cumulative reading. In this paper I have argued that Modal Concord is a grammatical phenomenon and that despite superficial differences, it shows close resemblance to the phenomenon of Negative Concord. I have argued that the approach by (Zeijlstra 2004), who takes Negative Concord to be an instance of syntactic agreement, naturally extends to Modal Concord, and I have provided an analysis for Modal Concord by arguing that modal elements carry a modal feature specified for quantificational force, which is either semantically interpretable or uninterpretable. Furthermore, I have proposed that modal auxiliaries are semantically vacuous in languages like English and Dutch and that they only signal the presence of an abstract modal operator of a particular quantificational force.
THE ENGLISH MODAL AUXILIARY MUST: A CORPUS-BASED SYNTACTIC-SEMANTIC ACCOUNT
2002
Este artigo descreve um método para o estudo do verbo modal "must", que compara estruturas frasais complexas e usos deôntico e epistêmico em diferentes tipos de textos. Sugere-se que a distribuição de freqüência desses padrões gramaticais e semânticos em diferentes textos indique que tipos de ênfases pedagógicas possam facilitar o aprendizado de inglês como uma língua estrangeira.
Predicate structure and the semantics of the English modal 'should'.
2020
The aim of the study described in this paper is to verify whether the structure of a modal predicate influences the type of modality expressed by the English modal verb should. The study uses language samples excerpted from The corpus of contemporary American English. It has adopted the model of the semantic field of modal expressions proposed by Angelika Kratzer. Additionally, this framework has been used to determine types of modality in this study. The analysis focuses on the interaction within the semantic field of the modal should with various forms of the main verb within the modal predicate structure.
ON TWO ENGLISH MODAL PREDICATES HARD TO FIND IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR BOOKS
Annals of the University of Craiova. Series Philology. Linguistics, 2022
The paper offers a summative discussion of empirical investigations into two English modal predicates: can with the perfect infinitive and must not with the perfect infinitive. Both these predicate constructions tend not to be mentioned or discussed in grammars of English; some books even forbid them. Thus, one may get an impression that they do not exist or are non-normative. The corpus studies discussed in this paper have shown the opposite, however. The analyzed modal predicates have been reported in both contemporary and historical American English, and also in British English. Moreover, they are not accidental constructions since they have been reported in numerous texts, of different levels of formality, produced by various speakers or writers. The study has also shown that can with the perfect expresses the meaning of speaker’s reasoning about a potential past situation or speaker’s certainty about the non-occurrence of a past situation. Thus can interacts with the perfect and expresses the epistemic flavor. Moreover, the meaning of speaker’s certainty results from the interaction of can with a negative context. Speaker’s certainty that an event did not take place in the past is also a meaning expressed by must not with the perfect. In addition, this modal predicate can express the meaning of a prohibition of a past event. Thus, must not with the perfect can express either the epistemic or the root modal flavor. The latter emerges as a result of modality-negation interaction. The perfect projects the event in the past, i.e. in the retrospective viewpoint. Hence, the study proposes a number of norms thanks to which these two, supposedly non-normative, modal predicates have occurred.
Universal concord as syntactic agreement
2021
One focus in the Minimalist Program is the syntax-semantics interface, which concerns how syntactic objects are mapped onto the meaning component. Concord among quanificational elements represents a case of apparent syntax-semantics mismatch and therefore has drawn considerable interests. For example, in negative concord like (1), there are two negative expressions on the surface but the sentence meaning is interpreted as if there is only one negation (Labov 1972, Haegeman and Zanuttini 1991, Zeijlstra 2004, i.a.). This apparent mismatch is problematic from a view that sentence meanings are composed from their building blocks (i.e. the Principle of Compositionality, Frege 1892) and poses a challenge to the syntax-semantics mapping. (1) Negative concord: doubling negative expressions with one logical negation (Italian, Giannakidou and Zeijlstra 2017:7) Gianni Gianni non NEG ha has visto seen niente. n-thing ‘Gianni hasn’t seen anything.’; Not: ‘Gianni hasn’t seen nothing.’ Empiricall...