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2 results

Modality in Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics
  • Werner Abraham
  • Published online:
    06 February 2021
    Print publication:
    17 September 2020
  • 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.

  • 5 - The Perspectival Specifics of Verb Modality in German

  • from II - Verbal Modality
  • Werner Abraham, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
  • Book:
    Modality in Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics
    Published online:
    06 February 2021
    Print publication:
    17 September 2020, pp 132-156

  • Summary

    Modal verbs form a closed class of verbs in German(ic) to the extent that have a very particular origin and property: they come from a preterit stem, have ablaut, and behave correspondingly in modern contexts. Their shift of interpretation between root and epistemicity is due to aspectual contexts. In contrast to all other verbs, verbal clusters (modal verb embedding another verb) are built without the preposition TO. Modal verbs with an epistemic reading have a syntax radically different from that of roots: they cannot be embedded, but appear only as heads of clusters.