Part of
Surprise at the Intersection of Phenomenology and LinguisticsEdited by Natalie Depraz and Agnès Celle
[Consciousness & Emotion Book Series 11] 2019
► pp. 43–56
Edited by Natalie Depraz and Agnès Celle
[Consciousness & Emotion Book Series 11] 2019
► pp. 43–56
Chapter 3The representation of surprise in English and the retroactive construction of possible paths
The current article considers the linguistic representation of surprise in English within the framework of the Theory of Enunciative and Predicative Operations. English appears not to have any markers specialised in the expression of surprise. Here I argue that English does nonetheless possess numerous formal configurations which may be shown to derive from a recurrent schema of surprise. I consider three such configurations: the concessive YET, OF ALL + plural noun and ONLY TO + verb in narrative context. Each configuration mobilises an abstract schema involving a discontinuity between an anticipated situation and an actual situation, i.e. an opposition between a – retroactively re-constructed – virtual class of expected possibilities and a validated occurrence.
Keywords: Theory of Enunciative and Predicative Operations, mirativity, surprise, discontinuity, concession, quantification, interrogation
Article outline
- 0.Introduction
- 1.Theoretical perspective
- 2.Yet
- 2.1Aspectual functions
- 2.2Modal functions
- 2.3The branching path and retroactive movement
- 3.Of all + plural noun
- 4.The infinitive of result only to
- Concluding remarks
-
Notes -
Bibliography
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