On the Grammar of Optative Constructions
| University of Tübingen
This monograph is one of the first theoretical studies of optatives. Optative constructions express desire without an overt lexical item that means ‘desire’. The author specifically investigates optatives with the syntax of embedded clauses that contain prototypical particles such as ‘only’. He rejects the view that optativity arises compositionally from the standard semantics of embedded clauses and prototypical particles. The following system is proposed: Desirability is due to a generalized scalar exclamation operator EX. Furthermore, clausal properties such as factivity/counterfactuality are encoded in a Mood head, which co-determines morphological mood and complementizer choice. Finally, the prototypical particles that optatives contain are truth-conditionally vacuous presupposition triggers. As a result, these meaning components do not interact directly, but their meanings converge, with the consequence that they prototypically co-occur. This monograph is of interest for formal semanticists, syntacticians, pragmaticists and morphologists, and especially relevant for research on mood and particle semantics.
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 193] 2012. xi, 346 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
|
Acknowledgments
|
ix–x
|
|
Abbreviations
|
xi–xii
|
|
Chapter 1. Introduction: The proposal in a nutshell
|
1–4
|
|
Chapter 2. Prolegomena: Definitions, terminology and other basics
|
5–38
|
|
Chapter 3. The core analysis: A system for analyzing exclamations
|
39–64
|
|
Chapter 4. The source of desirability in optatives
|
65–164
|
|
Chapter 5. On the role of mood in exclamations
|
165–210
|
|
Chapter 6. Particles and forces: Modulating EX
|
211–328
|
|
Chapter 7. Summary and conclusion
|
329–330
|
|
References
|
331–344
|
|
Index
|
345–346
|
Cited by
Cited by other publications
Beltrama, Andrea & Andreas Trotzke
2019. Conveying emphasis for intensity: Lexical and syntactic strategies.
Language and Linguistics Compass 13:7 ► pp. e12343 ff. 
Bianchi, Valentina, Giuliano Bocci & Silvio Cruschina
2016. Focus fronting, unexpectedness, and evaluative implicatures.
Semantics and Pragmatics
Bianchi, Valentina & Silvio Cruschina
2016. The derivation and interpretation of polar questions with a fronted focus.
Lingua 170 ► pp. 47 ff.
Biberauer, Theresa & Ian Roberts
2016.
In Theoretical Approaches to Linguistic Variation [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 234],
► pp. 259 ff.
Biberauer, Theresa & Ian Roberts
2017.
In Word Order Change in Acquisition and Language Contact [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 243],
► pp. 57 ff.
CASTROVIEJO, ELENA
2019. On wh-exclamatives and gradability. An argument from Romance.
Journal of Linguistics ► pp. 1 ff.
Castroviejo, Elena
2020.
In The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Semantics,
► pp. 1 ff.
D'Hertefelt, Sarah
2017.
In Imperatives and Directive Strategies [Studies in Language Companion Series, 184],
Evans, Nicholas & Honoré Watanabe
2016.
In Insubordination [Typological Studies in Language, 115],
► pp. 1 ff.
Giannakidou, Anastasia & Alda Mari
2018. The semantic roots of positive polarity: epistemic modal verbs and adverbs in English, Greek and Italian.
Linguistics and Philosophy 41:6 ► pp. 623 ff.
Grosz, Patrick Georg
2014. Optative markers as communicative cues.
Natural Language Semantics 22:1 ► pp. 89 ff.
Gutiérrez-Rexach, Javier
2016.
In Indirect Reports and Pragmatics [Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, 5],
► pp. 553 ff.
Gutiérrez-Rexach, Javier & Patricia Andueza
2016.
In Interdisciplinary Studies in Pragmatics, Culture and Society [Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, 4],
► pp. 767 ff.
Kirk-Giannini, Cameron Domenico
2020. Why horizontalism.
Philosophical Studies 177:10 ► pp. 2881 ff.
TROTZKE, ANDREAS & EVA WITTENBERG
2017. Expressive particle verbs and conditions on particle fronting.
Journal of Linguistics 53:2 ► pp. 407 ff.
van der Wouden, Ton & Frans Zwarts
2017.
In Crossroads Semantics,
► pp. 249 ff.
Verstraete, Jean-Christophe & Sarah D'Hertefelt
2016.
In Insubordination [Typological Studies in Language, 115],
► pp. 65 ff.
Ørsnes, Bjarne
2012. Negating the verum.
The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 15:1 ► pp. 49 ff.
Ørsnes, Bjarne
2013. Wh-Optatives in Danish: Compositional and Noncompositional Aspects.
Journal of Germanic Linguistics 25:2 ► pp. 137 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 06 november 2020. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
Subjects
BIC Subject: CFK – Grammar, syntax
BISAC Subject: LAN009000 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General