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Pseudo-Coordination and Multiple Agreement Constructions
Edited by Giuliana Giusti, Vincenzo Nicolò Di Caro and Daniel Ross
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 274] 2022
► pp. 129–148

Chapter 5
Gone unexpectedly

Pseudo-coordination and the expression of surprise

ORCID logo | University of Helsinki
In this paper, I discuss a periphrastic construction involving the verb go in Sicilian that is used to express surprise and unexpectedness with respect to a past event. I show that the special meaning and function of this structure is best accounted for by postulating that in this construction the verb go is now a functional verb associated with a mirative conventional implicature. In this use, the construction is grammatically in the present tense, but is used within a narrative context to foreground an unexpected or surprising event that happened in the past. To account for the present-tense morphology, I propose that the conversational backgrounds – and in particular the ordering source defining the set of expectations of the conversation participants – can be indexed to the present time. I finally explore the hypothesis that the mirative use of this construction can shed light on the development of the Catalan go-past.
Keywords: motion verb, mirativity, conventional implicature, grammaticalization, Sicilian, Catalan, pseudo-coordination, surprise, unexpectedness
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Doubly Inflected Construction in Sicilian
  • 3.Surprise with functional go: Crosslinguistic evidence
  • 4.Mirative DIC: Analysis
    • 4.1The mirative implicature
    • 4.2The fake tense
  • 5.Further discussion
    • 5.1Modal shift to the past
    • 5.2Past beyond the implicature
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 March 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.274.05cru
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