The Structure of Temporality and Modality

(or, Towards deriving something like a Cinque Hierarchy)

Jonny Butler | University of Stuttgart

This paper offers a view of clause structure based on semantic interpretability, focusing on the structure and interpretation of temporal (tense, aspect) and modal elements. It proposes that modality has a unitary lexical semantics along the lines of Krater (1977 et seq), with different interpretations of modals deriving from the interaction of that semantics with the interpretation of the temporal elements in the structural context the modals are found. Different positions for modal interpretation are proposed, corresponding the the edges of phases (Chomsky 2001). Evidence for this view is put forward from various languages. The clause structure so derived is akin to the universal clausal hierarchy proposed by Cinque (1999), lending support to the notion that something like this hierarchy does indeed hold in natural language, though the justification for it is very different.

Keywords: modality, tense, ambiguity, syntax–sematics interface

Published online: 11 May 2007
https://doi.org/10.1075/livy.6.08but

Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Newmeyer, Frederick J.

2017. In Formal Models in the Study of Language, ► pp. 49 ff.

Newmeyer, Frederick J.

2019. The Sign Theory of Language and the form-meaning interface / La Théorie du langage basée sur le signe et l’interface forme-sens. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 64:02 ► pp. 171 ff.

Ramchand, Gillian & Peter Svenonius

2014. Deriving the functional hierarchy. Language Sciences 46 ► pp. 152 ff.

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