Part of
Corpus Approaches to Grammaticalization in EnglishEdited by Hans Lindquist and Christian Mair
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 13] 2004
► pp. 57–78
Edited by Hans Lindquist and Christian Mair
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 13] 2004
► pp. 57–78
The semantic path from modality to aspect
be able to in a cross-linguistic perspective
Ability has a number of lexical sources including dynamic, telic verbs of various sorts. For example, manage to, a verb implying that there were difficulties to overcome can come to mean ‘ability’, a development which has parallels in other languages. In this paper translations into Swedish are used as a window to show that can, be able to and manage to are closely related to each other. It is argued that in grammaticalisation studies of modality one has paid a lot of attention to ‘ability’ as a source for deontic and epistemic meanings but neglected its relevance as a source for the development to an aktionsart meaning associated with actuality and result.
Cited by
Cited by 9 other publications
Besnard, Anne-Laure
2017. BE likely to and BE expected to, epistemic modality or evidentiality?. In Evidentiality Revisited [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 271], ► pp. 249 ff. 
Brinton, Laurel J. & Elizabeth Closs Traugott
2005. Lexicalization and Language Change,
Hacquard, Valentine
2020. Actuality Entailments. In The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Semantics, ► pp. 1 ff.
Janda, Laura A., Anna Endresen, Valentina Zhukova, Daria Mordashova & Ekaterina Rakhilina
Kuteva, Tania, Bernd Heine, Bo Hong, Haiping Long, Heiko Narrog & Seongha Rhee
2019. World Lexicon of Grammaticalization,
Lach Mirghani, Katarzyna
2020. Selected aspects of the conceptualisation of success in English and Polish. Crossroads. A Journal of English Studies :31(4) ► pp. 109 ff.
Leclercq, Benoît
LECLERCQ, BENOÎT & ILSE DEPRAETERE
2022. Making meaning withbe able to: modality and actualisation. English Language and Linguistics 26:1 ► pp. 27 ff.
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs
2011. Modality from a Historical Perspective. Language and Linguistics Compass 5:6 ► pp. 381 ff.
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