Modality–Aspect Interfaces

Implications and typological solutions

Editors

Werner Abraham

| University of Vienna

Elisabeth Leiss

| University of Munich

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027229922 | EUR 110.00 | USD 165.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027290199 | EUR 110.00 | USD 165.00

The main topics pursued in this volume are based on empirical insights derived from Germanic: logical and typological dispositions about aspect-modality links. These are probed in a variety of non-related languages. The logically establishable links are the following: Modal verbs are aspect sensitive in the selection of their infinitival complements – embedded infinitival perfectivity implies root modal reading, whereas embedded infinitival imperfectivity triggers epistemic readings. However, in marked contexts such as negated ones, the aspectual affinities of modal verbs are neutralized or even subject to markedness inversion. All of this suggests that languages that do not, or only partially, bestow upon full modal verb paradigms seek to express modal variations in terms of their aspect oppositions. This typological tenet is investigated in a variety of languages from Indo-European (German, Slavic, Armenian), African, Asian, Amerindian, and Creoles. Seeming deviations and idiosyncrasies in the interaction between aspect and modality turn out to be highly rule-based.

[Typological Studies in Language, 79] 2008. xxiv, 422 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.79

Table of Contents

List of contributors	vii–viii
Preface	ix
Introduction: Aspect-modality interfaces and interchanges across languages Werner Abraham and Elisabeth Leiss	xi–xxiv
General	1
On the logic of generalizations about cross-linguistic aspect-modality links Werner Abraham	3–13
The silent and aspect-driven patterns of deonticity and epistemicity: A chapter in diachronic typology Elisabeth Leiss	15–41
Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English Debra Ziegeler	43–79
Towards an understanding of the progressive form in English: The Imperative as a heuristic tool Zygmunt Frajzyngier, Marion Bond, Lori Heintzelman, Dan Keller, Saeko Ogihara and Erin Shay	81–96
Epistemic modality and aspect contingency in Armenian, Russian, and German Stella Gevorgyan-Ninness	97–115
Slavic	117
Indefiniteness and imperfectivity as micro-grammatical contexts of epistemicity in German-Slovene translations Carmen Terzan Kopecky	119–145
The connections between modality, aspectuality, and temporality in Modern Russian Wladimir D. Klimonov and Gerda Klimonov	147–173
Aspectual coercion in Bulgarian negative imperatives Milena Kuehnast	175–196
Russian modals možet 'can' and dolžen 'must' selecting the imperfective in negative contexts Elena Padučeva	197–211
African	213
Tense, mood, and aspect in Gungbe (Kwa) Enoch Oladé Aboh and Fabrice Nauze	215–239
The modal system of the Igbo language Chinedu Uchechekwu	241–276
Asian	277
The aspect-modality link in the Japanese verbal complex and beyond Heiko Narrog	279–307
The aspect-modality link in Japanese: The case of the evaluating sentence Shin Tanaka	309–327
Amerindian	329
The Lakota aspect/modality markers -kinica and tkhá Regina Pustet	331–355
Creole	357
A note on modality and aspect in Saramaccan Heiko Narrog	359–368
Diachronic	369
Aspects of a reconstruction of form and function of modal verbs in Germanic and other languages Michail L. Kotin	371–384
The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German Jakob Maché	385–415
Index of authors	417–418
Index of subjects	419–422

Cited by

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2020. In Perfects in Indo-European Languages and Beyond [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 352],

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2020. Possibility and necessity and the scope of negation in Early Middle Chinese. International Journal of Chinese Linguistics 7:1

Abraham, Werner & Jadwiga Piskorz

2014. In Modes of Modality [Studies in Language Companion Series, 149], ► pp. 409 ff.

Ayoun, Dalila, Agnès Celle & Laure Lansari

2018. In Tense, Aspect, Modality, and Evidentiality [Studies in Language Companion Series, 197], ► pp. 1 ff.

Bucciarelli, Paola, Ramona Bongelli, Andrzej Zuczkowski, Sibilla Cantarini & Christine Berthold

2014. In Communicating Certainty and Uncertainty in Medical, Supportive and Scientific Contexts [Dialogue Studies, 25], ► pp. 341 ff.

Endo, Yoshio

2020. In Information-Structural Perspectives on Discourse Particles [Studies in Language Companion Series, 213], ► pp. 224 ff.

Lokmane, Ilze & Andra Kalnača

2014. In Modes of Modality [Studies in Language Companion Series, 149], ► pp. 167 ff.

Magni, Elisabetta

2017. In Mots de liaison et d'intégration [Lingvisticæ Investigationes Supplementa, 34], ► pp. 103 ff.

Meisterernst, Barbara

2016. The syntax of aspecto-temporal adverbs from Late Archaic to Early Medieval Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 25:2 ► pp. 143 ff.

Meisterernst, Barbara

2017. Modality and aspect and the thematic role of the subject in Late Archaic and Han period Chinese: obligation and necessity. Lingua Sinica 3:1

Meisterernst, Barbara

2019. In New Perspectives on Aspect and Modality in Chinese Historical Linguistics [Frontiers in Chinese Linguistics, 5], ► pp. 159 ff.

Szymański, Leszek

2019. The semantic field of the English modal auxiliary can interacting with the grammatical aspect of the main verb in Contemporary American English. Brno studies in English :1 ► pp. [75] ff.

Uchechukwu, Chinedu

2014. In Modes of Modality [Studies in Language Companion Series, 149], ► pp. 485 ff.

Zeman, Sonja

2014. In Modes of Modality [Studies in Language Companion Series, 149], ► pp. 457 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 02 may 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

Linguistics

Syntax

Semantics

Typology

Theoretical linguistics

BIC Subject: CFG – Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis

BISAC Subject: LAN009000 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General

U.S. Library of Congress Control Number: 2008014371