Cover not available
Part of
Crossroads Semantics: Computation, experiment and grammar
Edited by Hilke Reckman, Lisa Lai-Shen Cheng, Maarten Hijzelendoorn and Rint Sybesma
[Not in series 210] 2017
► pp. 263–279

Chapter 16
Between desire and necessity

The complementarity of want and need

| Leiden University

In this paper, I relate three seemingly unrelated properties of the modal verb want that distinguish it from the semantically minimally different verb need. I show that these properties are determined by a single selectional characteristic that involves the evidential notions of perspective or evaluation. I argue that these notions must be configurationally represented, and that their properties can be couched in Binding theoretic principles. In addition, I show that uses of want expressing necessity and probability rather than desirability can be derived from this syntactic representation.

Keywords: modal, desirability, necessity, Binding, Speaker, perspective, evaluation, English, Dutch
Article outline
  • 1.Three properties distinguishing need from want
    • 1.1Selection
    • 1.2Raising vs. control
    • 1.3Want as need/*need as want
    • 1.4Grammaticalization?
    • 1.5Towards an analysis
  • 2.A raising configuration for want and need
  • 3.The syntactic and semantic representation of want and need
  • 4.From desirability to apparent necessity
  • 5.From desirability to probability
  • 6.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 12 April 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.210.16roo
References

References

Borer, Hagit
1989 Anaphoric AGR. In Osvaldo Jaeggli & Kenneth Safir (eds.), The null subject parameter, 69–110. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins & William Pagliuca
1994 The evolution of grammar: Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Burzio, Luigi
1992 On the morphology of reflexives and impersonals. In Christine Laeufer and Terrell Morgan (eds.), Theoretical analyses in Romance linguistics, LSRL XIX, 399–414. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo
1999 Adverbs and functional heads: A cross-linguistic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Giorgi, A.
2010 About the speaker: towards a syntax of indexicality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kayne, Richard
1993 Toward a modular theory of auxiliary selection. Studia Linguistica 47. 3–31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Larson, Richard, Marcel den Dikken & Peter Ludlow
1996 Intensional ‘transitive’ verbs and concealed complement clauses. Rivista di linguistica 8. 29–46.Google Scholar
Rooryck, Johan
2000 Configurations of sentential complementation. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2001a State of the article: Evidentiality, part I. Glot International 5(4). 125–133.Google Scholar
2001b State of the article: Evidentiality, part II. Glot International 5(5). 161–168.Google Scholar
Rooryck, Johan & Guido Vanden Wyngaerd
2011 Dissolving Binding theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ross, John Robert
1976 To have have and to not have have. In M. Jazayery, E. Polomé, & W. Winter (eds), Linguistic and literary studies in honor of Archibald Hill, 263–270. Lisse: De Ridder.Google Scholar
Ruwet, Nicolas
1984 Je veux partir – * Je veux que je parte. A propos de la distribution des complétives à temps fini et des compléments à l’infinitif en français. Cahiers de Grammaire 7. 76–138.Google Scholar
Speas, Peggy & Carol Tenny
2003 Configurational properties of point of view roles. In A. di Sciullo (ed.), Asymmetry in grammar, 315–344. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar