Publications

Publication details [#10605]

Cushing, Steven. 1991. Explaining a missing modal meaning: Ideology and paradigm as pragmatic parameters. In [no author]. Levels of linguistic adaptation. Selected papers of the International Pragmatics Conference, Antwerp, August 17-22, 1987, vol. 2. John Benjamins. pp. 19–31.

Publication type

Article in book

Publication language

English

Keywords

belief | expectation | modal verb | pragmatic function

Language as a subject

English

Annotation

C. argues that understanding English sentences containing the modal auxiliaries 'must', 'ought', 'can', and their equivalents, involves pragmatic considerations of expectation and belief, rather than, as most theories assume, semantic considerations of necessity and possibility.