Modality in grammar and discourse / edited by Joan Bybee, Suzanne Fleischman.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Bybee, Joan L.

Fleischman, Suzanne.

Series:

Typological studies in language ; v. 32.

Typological studies in language, 0167-7373 ; v. 32

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Modality (Linguistics)--Congresses.

Modality (Linguistics).

Grammar, Comparative and general--Mood--Congresses.

Grammar, Comparative and general.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (584 p.)

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : J. Benjamins, c1995.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

This volume brings together a collection of 18 papers that look into the expression of modality in the grammars of natural languages, with an emphasis on its manifestations in naturally occurring discourse. Though the individual contributions reflect a diversity of languages, of synchronic and diachronic foci, and of theoretical orientations - all within the broad domain of functional linguistics - they nonetheless converge around a number of key issues: the relationship between 'mood' and 'modality'; the delineation of modal categories and their nomenclature; the grounding of modality in inte

Contents:

MODALITY IN GRAMMAR AND DISCOURSE; Editorial page; Title page; Copyright page; To the memory of Dwight Bolinger; Table of contents; Modality in Grammar and Discourse An Introductory Essay; I. Agent-Oriented and Epistemic Modality; Agent-Oriented vs. Epistemic Modality Some Observations on German Modals; The Expression of Root and Epistemic Possibility in English; Contextual Conditions for the Interpretation of 'poder' and 'deber' in Spanish; The Obligation Modality in Western Nilotic Languages; The Gestural Expression of Modality in ASL; II. The Interaction Basis of Modality

The Development of Epistemic Sentence-ending Modal Forms and Functions in Korean ChildrenThe Interactional Basis of the Mandarin Modal néng 'CAN'; The Discourse and Interactive Functions of Obligation Expressions; Apprehensional Epistemics; Moods and MetaMessages. Alienation as a Mood; III. Irrealis Modality and Subjunctive; The Realis-Irrealis Distinction in Caddo, the Northern Iroquoian Languages, and English; On the Relativity of Irreality; The Grammaticalization of Irrealis in Tok Pisin; The Evaluative Function of the Spanish Subjunctive; IV. Modality and Other Categories of Grammar

Negation and the Modals of Possibility and NecessityA Functional Theory of Complementizers; The Semantic Development of Past Tense Modals in English; Imperfective and Irrealis; Index of subjects; Index of languages; Author Index; The series Typological Studies in Language

Notes:

Papers from a symposium on Mood and modality held at the University of New Mexico in 1992.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN:

1-283-46942-1

9786613469427

90-272-2926-0

90-272-8572-1

OCLC:

714568551