Modality-Aspect Interfaces
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Volume 79 Modality-Aspect Interfaces. Implications and typological solutions Edited by Werner Abraham and Elisabeth Leiss
Modality-Aspect Interfaces Implications and typological solutions
Edited by
Werner Abraham University of Vienna
Elisabeth Leiss University of Munich
John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia
8
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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Modality-aspect interfaces : implications and typological solutions / edited by Werner Abraham and Elisabeth Leiss. p. cm. (Typological Studies in Language, issn 0167-7373 ; v. 79) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Modality (Linguistics) 2. Grammar, Comparative and general--Aspect. 3. Typology (Linguistics) I. Abraham, Werner. II. Leiss, Elisabeth. P299.M6M638 2008 415'.6--dc22 isbn 978 90 272 2992 2 (Hb; alk. paper)
2008014371
© 2008 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
Table of contents
List of contributors
vii
Preface
ix
Introduction Werner Abraham & Elisabeth Leiss
xi
General On the logic of generalizations about cross-linguistic aspect-modality links Werner Abraham The silent and aspect-driven patterns of deonticity and epistemicity: A chapter in diachronic typology Elisabeth Leiss Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English Debra Ziegeler Towards an understanding of the progressive form in English: The Imperative as a heuristic tool Zygmunt Frajzyngier with Marion Bond, Lori Heintzelman, Dan Keller, Saeko Ogihara, and Erin Shay Epistemic modality and aspect contingency in Armenian, Russian, and German Stella Gevorgyan-Ninness
3
15 43
81
97
Slavic Indefiniteness and imperfectivity as micro-grammatical contexts of epistemicity in German-Slovene translations Carmen Teržan Kopecky
119
The connections between modality, aspectuality, and temporality in Modern Russian Vladimir D. Klimonov & Gerda Klimonov
147
Table of contents
Aspectual coercion in Bulgarian negative imperatives Milena Kuehnast Russian modals možet ‘can’ and dolžen ‘must’ selecting the imperfective in negative contexts Elena Padučeva
175
197
African Tense, mood, and aspect in Gungbe (Kwa) Enoch O. Aboh & Fabrice Nauze
215
The Modal System of the Igbo language Chinedu Uchechukwu
241
Asian The Aspect-Modality Link in the Japanese verbal complex and beyond Heiko Narrog
279
The Aspect-Modality Link in Japanese: The case of the evaluating sentence Shin Tanaka
309
Amerindian The Lakota aspect/modality markers -kinica and tkhá Regina Pustet
331
Creole A note on modality and aspect in Saramaccan Heiko Narrog
359
Diachronic Aspects of a reconstruction of form and function of modal verbs in Germanic and other languages Michail L. Kotin
371
The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German Jakob Maché
385
Index of authors
417
Index of subjects
419
List of contributors Enoch O. Aboh General Linguistics, Languages and Literature Faculty of Humanities University of Amsterdam, Spuistraat 210 NL-1012 VT Amsterdam
[email protected]
Michail L. Kotin University of Zielona Gora/Grünberg Lehrstuhl für Geschichte und Dialektologie der deutschen Sprache Aleja Woska Polskiego 71 A PL-65-001 Zielona Gora, Poland
[email protected]
Werner Abraham Germanistische Linguistik University of München home: Lindwurmstraße 120c D-80337 München
[email protected]
Milena Kuehnast Centre for General Linguistics, Typology and Universals Research (ZAS) Schützenstr. 18, 10117 Berlin, Germany
[email protected]
Zygmunt Frajzyngier University of Colorado, Boulder Department of Linguistics, Box 295 CO 80309-0295 Office: Hellems 296
[email protected] Stella Gevorgyan-Ninness 227 S. Melville Street Philadelphia, PA 19139, USA
[email protected] Gerda Klimonow Plauener Str. 66 D-13055 Berlin
[email protected] Wladimir Klimonow Fischerinsel 04/06-07 D-10179 Berlin
[email protected] Carmen Teržan Kopecky University of Maribor Faculty of Arts 2000 Maribor Koroška 160 Slovenia
[email protected]
Elisabeth Leiss Germanistische Linguistik Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Schellingstraße 3/RG D-80799 München, Germany
[email protected] Jakob Maché Institut für Deutsche und Niederländische Philologie, Freie Universität Berlin Habelschwerdter Allee 45 14195 BERLIN
[email protected] Heiko Narrog GSICS, Tohoku University Kawauchi 41, Aoba-ku Sendai JAPAN 980-8576
[email protected] Fabrice Nauze General Linguistics, Languages and Literature Faculty of Humanities University of Amsterdam Nieuwe Doelenstraat 15 NL-1012 VT Amsterdam
[email protected]
List of contributors Elena Padučeva Russian Academy of Science at Moscow 125080 Moscow Alabjana 10 kv. 168
[email protected] Regina Pustet Ringstrasse 8 D-82234 Wessling, Germany
[email protected] Shin Tanaka Chiba University Yayoicho 1-33 263-8522 Chiba, Japan
[email protected]
Chinedu Uchechukwu Departement für Germanistik Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Schellingstraße 3/RG D-80799 München, Germany
[email protected] Debra Ziegeler Dept. of English Language and Literature National University of Singapore 10, Kent Ridge Crescent Singapore 119260
[email protected],
[email protected]
Preface The main bulk of papers included in this volume goes back to a selection of contribu tions to the workshop about “Cross-linguistic aspect/Aktionsart-modality links” held at the 39th Annual Meeting of the Societas Europaea Linguistica at Bremen, 30 August – 2 September 2006. The following papers were solicited outside the workshop: by Aboh & Nauzé and by Uchechekwu on two African languages, by Frajzyngier and his collaborators, and by Kühnast. Narrog’s paper on Saramaccan was not read at the workshop. Sonja Zeman (Munich) provided invaluable help in formatting and finalizing work for this volume.
Introduction Werner Abraham & Elisabeth Leiss
University of Vienna/University of Munich Opening the central literature on modality and its logic and semantics in core and hyphen linguistics (see, among many others, von Wright 1951, 1968; Hughes & Cresswell 1968; Link 1976; Kratzer 1981, 1991; Frawley (Ed.) 2007; Kaufmann et al. 2007) one looks in vain for such links with aspect as presented in the five generalizations listed and discussed briefly below and in great detail in the present book. Nor has this
. Hacquard (2006) is indeed concerned with the link that we have made the center of our attention in the present book, thus presenting an exception to our claim above. However, while claiming such an interaction between aspect and modality, her results gained primarily from Modern French do not crystallize in ways as systematic as those that we pursue both semanticlogically and cross-linguistically. Hacquard detects modal flavors being primarily triggered by modal epistemics, deontics, and a series of circumstantial ones. These circumstantial ones include abilities, as in Jane can lift this table; pure circumstantials, as in hydrangeas can grow here; and goal-oriented ones, as in Jane can take the train to go to Paris. Goal-oriented modality involves a circumstantial modal base: The circumstances include things such as the train schedule, the fact that there are rail tracks from here to Paris, etc. The set of accessible worlds is further restricted to those in which Jane reaches her goal of going to Paris: In some world compatible with certain facts of the actual world and where Jane goes to Paris, Jane takes the train in it. One of Hacquard’s illustrations to her claims (from p. 38) is the following [pfv = perfective; impf = imperfective]: (38) a. b.
Jane a pu prendre le train pour aller à Londres, #mais elle a pris l’avion. Jane could-pfv take the train to go to London, #but she took the plane. Jane pouvait prendre le train pour aller à Londres, mais elle a pris l’avion. Jane could-impf take the train to go to London, but she took the plane.
(39) a. b.
Jane a dû prendre le train pour aller à Londres, #mais elle a pris l’avion. Jane must-pfv take the train to go to London, #but she took the plane. Jane devait prendre le train pour aller à Londres, mais elle a pris l’avion. Jane must-impf take the train to go to London, but she took the plane.
The above examples relate the possibility and the necessity of taking the train, given Jane’s goal to go to London. With perfective morphology, both the possibility (38a) and the necessity (39a) modals require that Jane took the train in the actual world, whereas with imperfective, neither of them do. For our assumptions why the empirical path via French can hardly lead to a comparable systematicity, see the end of this introduction.
Werner Abraham & Elisabeth Leiss
topic been touched upon by typological linguistics (see de Haan 2007; Munroe 2007), let alone L-acquisition (Choi 2007, with the notable exception of Hyams 2005), diachronic linguistics (Traugott 2007), or Sign Language (Wilcox & Shaffer 2007). The central assumptions and a priori generalizations pursued in this volume, although focusing on languages from each continent, are based on empirical insights derived (Indo-) Eurocentrically to a certain degree – i.e., a fortiori with an eye on Indo-European languages. In particular, the notion of aspect in the cross-linguistic discussion is subject to the Slavic view as employed generally by typologically unbiased linguists (cf. Lehmann 1988, 1999; Leiss 2000a: 123; see for an overview (in which aspect and aktionsart are seen conspectively) Breu 2008). From this view the following logical deductions were made.
1. Th e logical disposition about the aspect-modality link: The Aspect-Modality Interface Generalizations (AMIGs)
Aspect-Modality Interface Generalization/AMIG I: “Perfectivity-Root Modality Convergence Generalization”
There is a close semantic convergence between root modals and perfective aspect to the extent that both have two phases for the computation of event veridicality: Root modals have the configuration as in (4a) below, with the second phase for the projected event to actualize, whereas Perfectives are bi-phasic as in (3a), with an incremental and a resultant phase, which are mutually implicative.
Aspect-Modality Interface Generalization/AMIG II: “Imperfectivity-Epistemicity Convergence Generalization”
Let the aspectual perfectivity, PERF, meaning be carried by the following eventlogical relation, in which the subevents of Y, e and f, are in mutual implication with some other subevents of Y, i and t. Thus, there exists non-homogeneity between the intervals in event Y and their subintervals:
(i) ∀Y [e⊆t → ∀f⊆e . ∃i⊆t(Y(e, f) ↔ Y(t, i))].
This confirms the mutual implication between e and t (as spelled out by (3a) and (4a) below). Based on this, the aspect meaning carried by imperfectivity, IMPF, is the negation of the consequent as in (ii), i.e., where the non-homogeneity of the subevents, e and t as well as f and i is refuted:
(ii) ∀Y [e⊆t → ¬∀f⊆e . ∃i⊆t(Y(e, f) ↔ Y(t, i))].
In the semantics of IMPF in (ii), the consequent of the conditional is negated. The result is that a verb in the IMPF says that, once [e⊆t] holds – i.e., the event e is a sub-element of the viewer’s temporal reach, t –, not all relations holding between
Introduction
events and sub-events have analogues between the temporal location interval and its subintervals. Since epistemic modality is satisfied for states and ongoing-continuing homogeneous events, there is a strong convergence between epistemics and imperfectives.
Aspect-Modality Interface Generalization/AMIG III: “Negation-Imperfectivity Convergence Generalization”
Clausal Neg + Perfectivity yields Imperfectivity on grounds of the Perfective twophasicness reducing to one-phasicness under negation, which has to be Imperfective (given that one-phasicness excludes mutual phase implication in bi-phasicness). These three generalizations purport the following link. See (1).
(1) Modal verbs are aspect sensitive as regards their infinitival complement – embedded infinitival perfectivity implies root modal readings, whereas embedded infinitival imperfectivity (and sentence negation) triggers epistemic readings.
More concretely, this is what underlies (1) above. (2) a. Perfective aspect is compatible (‘‘converges strongly’’) with root modality. b. Imperfective aspect is compatible (‘‘converges strongly’’) with epistemic modality. c. Negated clauses as a rule select imperfective aspect only, without necessarily yielding epistemic modality.
(2a–c) are not undisputed in the literature. First, as noted by Paducheva (2008, this volume), the selection of imperfective aspect in negated clauses is blocked, albeit always functionally motivated. Especially, epistemic necessity as well as epistemic possibility do not licence the imperfective regularly in negated clauses. The perfective in the affirmative sentence remains untouched under negation. As demonstrated by Paducheva, epistemic necessity obviously is the only kind of necessity for which the negation is never accompanied by a shift from perfective to imperfective aspect. Note that these so-called exceptions are nothing but marked selections of aspect in strongly marked modality contexts. Furthermore, (2a, b) are relativized by Klimonov & Klimonov (in this volume), who illustrate that perfective aspect in Russian may be compatible with epistemic modality and that (2b) does not hold with absolute regularity. Let us first address the basic question in (2a), “perfective aspect is compatible with root modality”. The following distinction in terms of event structure is from Abraham (1990). See (3a, b). (3) a.
terminative (in)transitive verbs: die and kill, respectively: eΘ, iΘ
iΘ
| > > > >> > >|-----------------| t1 E1 tm E2 tn
… eΘ = external role, iΘ = internal semantic role
Werner Abraham & Elisabeth Leiss
b.
eΘ, iΘ
eΘ, iΘ
… eΘ = external role, iΘ = internal semantic role
|~~~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~| t1 E1 tm E2 tn
Key: t1, tm, tn are points on the temporal axis representing the event. The event structure of terminative verbs is biphasic containing an approach/incremental phase as well as a resultative phase (∀tx:x,(1–n) ((t1 – tm) (E1) ↔ (tm – tn) (E2)); tm is a referential point belonging to both event phases simultaneously, E1 as well as E2. On the other hand, the event structure of non-terminative verbs is mono-phasic: ∀tx:x,(1-n) ((t1 – tm) (E1) ¬↔ (tm – tn) (E2)), or more precisely, ∀tx:x,(1–n) ((t1 – tm)(E1) = (tm – tn)(E2)). Note the similarity with the bi-phasic event structure for deontics below in (3a) above.
(4) a.
DMV/control-V:
b. argument/A match:
|→→→→→|--------------| ¬E t1 tm E tn A(t1) ∩…∩A(tm)
c. event/E identification: t1(¬E)∩…∩tm(¬E)∩tm(E)∩… ∩tn(E); i.e., tm has the event characteristic of the approach/incremental phase as well as that of the resultative, or achievement, phase. DMVs are projective in the sense that truth-functionality holds not until in the future. d. EMV/raising-V:
|∼∼∼∼∼∼∼∼|∼∼∼∼∼∼∼∼∼| t1 tm tn
2. The cross-linguistic extension What is the typological transfer of (1–4)? Do (1–4) carry over to languages without modal verbs? Keep in mind that the existence of a lexical-morphological paradigm of modal verbs such as the German one is unique to Germanic and is not – despite the fact that there are solitary modal verbs in Romance and non-IE languages – represented in most other languages. How are the modal meanings present in Germanic given expression in other languages? The following assumption is due to Leiss (2000b, 2002a, b, c).
(5) In the absence of modal verbs, aspect fills the expressive gap.
There is some plausibility to this typological assumption given two empirical data. The first is that modal verbs were originally preterit presents – i.e., perfect forms with present meanings. In general, perfects developed out of perfectives (Comrie 1985), with perfect tensing restricted to perfective verbs in the inceptive phase of the diachronic development, whereas imperfect tenses could be formed only from imperfective predicates. It is also most clearly evidenced by Latin (where an ‘‘imperfective’’ tense paradigm existed next to the ‘‘perfective’’, both synthetic tense paradigms). The second reason immediately to be pursued empirically is the fact that modals are projective verbs – i.e., their veridicality is judged for some event in the future. This is in line
Introduction
with the Slavic perfective which tenses as future in its present tense use. See Abraham (in this volume). It is not beyond this issue that the Latin perfect tense – not, however, the imperfect tense – was used for narrative chaining as much as the (perfective) Aorist in Classical Greek – much akin to the Passé simple in Modern French and other Romance languages, with the Passé simple in clear aspectual opposition with the Imparfait used for narrative backgrounding only. See Abraham (2008) for such interconnections across languages. However, the question how the 6–7 distinct root modalities of the German(ic) modal verbs unwind from the modal proto-mass (represented, for example, in Middle High German by just two modal lexicals with a denotation spread that covers all 6 of the modern MVs) remains unaccounted for and is in need of explanation – pertaining far more so to modal meanings transferred from aspectual forms. An approximation may be yielded by looking more carefully at the modality-aspect cline from East (Slavic) to West (Slavic) and German, as in the following section.
3. The typological aspect-modality inversion Assume two more generalizations. The first one bears on areal diffusion between a lexical paradigm of modal verbs of the German(ic) distinctive quality and an aspectual paradigmatic opposition in the Russian sense. The second one pertains to whether or not perfectivity works retrojectively or projectively. To understand this, we have to be alert to the typological observation and generalization that perfectivity normally is incompatible with present time reference. For this reason, the perfective present regularly functions as a non-present tense, i.e., either with future reference (prospective use of perfective aspect) or with past reference (retrospective use), according to the terminology of Ultan (1978). The assumption is that only languages with a prospective tense system, or projective perfectivity, are able to develop modal verbs, whereas languages with retrospective perfectives do not. See Abraham (1999) for a principled discussion. Interestingly enough, languages with retrospective tense systems, such as the Amerindian languages, tend to develop evidentials instead of epistemic modal verbs. We assume that this correlation is worth further investigation as soon as the above generalizations turn out to be solid enough to serve as a starting point for extended typological generalizations.
Typological Aspect-Modality Interface Generalization/AMIG IV: “Typological Aspect-Modality Divergence Generalization”
There is a division of labor between paradigmatically fixed verbal modality of the German(ic) systematicity (based essentially on the principled pairing of root and (Continued)
Werner Abraham & Elisabeth Leiss
Continued
Typological Aspect-Modality Interface Generalization/AMIG IV: “Typological Aspect-Modality Divergence Generalization”
epistemic readings, aspectual contingency, and coherent syntactic constituency) and aspectual paradigmaticity (based on the principled perfective-imperfective lexical pairing, on morphological perfective derivation, and on secondary morphological imperfectivization as in most Slavic languages). This relation has an inverse character. Given this generalization, one may expect an areal diffusion between multimember lexical paradigm of modal verbs of the German(ic) distinctive quality, on the one hand, and an aspectual paradigmatic opposition in the Russian/Slavic sense, with the East of the Slavia representing the (near-)aspect-only expression of modality and an aspectual decline towards the West across Polish, Czech, and the Germanic languages. Notice that the aspectual Romance languages (Passé simple vs. Imparfait as in French) have at most two modal verbs none of which shares the accompanying systematic properties (systematic root plus epistemic readings; origo shifting properties in the Peircean and Jakobsonian sense; true evidentiality quite outside of modal epistemicity) of the German(ic) ones. It will be crucial to see whether or not, and, if, to what extent, the predicted cline between the inverted proportion of aspect classification and modal paradigmaticity can be verified. A lot will depend on the question whether the strict aspectuality gives way to temporal composites of the German type (periphrastic past): The more the temporality in terms of HAVE/BE + morphological Anterior intrudes in a language, the weaker the secondary perfective predicativity will turn out to be (cf. whether be + past participle is understood as a temporal past or perfective-resultative state).
Typological Aspect-Modality Interface Generalization/AMIG V: “Prospective vs. Retrospective Aspect Constraint”
This generalization constrains the validity of Generalizations I–IV to prospective tense systems. The generalization pertains to whether or not perfectivity works retrospectively or prospectively. The assumption (being inspired be Ultan’s distinction between retrospective and prospective tense systems; see Ultan 1978) is that only languages with prospective tense system, or projective perfectivity, are able to develop modal verbs (“not-now being futural”), whereas languages with retrospective perfectives (“not-now being past”) do not. Plausibly, there are mixed linguistic types such that there are languages with only one fully inflecting modal verb and a full-fledged aspect system (such as Russian), and
Introduction
others further west with more lexical modals and a weaker aspect system, eventually reaching the opposite typological pole with the Germanic languages, the only ones with full paradigms and morphological inflection of modal verbs (both with root and epistemic readings). A major portion in the discussion in the book will be devoted to those languages which obtain this middle role between the aspectless west with verbal modal paradigms and the modal poverty of the aspect-rich east. A crucial aspect will also be whether such observations stand the test of cross-linguistic validity. Thus, a selection of Asian as well as African languages will be subjected to the assumptions expressed by the first three Aspect-Modality Interface Generalizations.
4. Results of the empirical discussions in the present volume The following relates to confirmations of “Aspect-Modality Interface Generalization/ AMIG I: Perfectivity-Root Modality Convergence Generalization” as well as “AspectModality Interface Generalization II: Imperfectivity-Epistemicity Convergence Generalization”: Verbal aspect (in Russian) does not just express inherent aspectual meanings, it also plays a crucial role in the composition of temporal and modal meanings. However, there appear to exist certain contingencies that relativize these generalizations.
4.1 General contingencies Relational predictability by the A(spect)-T(ense)-M(odality) Hierarchy assumes that aspect form gives way to tense form, which in turn gives way to modal form, each time given that the default form is forfeited under marked context distribution: the profounder motivation for ‘‘ATM’’. The links between aspect and modality as observed to hold, with a more than frequency chance, in German and other West and North Germanic languages are subject to markedness influences to the extent that those linking generalizations may be under demise in the context of a set of well-defined exceptions to the default contexts (Leiss 2000b, 2002c; Abraham, in this volume). There are other restrictions to the general claims to the claimed affinities between deontic readings of modals and perfective aspect, on the one hand, and epistemic readings of modals and imperfective aspect, on the other hand, given a fine-tuning of the classification of modals where generic readings of modals are not classified as typical modal roots, but as a different class of modals with different aspectual selections. Generic uses, thus, may, or, rather, often are the sources of root/deontic/future projecting modality, both in synchrony and diachrony (Leiss as well as Ziegeler, both in this volume).
Werner Abraham & Elisabeth Leiss
It is important to see, from the very start of the discussion, that modal adverbs are functionally not equivalent to epistemic modals and, possibly also, to other inflective modal expressions as in German (Leiss) and African languages (Uchechukwu). Modal adverbs lack the feature of double displacement (shifting property in the sense of Peirce or Jakobson), which is essential for the definition of epistemic modals. The cross-linguistic functional equivalent of the Germanic epistemic modals is the paradigm of evidentials. Just as with epistemic modals, true paradigmatically organised evidentials involve systematically different sources of the reported information. All other similarities between evidentials and epistemics (such as English seem/threaten, German scheinen/drohen) are too superficial to warrant unification.
4.2 Illocutive category and aspect: Interrelations and pragmatic inferences The core goal of the present book is an exploration into the meaning of a grammatical form and the proofs of its meaning. Within this central scope, it is essential to identify the categorialities of aspectual, temporal, and modal forms. In this context, it is beyond expectation that certain aspect categories, such as the “progressive aspect” in English and other Indo-European languages, have no imperative form and function. Thus, one may assume (Frajzyngier et al.) that the primary function of the progressive form in English is not that of indicating the internal structure of the event (i.e., aspect), but rather of coding the clause as pragmatically dependent upon other propositions or time references. In a similar vein, paradigmatically inflected negative imperatives (as in Bulgarian; discussed by Kühnast) coerce distinct aspectual construals in dependence of their pragmatic-illocutive functions: the imperfective present in prohibitives, different from the future interpretation in preventives. The rise of modal inferences from propositional aspect under the alignment of deontic modality with perfective lexical aspect and epistemic modality with imperfective lexical aspect may even be seen under an interaction between lexical sources and propositional associations (Ziegeler) in view of generic sub-categories. The sources of the root/ deontic modal inferences begin to appear in a normative generic type expressing social or moral duty. Root/deontic modality thus emerges out of an environment in which perfective lexical aspect is already a necessary feature of the original source context.
4.3 Typologically solid confirmation: Synchronic references Modality and aspect contingencies of the sketched properties are observed in Armenian, Russian, and German (by Gevorgyan-Ninness), with Armenian and Russian languages with strongly developed aspect and German with evenly distributed Aktionsarten and propositional aspect contingencies. German-Slovene translations (Teržan Kopecky) confirm indefiniteness and imperfectivity to be effective as microgrammatical contexts of epistemicity.
Introduction
Thus, both the hypothesis about a strong collocation tendency between epistemic modality and imperfectivity, on the one hand, and root modality and perfectivity, on the other, as well as Leiss’ hypothesis about typological links with referential (in)definiteness are addressed and confirmed. If verbal aspect in Russian does not just express inherent aspectual meanings, but also plays a crucial role in the composition of temporal and modal meanings, Klimonov & Klimonov’s contention is that the perfective present tense may convey both the meaning of the non-immediate event and of the immediate event. This aspect-temporal form has the richest modal implications. The temporal forms of the imperfective and the perfective aspect each feature in roughly the same proportion of the individual modal meanings from the stock of units making up basic modality and epistemic modality (desiderative modality and dispositional possibility). Going beyond Indo-European, the aspect-modality link in the Japanese verbal complex associates with different categories as Japanese is structurally largely different from the Germanic and the Slavic languages and is genetically unrelated to them, the aspect-modality link being likely to be motivated by general cognitive principles (Narrog). Japanese seems to be subject to the following modifications of Abraham’s and Leiss’ theory of the aspect-modality link: The temporality of root modal sentences differs from epistemic modal sentences in that deontic modal sentences require ‘‘Speech act time ≠ Event time’’, while there are no such restrictions on sentences with epistemic modals – which, incidentally, is in line with (3a vs. b) and (4a vs. b) above as well as the distinction between perfective and imperfective, the crucial factor in modal interpretation being (not ‘‘temporal’’, but) ‘‘time’’ referential, rather than aspectual. Aspectuality mediates between modality and temporality rather than motivating or entailing modality directly – which again is reminiscent of Guillaume’s (Leiss’) motivation of ‘‘ATM’’ (rather than any other, and, in particular, the market-ubiquitous ‘‘TAM’’); see above. Thus, Japanese, on closer inspection, reveals that grammatical aspect only provides a cue to modal interpretation, but cannot determine it. The ultimate determining factor is context providing either a modal volitive or non-volitive implication to the utterance. On a similar note, but on radically different empirical data, modality and aspect are encoded in the Saramaccan creole (Narrog). Saramaccan modal markers are stative themselves and therefore do not take durative marking. However, differences appear when modal markers scope over propositions with divergent temporal-aspectual properties. Thus, the uses of the only Saramaccan modal marker musu, which is polyfunctional between root and epistemicity, can be distinguished by its selective take, where, specifically, the epistemic use associates exclusively with stative and durative propositions. This is again in line with AMIG II above. Yet another type of illocutive encoding modality is addressed for Japanese (Tanaka). AMT in Japanese is not observed explicitly in terms of proper verbal
Werner Abraham & Elisabeth Leiss
expressions like modals or modal predicatives, but rather, can be found if we expand the scope of comparison beyond the cardinal verbal categories. Epistemicity is expressed through Handan-bun (“evaluating sentence”) sharing marked affinity with imperfectivity. Yet, Handan-bun, the evaluating type of sentence, runs counter to the received sequel of the grammaticalization of modality, namely the development from root usages to epistemic usages – a fact that may lead to reconsideration of the received stance for the historical emergence Germanic epistemic modals in the first place (see Abraham 2005b, arguing against Traugott 1989, 2003, and others).
4.4 Typologically solid confirmation: Diachronic references The etymological reconstruction of form and function of modal verbs in Germanic and other languages leads back to perfecta tantum (only preterit forms, with present meanings), i.e., a morphological paradigm of the proto-language lacking any imperfective-present corresponding forms (Kotin). This reconstruction shows that root modality derives directly from perfective aspect and, respectively, the perfective-medial function. Comparison with the Slavic aspect languages confirms the hypotheses about the categorial affinity between root modality and perfective aspectuality, AMIG I and II. On a different, but likewise historical (though diachronically documented) note, it is generally held that epistemic modals emerge out of root modals. Root modals are event modifiers, while epistemic ones are propositional modifiers (Abraham 2005a; Pietrandrea 2005), this being so because they fail to embed predicates that lack event arguments and because they are bound to complements with future reference; cf. the general analyses in (3a, b – 4a, b) above. The historical emergence of epistemic modals by grammaticalization, then, may be considered as the dwindling ability of the modal to modify events. This major change in its event structure causes the modal to extend its scope from events to propositions (Maché, in this volume). Most strikingly, this occurs co-temporally with the demise of aspectual paradigmaticity during Middle High German (1150–1350) (as has been pointed out earlier; Abraham 2005a, b) – thus, event properties will then no longer be marked morphologically. This approach also provides an interesting link between formal accounts and functional ones: Considering root modals as event modifiers, it explains why they are always ‘action oriented’, as has commonly been assumed by most functionalist approaches.
4.5 A spect-Modality Interface Generalization/AMIG III: “Negation-Imperfectivity Convergence Generalization” Negative contexts for modals selecting the imperfective are clearly corroborated in Russian (Paducheva). Thus, with the Russian impersonal modal nado ‘‘it is necessary’’, occurring in its primary meaning exclusively with verbs denoting actions and activities,
Introduction
negation drastically influences the choice of aspect in its embedded infinitive. In nonnegated contexts both aspects are possible, imperfective as well as perfective, with the imperfective version putting the activity in the center of attention, while with the perfective the focus is transferred to the resulting state. However, in the context of negated nado the only possibility is imperfective.
4.6 Potential counter examples to the AMIGs I–V As to the imperfective aspect, the imperfective in the African Kwa language of Gungbe appears to enhance both root and epistemic readings of the modal auxiliaries more solidly than perfectivity (Aboh & Nauzé). By contrast, modal expressions block perfective aspect in Gungbe. Imperfective aspect, on the other hand, bears affinity to root and epistemic readings of the modal auxiliaries. On a quite different line, both empirically and genetically, the native American language Lakota has aspect and tense markers paired with idiosyncratic modalities: -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’; and the highly polysemous tkhá ‘‘proximative, past completive, past counterfactual, past obligative, past suppositive’’ (Pustet). Diachronic connections between the various meanings of these grammemes appear to provide evidence for direct grammaticalization links between their aspectual and modal meanings – which is striking to the extent that developments of aspectual out of modal grammemes do not appear to be sufficiently documented in the extant literature on grammaticalization.
5. T ypological Aspect-Modality Interface Generalization/AMIG V: “Prospective vs. Retrospective Aspect Constraint” Leiss’ central observation is that aspect languages are devoid of paradigms of modal verbs. Evidence comes from the diachrony of the Germanic languages where verbal aspect generally was lost, and where, parallel to this loss, the development of an elaborate class of modal verbs can be observed. Further evidence comes from Slavic languages, where a system of modal verbs is developing in the West Slavonic languages and where the aspectual systems show symptoms of undergoing a process of weakening. This chain of arguments boils down to the assumption about the silent and aspect-driven patterns of deonticity and epistemicity in the typology of languages and a proto-mass of modality from which finer-grained modalities emerge in time, due to morphological and functional prerequisites present in the different languages in different ways and different distinctions of markedness (Abraham 2008). Since there are aspect languages where perfectivity relates to either futural or past event reference (Ultan 1978), modality may either emerge in ways parallel to the Germanic modals with futural-perfective origins or to evidentials for those with past references (Leiss, in this volume).
Werner Abraham & Elisabeth Leiss
6. Final view It has to be seen very clearly that, methodologically speaking, the presented insights that crystallized in the first three Aspect-Modality Interface Generalizations, AMIG I-III, emerge the clearest from German and, already to some lesser degree, from other Germanic languages. German, from within the Indo-European languages, has the richest paradigmatically manifest class of modal verbs; and it has a most clearly documented diachronic demise of its former aspect system (cf. AMIG IV). The fact that West Slavic languages (Czech, Polish, Sorbian), as opposed to the East Slavia, develop new formal composite pasts marks clearly the core of this Generalization: i.e., that paradigmatically manifested modality and morphologically manifest aspect systems are complementarily represented among languages (with Bulgarian as the great exception from within the Slavia – no doubt due to contact influences throughout its linguistic history). Thus, the gist of this issue is that you need a language with a rich array of modal forms and, likewise, systematic dependencies from aspect distinct syntactic contexts, to be able to arrive at AMIG I-V, in the first place. Notice that the inverse investigative direction will not yield the same rich predictabilities for the simple reason that aspect is not distributed as richly as the modalities (in the sense of the German(ic) modal verbs). The linguistic panorama that the investigations in the present volume draw before the background of AMIG I-V is nevertheless not without unexpected results. From among the two aspectual modality affinities, verbal imperfectivity appears to function as the more fertile modal trigger both in terms of root and epistemic modality. This is a result that pervades both the central Indo-European as well as the non-IE languages. Perfectivity, with its somewhat lesser semantic bi-phasic and reference-directional manageability (pro- vs. retrospective perfectives; cf. AMIG V), appears to be more open to, or with less stringency with respect to, modal selection in its syntactic environment. We have introduced the following predicaments for such unexpected and unalignable cases: the pro- vs. retrospective perfectivity parameter (AMIG V);
. The two prime diagnostic properties of modal paradigms being polyfunctionality (systematic
root and epistemic representations dependent upon diathetic embeddings) and full verb status of the modals (as transitives). English, thus, exempts itself from this status – perhaps due to its newly developed aspectual system (progressive + present perfect/“extended-now”) just as much as the Romania (with regular aspect systems). . The optimal one being one with not only two clearly affix-marked aspect oppositions, but, what is more, with secondary imperfectivization (as in Modern Russian). . Notably, this is not what has been found to be the case for German: perfective embeddings under modal verbs quite rigidly forbid epistemic readings, whereas this is not the case for imperfective embeddings. See Abraham (2005a).
Introduction
the ATM- hierarchy as the central markedness and typological displacement parameter; the generics parameter as a bridge between root and epistemic modality; and, last but not least, the shifter parameter according to which modal adverbs and modal verbs differ fundamentally with respect to the implication of person information sources (something that adverbs are always neutral to). Evidentials as well as miratives, as has been argued by Leiss (in this volume), are phenomena complementary to epistemic modals, this typological relation being due, to all appearances, to the directionality parameter of perfective marking across languages: Evidentials are basic retrospective perfectives, while epistemics reside with the prospective perfectivity domain.
References Abraham, Werner. 1990. A note on the aspect-syntax interface. In Joan Mascaró & Marina Nespor (Eds), Grammar in Progress. GLOW essays for Henk van Riemsdijk (pp. 1–12). Dordrecht: Foris. Abraham, Werner. 1999. How descending is ascending German? On the deep interrelations between tense, aspect, pronominality, and ergativity. In Werner Abraham & Leonid Kulikov (Eds), Tense-aspect, transitivity, and causativity (pp. 253–292). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Studies in Language Companion Series 50]. Abraham, Werner. 2005a. Event arguments and modal verbs. In Claudia Maienborn & Angelika Wöllstein (Eds), Event arguments: Foundations and applications (pp. 243–276). Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Linguistische Arbeiten 501]. Abraham, Werner. 2005b. An intersubjective note on the notion of ‘Subjectification’. In Hans Broekhuis, Norbert Corver, Riny Huybregts, Ursula Kleinhenz & Jan Koster (Eds), Organizing grammar: Linguistic studies in honor of Henk van Riemsdijk (pp. 1–16). Berlin New York: de Gruyter. Abraham, Werner. 2008. Wie ist die historisch spezifische Ausgliederung der Modalitäten bei den deutschen Modalverben denkbar? Linguistische Berichte, 214, 185–213. Breu, Walter. 2008. (printing). Verbale Kategorien: Aspekt und Aktionsart. In HSK Slawistik. Choi, Soonja. 2007. Acquisition of modality. In William Frawley 2007 (Ed.) (pp. 141–172). Comrie, Bernard. 1985. Tense. CUP. Frawley, William. (Ed.). 2007. The expression of modality. Berlin: de Gruyter. [The expression of cognitive categories/ECC 1]. Haan, Ferdinand de. 2007. Typological approaches to modality. In William Frawley 2007 (Ed.) (pp. 27–70). Hacquard, Valentine. 2006. Aspects of Modality. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, M.I.T. Hughes, George Edward & Maxwell John Cresswell. 1968. An introduction to modal logic. London: Methuen. Hyams, Nina. 2005. Child non-finite clauses and the mood-aspect connection: Evidence from child Greek. In Paula M. Kempchinsky & Roumyana Slabakova (Eds), Aspectual inquiries (pp. 293–315). Dordrecht: Springer. [Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 62]. Kaufmann, Stefan, Cleo Condoravdi & Valentina Harizanov. 2007. Formal approaches to modality. In William Frawley 2007 (Ed.) (pp. 71–106).
Werner Abraham & Elisabeth Leiss Kratzer, Angelika. 1981. The notional category of modality. In Hans-Jürgen Eikmeyer & Hannes Reiser (Eds), Words, worlds, and contexts (pp. 38–74). Berlin: de Gruyter. [Research in text theory 6]. Kratzer, Angelika. 1991. Modality. In Arnim von Stechow & Dieter Wunderlich (Eds), Semantics: An international handbook of contemporary research (pp. 639–650). Berlin: de Gruyter. [HSK 6 Semantics]. Lehmann, Volker. 1988. Der russische Aspekt und die lexikalische Bedeutung des Verbs. Zeitschrift für slavische Philologie, 48, 170–181. Lehmann, Volker. 1999. Aspekt. In Helmut Jachnow (Ed.), Handbuch der sprachwissenschaftlichen Russistik und ihrer Grenzdisziplinen (pp. 214–242). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. [Slavistische Studienbücher/Neue Folge 8]. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2000a. Artikel und Aspekt. Die grammatischen Muster von Definitheit. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Studia Linguistica Germanica 55]. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2000b. Verbalaspekt und die Herausbildung epistemischer Modalverben. Germanistische Linguistik, 154, 63–83. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2002a. Der Verlust der aspektuellen Verbpaare und seine Folgen im Bereich der Verbalkategorien des Deutschen. In Japanese Society for Germanistik 2002 (Ed.), Grammatische Kategorien aus sprachhistorischer und sprachtypologischer Perspektive: Akten des 29. Linguistenseminars (Kyoto 2001) (pp. 26–41). München: iudicium. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2002b. Der Verlust der aspektuellen Verbpaare und seine Folgen im Bereich der Nominalkategorien des Deutschen. In Japanese Society for Germanistik 2002 (Ed.), Grammatische Kategorien aus sprachhistorischer und sprachtypologischer Perspektive: Akten des 29. Linguistenseminars (Kyoto 2001) (pp. 42–58). München: iudicium. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2002c. Explizite und implizite Kodierung von Deontizität und Epistemizität: Über die grammatische Musterbildung vor der Entstehung von Modalverben. Jezykoslovlje, 3, 69–98. Link, Godehard. 1976. Intensionale Semantik. München: Fink Verlag. [Münchner Universitätsschriften 17]. Munroe, Pamela. 2007. Modal expressions in Valley Zapotec. In William Frawley 2007 (Ed.) (pp. 173–206). Pietrandrea, Paola. 2005. Epistemic modality. Functional properties and the Italian system. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Studies in Language Companion Series 74]. Traugott, Elizabeth. 1989. On the rise of epistemic meanings in English: An example of subjectification in semantic change. Language, 57, 33–65. Traugott, Elizabeth. 2003. From subjectification to intersubjectification. In Raymond Hickey (Ed.), Motives for language change (pp. 124–142). CUP. Traugott, Elizabeth. 2007. Historical aspects of modality. In William Frawley 2007 (Ed.) (pp. 107–140). Ultan, Russell. 1978. The nature of future tense. In Joseph H. Greenberg et al. (Eds), Universals of human language (pp. 83–123). Vol. 3. Stanford: CSLI. Wilcox, Sherman & Barbara Shaffer. 2007. Modality in American Sign Language. In William Frawley 2007 (Ed.) (pp. 207–238). Wright, Georg Henrik von. 1951. An essay in modal logic. Amsterdam: North-Holland. Wright, Georg Henrik von. 1968. An essay in deontic logic and the general theory of action. With a bibliography of deontic and imperative logic. Amsterdam: North-Holland. [Acta philosophica Fennica 21].
General
On the logic of generalizations about cross-linguistic aspect-modality links Werner Abraham University of Vienna
In what follows the attempt is made, in all due brevity and succinctness, to gain more solid insight into links between aspect and modality as observed to hold in German and other West and North Germanic languages in Abraham (1990a, b, 2001, 2002, 2005). The basic idea (developed in more detail in the Introduction to this volume) is that there are such logical relations at the basis of the hypothesis, but that they are subject to markedness influences to the extent that the linking generalizations may be under demise in the context of a set of welldefined exceptions to the default links. The directions of the solutions under non-default contexts are those predictable by the A(spect)-T(ense)-M(odality) Hierarchy according to which, under specific markedness conditions, aspect form gives way to tense form, which in turn gives way to modal form if the default form is given up (Leiss 2000, 2002).
1. Th e undisputed default relations between verb meaning and aspect assignment In what follows undisputed links between aspect variants and other grammatical categories are briefly sketched. All of this is to be seen as a background to the following discussion which involves modality. According to Tauscher & Kirschbaum1 (1983: 2512), in Russian – a fully developed morphological aspect language – 1.1 a negated V is by preference in the uncompleted (imperfective) aspect. (1) a.
Ty vzyal ėtu knigu? Net, ne bral. you took.perf this book.acc no not took.impf ‘Did you take this book? No, I did not take it.’
. I owe much to Gerda Klimonov/Berlin and Stella Gevorgyan-Niness/Penn State for valuable critical comments on a first draft of this paper – comments that led to definite improvement. . Tauscher & Kirschbaum (1983) rely heavily on, and refer extensively to, the ultimate authority of the Akademiya nauk SSSR – Institut russkogo yazyka: Grammatika russkogo yazyka. Tt. I, II1, II2. Moscow 1953–1954, as well as other well established and widely accepted research grammars of Russian.
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b. On priexal včera? Net, ne priezžal. he arrived.perf yesterday no not arrived.impf ‘Did he come yesterday? No, he did not come.’
With the imperative, the completed (perfective) aspect is the more frequent one, whereas general adhortations and prohibitions take the form of the imperfective aspect. 1.2 After expressions such as wishes (želat’), intent (xotet’, xotet’sya), obligation and necessity (nado, nužno, neobxodimo a.o’s) the completed (perfective) infinitive is embedded by preference, whereas with clausal negation the uncompleted (imperfective) infinitive is used (Tauscher & Kirschbaum 1983: 252). 1.3 Dependence on event type and their respective compatibilities (Tauscher & Kirschbaum 1983: 250): Uncompleted (imperfective) aspect with repeated and customary activities: (2) a.
Vo vremya kanikul ya vstaval v sem’ časov. during vacation I got up.impf at seven o’clock ‘During the vacation I would get up at 7.’
b. On inogda zaxodit k nam. he at times comes.impf to us ‘Sometimes he comes to our place.’ c.
On moetsya každoe utro. he washes.himself.impf every morning ‘He washes every morning.’
d. Ya každyy den’ pokupayu gazetu. I every day buy.impf newspaper.acc ‘I buy a paper every day.’ e.
My často xodim v teatr. we often go.impf to theater ‘We often go to the theater.’
f.
Po utram gustoy tuman pokryval polya. in mornings thick fog covered.impf fields.acc.pl ‘In the mornings thick mist covers the fields.’
By contrast, the uncompleted (imperfective) aspect goes with infinitival V of initiation and beginning, continuance, and termination as well as a few others (zapretit’ “forbid”, nadoest’ “be tired of ”, privyknut’ “be used to”, ustat’ “become tired of ”). (3) a. Oni načali stroit’ novyy aktovyy zal. they started.perf to build.impf new festival hall.acc ‘They started building a new ceremony hall.’ b. On privyk rano vstavat’. he got used.perf early to rise.impf ‘He is used to rising early.’
c.
On the logic of generalizations about cross-linguistic aspect-modality links
Oni načali stroit’ novyy zal. they started.perf to build.impf new hall.acc ‘They started building a new ceremony hall.’
Accompanied by an overt object, transitive verbs, tV, are found more often in the completed (perfective) aspect; tV with an elliptical object, however, are always used in the uncompleted (imperfective) aspect (Tauscher & Kirschbaum 1983: 251). (4) a.
Včera ya napisal pis’mo … Perfective yesterday I wrote.perf letter.acc ‘Yesterday I wrote a letter.’
(“finished the letter”)
b. Včera ya pisal i čital … Imperfective yesterday I wrote.impf and read ‘Yesterday I was reading and reading.’
The completed (perfective) aspect is preferred if the object is in the partitive genitive. (5) a.
On s’’el xleba./ On el xleb. he ate.perf bread.gen/ he ate.impf bread.acc ‘He ate some bread./He was eating a piece of bread.’
b. On vypil stakan čayu. he drank.perf a glass of tea.gen c.
On pil čai. he drank.impf tea.acc
Yet, other factors may be of influence on tV such as definiteness vs. indefiniteness just as much as the markedness factor of progressiveness as reacting to the question “What are you doing right now?”: (6) Ya pisal pis’ma. I wrote.impf letter.acc.pl ‘I was writing letters.’
… bare plural transitive object
(7) Ya pisal pis’mo. I wrote.impf letter.acc.sg … indefinite object + progressive ‘I was writing a letter.’
2. Aspects and tense forms: The logical connections in Russian Consider that an event in its continuance or repetition and its boundedness in event time is possible only in the past and in the future. If the event is described in the present time it can be considered only in its length of time/duration or repetition/iterativity. Given such correspondences the following restrictions hold for tense formation (Tauscher & Kirschbaum 1983: 252).
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(8) Present tense may be formed only with the imperfective: The response to the question “What’s he doing right now?” would have to be
On čitaet gazetu. he reads.impf paper.acc/he is paper-reading ‘He is reading a/the paper.’
A perfective present form in an imperfective context would necessarily receive a modal flavor. The generalization above under (8) pertains also to the present active participle and the present passive participle, either formed only with the Imperfective.Forming the preterit and the future is possible for imperfective as well as perfective predicates.
(9) PRETERIT
a. Imperfective preterit: denotes the ongoingness or iteration of an event in the past. In German this is conveyed by the simple past tense. Compare <Er musste Arzt sein> “He had to be a physician”, which has the only reading of an epistemic modal. b. Perfective preterit: highlights a past event with respect to its boundedness. It involves the function of the German composite past and the pluperfect. Compare <Er musste Arzt werden> “He had to become a physician”, which has the only reading of a root modal/deontic modal. (10) FUTURE a. Imperfective future: Given its composition of the future forms of byt’ and the imperfective infinitive it is also called composite future – denotes a future event or one that will be repeated. b. Perfective future: Formally symbolized by a perfective V with present tense inflection, it expresses future events highlighting its event boundedness. It includes the function of the English/German future in the past.
3. Aspects and forms of modality: The general logical connections What is logical about the following predictions/hypotheses? (11) a. Perfective aspect is compatible with root modality. b. Imperfective aspect is compatible with epistemic modality. c. Clausal Neg+perfective aspect yields epistemic modality as opposed to positive declarative perfective aspect, which yields root modality.
(11a, b) are not undisputed in the literature. According to Klimonov & Klimonov (this volume), perfective aspect in Russian is compatible with both root and epistemic modality, whereas (11b) does not hold with absolute regularity. Nevertheless, let us first address the basic question in (11a), “perfective aspect is compatible with root modality”. The following distinction in terms of event structure is from Abraham (1990b). See (12a, b).
On the logic of generalizations about cross-linguistic aspect-modality links
(12) a.
terminative (in)transitive verbs: die and kill, respectively:
eΘ, iΘ iΘ | > > > > > > >|------------------| t1 E1 tm E2 tn
...eΘ = external role, iΘ = internal semantic role
b. non-terminative (in)transitive verbs: live and push, respectively:
eΘ, iΘ eΘ, iΘ |~~~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~| t1 E1 tm E2 tn
...eΘ = external role, iΘ = internal semantic role
Key: t1, tm, tn are points on the temporal axis representing the event. The event structure of terminative verbs is biphasic containing an approach phase as well as a resultative phase (∀tx:x,(1–n) (t1 − tm) (E1) ↔ (tm − tn) (E2)); tm is a referential point belonging to both event phases simultaneously, E1 as well as E2. On the other hand, the event structure of non-terminative verbs is mono-phasic: (∀tx:x,(1−n) (t1 − tm)(E1) = (tm − tn)(E2))). The quasi-auxiliaries (raising verbs, according to their derivational properties) seem and be used to “be used to” are mono-phasic; they, therefore, have no similarity to terminatives and their event structure, respectively. This is in line with the picture that we receive about EMVs as well as the epistemic readings of threaten, menace and promise in their use as semantically bleached raising verbs. Their lexical readings are bi-phasic as in (13a–c) below (viz. The manager promises to help, which has a futural meaning; see Palmer 1986; Bybee 1995; Coates 1995). Note the similarity with the bi-phasic event structure for deontics below in (11a) above. (13) a.
DMV/control-V: |→→→→→|---------------| E tm E tn t1
b. argument match: A(t1) ∩…∩A(tm) c. event identification: t1(¬E)∩…∩tm(¬E)∩tm(E)∩… ∩tn(E); i.e., tm has the event characteristic of the approach phase as well as that of the resultative, or achievement, phase. d. EMV/raising-V:
|~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~| t1 tm tn
Recall that no epistemic reading was available for embedded terminative predicates as in (9b). This is accounted for by (9a) in that the MV under the epistemic interpretation does not project any event structure of its own onto that of the embedded durative.3 In other words, the scope of E-MOD (EMV-reading) cannot de-terminativize a terminative verb. This is the matching mechanism between MV and [± term]-V. The DMV-reading, on the other hand, provides an event identification of its own as
. For further identification of events and the projection of arguments for duratives, see Abraham (1989). I restrict my discussion to root modals, i.e., DMV.
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in (13a), overlaying its argument onto the embedded event structure in the manner detailed. This yields the first generalization, Aspect-Modality Generalization I.
Aspect-Modality Generalization I:
“Perfectivity-Root Modality Convergence Generalization” There is a close semantic convergence between root modals and perfective aspect to the extent that both have two phases for the computation of event veridicality: Root modals have the configuration as in (13a), with the second phase for the projected event to actualize, while Perfectives are bi-phasic as in (12a), with an incremental and a resultant phase, either implicative of the other. The hypothesis in (11b), “imperfective aspect is compatible with epistemic modality”, can be discussed along the following path. Perfectives and Imperfectives are characterized as in what follows (see Gonçalves 2007; Abraham & Gonçalves 2008). (14) past is only defined if the context of utterance of the sentence it is in provides an interval t earlier than the utterance/speaker’s time, tS. When defined, past = t.
Notice that notwithstanding the terminology (either t is called “temporal location time” or “reference time”), we understand it as being conceptually close to Klein’s (1994) notion of “topic time”. In other words, t is the time of occurrence of an eventuality for which the sentence makes a claim. It is relevant that it does not necessarily correspond with the actual occurrence of the eventuality. Given tense information, we will propose that the aspectual information brought by Passé simple/PS, for example, is as follows: (15) a.
Aspect meaning carried by PS: ∀Y [e⊆t → ∀f⊆e . ∃i⊆t(Y(e, f) ↔ Y(t, i))]
Read: For any Y, if t is in the event e, the consequent that holds for any event e overflown by the event f and some t in i, this Y holding for e and f implies, and is implied by, Y holding for t and i See (15b). (15) b.
e e |------t------t------t------| f f |---i-----------i------i------i----------i----|
In other words, if a property Y holds for t in e, then in any event f overflowing e, there will be one i containing t such that Y will hold both for the e in f and t in i. This is not identical with, but nevertheless confirms, the mutual implication between e and t (spelled out somewhat differently by (12a) and (13a) above). Based on this, the aspect meaning carried by impf is that the consequent in (i) does not hold as in (16) below.
On the logic of generalizations about cross-linguistic aspect-modality links
In other words, in the semantics of impf, the consequent of the conditional is negated. Notice that the semantics of impf varies decidedly from that of ps: The consequent of the conditional is negated. The result is that an impf verb means that, once [e⊆t] holds, not all relations holding between events and sub-events have analogues between the temporal location interval and its subintervals. See (16) for the logical form of impf. (16) Aspect meaning carried by impf:
∀Y [e⊆t → ¬∀f⊆e. ∃i⊆t(Y(e, f) ↔ Y(t, i))]
Some important consequences follow. impf verb forms are standardly assumed to have state-like characteristics. When impf applies to non-state verbs those characteristics have to be given explicitly by the semantic information brought out by the morphology. This is tantamount to saying that impf has to change the [e⊆t] relation. Since (16) is a conditional, the state characteristics of impf can be obtained without it having to actually change [e⊆t]. But we may ask also: (17) a. Is it possible that ps is not always perfective? b. Is it possible that impf is not always imperfective?
What aspect of the notion of imperfectivity should we be interested in? There are many proposals for the logical forms of perfectivity and imperfectivity. One that has been influential was proposed by Kratzer (1998) building on Klein’s (1994) notion of topic time. (18) Klein-Kratzer Aspects for the relation between reference time and location time: a. ∃e1 (t ⊂ time(e) ∧ P(e)(w) = 1) imperfective: reference time included in the event time; event time “overflows” reference time. b. ∃ e1 (time(e) ⊂ t ∧ P(e)(w) = 1) perfective: event time included in the reference time; reference time “overflows” event time.
The logical semantics of telicity might be formulated as follows – see (19) with “telos” for “telicity”.4 . Needless to say that punctual perfectivity as with find, step on etc. is implied simply by assuming that the incremental phase reduces to near-zero. (One is reminded of the Latin opposition between reperīre “find after searching” and invenīre “find without searching”.) Likewise, telicity or other telic, but not resultative, concepts should be included in our definition as well notwithstanding the fact that this may seem an approach that is too ontological and disrupts purely linguistic reasoning. For a definitional and, to all appearances, ontology-avoiding distinctions see Leiss’ mereological account (Leiss, this volume), in which the aspectual opposition is expressed by the compilation of the features [± additionality, ± heterogeneity, ± divisibility] and on the basis of which resultativity is principally not coming into the picture of the notion of perfectivity at all thus making perfective predicates non-divided wholes (with the feature set [−additionality, −heterogeneity, −divisibility], whereas imperfectives are infinitely divisible event entities (and, consequently, potentially additionals and heterogeneous ones). See Krifka (1989)
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(19) a. non-“telos”: [∃e∗r] V(x, y, e) b. “telos”: [∃(e, e')∗r] V(x, y, (e, e'))
But (19) does not sketch the difference between e and e' with respect to the respective different environments and the point of change between phase e and phase e', much in the sense of the following figure: (20) Perfectivity divides into an incremental phase and a result phase (or resulting point):
incremental resultative phase phase |>>>>>>>>>>|-----------------| e e'
two phases: mutually implicative
Cf. Parsons’ (1990) concepts of consequent, or resultant, state; short RS: The construction in (21a) has the logical form as in (21b), (21) a. b.
Johann hat einen Apfel gegessen. John has an apple eaten ‘John has eaten an apple.’ ∃e∃x (ess-(e) ∧ Agent(e, Johann) ∧ Patient/Thema(e, x) ∧ Apfel(x) ∧ holds (RS(e),S))
where RS (for Resultant State) is a sub-function of events on events, which assigns a Resultant state to every event e. In other words, (18b) means that at speech act time, S, a Resultant State holds for that event. Consequent states of this sort are defined exclusively for culminating event points or final sub-events. In addition, (22a) holds (cf. Giorgi & Pianesi 1997: 92f., 98): (22) a. The Resultant State (RS) holds of t iff e at t or some time prior reaches its Culminating point (Culm). b. ∀e∀t(Culm(e) v e≤ t → holds(RS(e), t)) (see Giorgi & Pianesi 1997: 93) c. x is a Resultant State (RS) of e where e is closed topologically = df Left boundary(x) = Right boundary(e).
In the definitions above, the distinction between imperfectivity and perfectivity is due to the described eventuality including the reference time and either being included by it, respectively. This element of imperfectivity is present in all current theorizing.
for a similar concept, but somewhat different terminology. Leiss has insistently noticed (1992, not for the first and only time, though) that the very notion of mereological characterization of verbs has been brought into the picture by the mediaeval Modists (see O’Mahony 1964; Pinborg 1967; cf. HWPh vol. 3: 849)].
On the logic of generalizations about cross-linguistic aspect-modality links
A consequence of the intuition behind (22) is that it is possible for imperfective forms of verbs to license the inference that the eventuality may overflow its reference time. Thus, imperfective sentences should be compatible with both of the following types of inferences: (i) that the described eventuality holds at utterance time; (ii) that the described eventuality has ceased to hold at reference time. By contrast, perfective forms should be compatible only with (ii). How do PS and IMPF behave with respect to that prediction? For brevity, let us refer to cases where either inference (i) or inference (ii) is licensed as the [± hold]-inference pattern: With this pattern one only knows if the claimed eventuality holds true or not of the utterance time if s/he is explicitly or contextually informed about it. In the latter case, a phrase or clause meaning something like . . . but (does) not anymore or . . . and still does will license the adequate inference for which the main clause will be underspecified. And we will refer to cases where only inference (ii) is licensed as the [-hold/-inference] pattern, this being the case when only phrases or clauses such as . . . but does not anymore are felicitously licensed. The generalization with respect to question (12b), “imperfective aspect is compatible with epistemic modality”, can thus be spelled out in the following way. See AspectModality Generalization II.
Aspect-Modality Interface Generalization II: “Imperfectivity-Epistemicity Convergence Generalization” Let the aspectual perfectivity, SP/PERF, meaning be carried by the following eventlogical relation:
(i) ∀Y [e⊆t → ∀f⊆e . ∃i⊆t(Y(e, f) ↔ Y(t, i))]
Read: For any Y, if t is in the event e, the consequent that holds for any event e in the event f and some t in i, this Y holding for e and f implies, and is implied by, Y holding for t and i. This confirms the mutual implication between e and t (as spelled out somewhat differently by (12a) and (13a) above). Based on this, the aspect meaning carried by impf is that the consequent in (i) does not hold as in (ii):
(ii) ∀Y [e⊆t → ¬∀f⊆e . ∃i⊆t(Y(e, f) ↔ Y(t, i))]
In the semantics of impf, the consequent of the conditional is negated. The result is that an impf verb states that, once [e⊆t] holds – i.e., the event, e, is a subelement of the viewer’s temporal reach, t –, not all relations holding between events and sub-events have analogues between the temporal location interval and its subintervals. Since epistemic modality verifies for states and ongoing events, there is a strong convergence between epistemics and Imperfectives.
Werner Abraham
Let us now argue with respect to the third claim above, (11c): If perfectivity is two-phased in the sense of (23a, b) below, then negation will focus on one of the two phases. Two options follow: (23) a. Let us say that it takes the resultant phase in its scope while unscoping the first, incremental phase. b. Or, else, the first, incremental phase is negated, while the second, resultant one remains unscoped by Neg.
Then what remains positively asserted is the first, incremental phase, or the second, the resultant phase. For either solution (depending, as appears, on typological preferences; see Abraham 1999), an imperfective result remains: (incremental) ongoingness or (resultant) state. Both are imperfective. Thus, the generalization is the following, Aspect-Modality Generalization III.
Aspect-Modality Interface Generalization III: “Negation-Imperfectivity Convergence Generalization” Clausal Neg+Perfective yields Imperfectivity on grounds of the Perfective biphasality reducing to mono-phasality, which has to be Imperfective (given that mono-phasality excludes mutual phase implication).
The generalization over all three specific generalizations should be that, given unmarked default settings, the realization of modality in embeddings under aspect configurations of Perfectivity and Imperfectivity should be in accordance with the AspectModality Generalization I-III above. Clearly, marked environments will leave their imprints on these defaults, most clearly, as has been shown by Gonçalves (2007) and Abraham & Gonçalves (2008) featuring lexical adverbial. But this is almost trivial to say given the existing literature on the issue in various different languages (Leiss 2000, 2002; Klimonov & Klimonov in this volume; Narrog in this volume; Padučeva in this volume; Tanaka in this volume).
References Abraham, Werner. 1989. Verbal substantives in German. In Christa Bhatt (Ed.), Nominalizations (pp. 79–98). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 6]. Abraham, Werner. 1990a. Die Grammatikalisierung von Auxiliar- und Modalverben. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 112, 200–208. Abraham, Werner. 1990b. A note on the aspect-syntax interface. In Joan Mascaró & Marina Nespor (Eds), Grammar in progress. GLOW essays for Henk van Riemsdijk (pp. 1–12). Dordrecht: Foris. Abraham, Werner. 1999. How descending is ascending German? On the deep interrelations between tense, aspect, pronominality, and ergativity. In Werner Abraham & Leonid
On the logic of generalizations about cross-linguistic aspect-modality links
Kulikov (Eds), Tense-aspect, transitivity, and causativity (pp. 253–292). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Studies in Language Companion Series 50]. Abraham, Werner. 2001. Modals: toward explaining the ‘epistemic non-finiteness gap’. In Reimar Müller & Marga Reis (Eds), Modalität und Modalverben im Deutschen (pp. 7–36). Hamburg: Buske. [Linguistische Berichte Sonderheft 9]. Abraham, Werner. 2002. Modal verbs: epistemics in German and English. In Sjef Barbiers, Frits Beukema & Wim van der Wurff (Eds), Modality and its interaction with the verbal system (pp. 19–50). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 47]. Abraham, Werner. 2005. Event arguments and modal verbs. In Claudia Maienborn & Angelika Wöllstein (Eds), Event arguments: Foundations and applications (pp. 243–276). Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Linguistische Arbeiten 501]. Abraham, Werner & Cláudio C. e C. Gonçalves. 2008. ��������������������������������� Non-state imperfectives and tenses in Romance and West-Germanic: How does Germanic render the progressive: lexically or morphologically? In Walter de Mulder & Tanja Mortelmans (Eds), Chronos Antwerp 2007. Bybee, Joan L. 1995. The semantic development of past tense modals in English. In Joan L. Bybee & Suzanne Fleischman (Eds), Modality in grammar and discourse (pp. 503–518). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Typological Studies in Language 32]. Coates, Jennifer. 1995. The expression of root and epistemic possibility in English. In Joan L. Bybee & Suzanne Fleischman (Eds), Modality in grammar and discourse (pp. 55–66). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Typological Studies in Language 32]. Georgi, Alessandra & Fabio Pianesi. 1997. Tense and aspect. From semantics to morphosyntax. Oxford: OUP. [Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax]. Gonçalvez, Cláudio C. e C. 2007. Imperfectivity and Verbal Morphology. Doctoral thesis UFSC, Universidade de Santa Catarina at Florianopolis, Brazil. Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie (HWPh). Vol. 3: Grammatik. Ed. by Joachim Ritter, Karlfried Gründer & Gottfried Gabriel. Völlig neubearbeitete Ausgabe des (Wörterbuchs der Philosophischen Begriffe) von Rudolf Eisler. Vols. 1 – 13. Basel: Schwabe 1971–2007 and Lizenzausgabe für die Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Klein, Wolfgang. 1994. Time in language. London: Routledge. Kratzer, Angelika. 1998. More structural analogies between pronouns and tenses. In Devon Strolovitch & Aaron Lawson (Eds), Proceedings of semantics and linguistic theory VIII (pp. 92–110). Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications. Leiss, Elisabeth. 1992. Die Verbalkategorien des Deutschen. Ein Beitrag zur Theorie der sprachlichen Kategorisierung. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Studia Linguistica Germanica 31]. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2000. Verbalaspekt und die Herausbildung epistemischer Modalverben. Germanistische Linguistik, 154, 63–83. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2002. Explizite und implizite Kodierung von Deontizität und Epistemizität: über die grammatische Musterbildung vor der Entstehung von Modalverben. Jezikoslovlije, 3, 69–98. O’Mahony, Brendan. 1964. The mediaeval doctrine of modes of meaning. Louvain. Palmer, Frank R. 1986. Mood and modality. Cambridge: CUP. [Cambridge textbooks in linguistics]. Pinborg, Jan. 1967. Die Entwicklung der Sprachtheorie im Mittelalter. Kopenhagen: FrostHansen. Tauscher, Elisabeth & Ernst-Georg Kirschbaum. 1983. Grammatik der russischen Sprache. Düsseldorf: Brückenverlag.
The silent and aspect-driven patterns of deonticity and epistemicity A chapter in diachronic typology Elisabeth Leiss LMU München
“Since I argue that (deontic) modals merge as ASP, this raises the question as to what modals have in common with aspect.” (van Gelderen 2004: 155)
Starting point for these investigations were Abraham’s synchronically-oriented generalizations on the affinities between deontic readings of modals and perfective aspect, and epistemic readings of modals and imperfective aspect. In order to cope with so-called exceptions to his generalization, a fine-tuning of the classification of modals is presented where generic readings of modals are not classified as typical deontics but rather as a different class of modals with different aspectual selections. Another important point is the revision of the term of alethic modality. Apart from these terminological clarifications, the central aim of this paper is to show that aspect languages are devoid of a class of modal verbs. Evidence comes from the diachrony of the Germanic languages where verbal aspect generally was lost, and where, parallel to this loss, the emergence of an elaborate class of modal verbs can be observed. Evidence comes also from some Slavic languages where a system of modal verbs is developing especially in the West Slavonic languages, where the aspectual systems show symptoms of undergoing a process of weakening. At the end of these chapters in diachronic typology the question is raised how to cope with languages which show neither developed aspectual systems nor an extended class of modals. In answering this question emphasis is put on the argument that modal adverbs are functionally not equivalent to epistemic modals. They lack the feature of double displacement which is essential for defining epistemicity. The answer suggested instead is that the cross-linguistic functional equivalent of epistemic modals is to be identified as evidentials. The unification of evidentials with epistemic modals is achieved by demonstrating that epistemic modals involve different sources of the reported information. The outlook of this paper suggests that the investigation of aspectual affinities of evidentiality is a promising topic for further research.
Elisabeth Leiss
1. Diachronic typology of modals 1.1 Aspect languages are devoid of a class of modal verbs The class of modal verbs is well developed in the Germanic languages, it is lesser developed in the Romance languages, and there are even quite a lot of languages which are devoid of a class of modals (Finnish, see Kangasniemi 1992). The absence of a system of modal verbs seems to be quite normal under a cross-linguistic perspective. This insight is due to Hammerich (1960: 66). He noted quite early that a highly-developed system of modal verbs is a feature that is peculiar to modern Germanic languages. In other words, modals are quite an exotic group of verbs once you look beyond the horizon of the Standard European Languages. It is interesting to note that even in the Germanic languages the rise of modals out of a system devoid of modals comes quite late. Hammerich (1960: 68) states that in former stages of Indo-European languages, such as Old Greek, Hethitic, and Pāli, there are at most weak reflexes of such a system of modals but there is no class of modal verbs. Note, the emphasis is on class of modals. There is good reason to assume that every language has a “first modal” whose function is so serve as a start-up modal when a whole class of modals has to be developed. For example, languages such as Gothic and Finnish are equipped with at least one modal without having developed a full class of modals. A closer look at the start-up potential of the “first modal” is given by Abraham (2008). As far as the Germanic languages are concerned the rise of modals correlates with the loss of verbal aspect. We take this as a starting point to ask the same intriguing question as Elly van Gelderen in the motto cited above: What have modals got to do with aspect? The central thesis guiding our research in this domain says that aspect languages use aspect to encode deontic and epistemic meanings. Languages which have lost an elaborate aspect system tend to develop articles (Leiss 2000) as well as a class of modals with deontic and epistemic meanings (Leiss 2000a, 2002). This, to all appearances, pertains to Old English as well as to Old High German. When the rise of modals is coupled with a weakening of the aspectual system, then a look at the Slavic languages and their different aspectual systems is in order. Aspectual systems in the process of change are especially telling. For this reason the different developments in the Slavic languages as well as the different stages of aspect loss in the Germanic languages are in the centre of the following discussion of Diachronic Typology.
1.2 The aspectual affinity of modals in synchrony and diachrony The starting point of our investigation into the Diachronic Typology of aspectuality and modality was the seminal paper by of Abraham (1991). This paper observed the
The silent and aspect-driven patterns of deonticity and epistemicity
following distribution of aspectual features and the different functions of modal verbs in the Germanic languages further illustrated in (1)-(4): • •
modals combine with lexically perfective infinitives in order to generate deontic meaning (DMV) modals combine with imperfective infinitives in order to generate epistemic meaning (EMV)
(1) He must leave now.
(DMV/*EMV)≠
(2) He must be leaving now.
(*DMV/EMV)
(3) He must give money to them.
(DMV/*EMV)≠
(4) He must be giving money to them.
(*DMV/EMV)
In Abraham (2002, 2005) it has been demonstrated how the affinity between perfect ive bi-phasics and DMV can be thought of: deontic characteristics implying eventive bi-phasicness and designating present and future saturation of the event predication, whereas imperfective and epistemic events are mono-phasic. Table 1. Bi-phasic deontic events and monophasic epistemic events (i) (i)
|> > > > > > > > > > > >|----------------| (ii) perfective event present state |→→→→→→→→|≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈| (ii) modal deontic event projected future
|-----------------------| imperfective event |≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈| epistemic event
The bi-phasic structure of perfective verbs can be characterized in terms of mereological features: The first phase of a perfective verb presents an event as a completed action. Completed actions consist of different (non-identical) subactions. Completed actions are inhomogeneous actions with the mereological features [–additivity] and [–divisibility]. They result in a state, this second phase being identifiable as consisting of identical subparts and thus being identifiable in terms of the features of [+additivity] and [+divisibility]. Imperfective actions are mereologically very similar to states. They are also [+additive] and [+divisible]. In contrast to states, imperfective events are dynamic whereas states are non-dynamic. Table 1 is to show that perfective verbs and deontic modals are both bi-phasics of the same mereological make-up. It is not by chance that modals preferably derive from old preterite-presents going back to bi-phasic perfects which were biphasics from the very beginning on. This is in line with Ziegeler (this volume) who defines root modals (deontic modals) as future-projecting verbs. According to Ziegeler (this volume, p. 55) this feature suffices to distinguish “root” modality
Elisabeth Leiss
from epistemic modality: “all [root modals] have one common semantic denominator: that they express potentiality as part of their meaning, and potentiality is a sense shared also by future-projecting modal verbs.” The sources of the future-projecting function of modals are twofold. First, modal verbs preferably take preterite-presents as their starting point of grammaticalization. Second, they tend to embed a perfective infinitive. In Gothic, the oldest documented Germanic language, preterite-presents embed nearly exclusively perfective verbs (mostly being ga-prefixed verbs). Due to the inherent perfectivity of preterite-presents the selection of the infinitive was aspectually restricted to perfective verbs only. In the modern Germanic languages, however, these restrictions are overridden by the fact that the selected infinitives are read as perfective from the start on, due to contiguity with the perfective quality of the modals they combine with. This is the reason why modals deriving from preterite-presents combine with bare infinitives. The case is different when new modals arise out of non-preterite-presents. Compare the following constructions, (4) being constructed with a preterite-present derived modal, whereas (5) is a new modal not deriving from an inherently bi-phasic preterite-present.
(5) He can eat large amounts of chunk food. (bare infinitive)
(6) He is able to eat large amounts of chunk food. (prepositional infinitive)
The same holds for the equivalent sentences in German: (5a) Er kann große Mengen an Chunk-food essen. (bare infinitive) (6a) Er ist in der Lage große Mengen an Chunk-food zu essen. (prep. infinitive)
There is good reason to assume that the prepositional infinitive (i.e., the to-infinitive in English and the zu-infinitive in German) is to be classified as a perfective infinitive. The directional meaning of to and zu, which unfolds when combined with nouns, transforms into the meaning of completed action when followed by an embedded infinitive. What is the reason for our insisting on the perfectivity of modal verb constructions? The answer is that the quality of perfectivity is necessary to build up bi-phasic actions. Root modals/deontic modals denote actions which unfold in the future and which are not yet realized at utterance time. The bi-phasic structure of root modals allows for the split-up into utterance time and projected event time. This split-up is necessary to signal the meaning common to all root modals, which is the non-reality or non-actualization of an event in the present and its possible actualization in the future.
1.3 The classification of modals in terms of binary opposition Any serious classification has to be binary. Non-binary terminology regularly ends up as lists of different readings of modals, without exhibiting any explanatory force. The binary classification proposal in Fig. 1 will be discussed in some detail:
The silent and aspect-driven patterns of deonticity and epistemicity
root modals – non root modals 3 generic nongeneric 3 alethic nonalethic 3 deontic epistemic Figure 1. Proposed classification of modals.
Root modals in the narrow sense are modals which are not yet modals at all. They carry lexical meaning and are to be classified as main verbs. The notion of root modals in the broader sense is taken to be synonymous with deontic meaning as opposed to epistemic meaning: root modals – non root modals 3 deontic epistemic Figure 2. Root meaning versus non-root meaning of modals (basic classification).
The sources of the terminological confusion in the realm of modals are manifold. In the following text root modals are defined in the narrow sense. Root modals in the narrow sense are not necessarily future-projecting verbs. Take the verb to know:
(6) He knows his wife very well. root modality
(7) He knows (how) to help himself (= ‘he can help himself ’). non-root modality
The non-root-modality of (7) is regularly labelled deontic modality as opposed to epistemic modality. This terminological strategy is useful in many ways, especially when the opposition between non-epistemicity and epistemicity is in focus. But note that the difference between root meaning and deontic meaning (in the broad sense as opposed to epistemic meaning) seems to count only when modals are followed by a to-infinitive in English or a zu-infinitive in German. The difference between root modality and deontic modal is hardly felt when preterite-presents are involved as modals with their inherent perfectivity and their perfectivizing effect on embedded infinitives. In other words: When we start our classification of modals with preterite-presents we can skip the first level of classification in Fig. 1: modals 3 deontic/root epistemic Figure 3. Classification of modals deriving from preterite-presents (reduced basic classification).
We see now where most of the terminological confusion comes from. The classification of modals clearly depends on the start capital of the modal involved. Modals which
Elisabeth Leiss
are perfective from the start on, such as preterite-presents, do not show any difference between root and deontic modality. The feature of perfectivity guarantees the futureprojecting features which characterize deontic modals (broader sense). The English modal will or the German modal wollen are no exceptions. As former optatives they are also future-projecting auxiliaries. The feature of perfectivity is just one means to create the goal of future-projecting capacity in the sense of Ziegeler’s definition (this volume). The reduced basic classification of modals in deontics (root modals) and epistemics normally suffices to do successful research on modals. However, when it comes to aspect and its interfaces with modality, a more fine-grained classification is needed to account for the more marked and complex uses of modals. The classification proposed here is mainly based upon Ziegeler (this volume). Of utmost importance is Ziegeler’s insight (Ziegeler, this volume) that deontic modals (wide sense) show different aspectual preferences when used in a generic sense. Generic uses of modals do not necessarily involve biphasicness. For this very reason the embedded infinitives of deontic modals (wide sense) are not subject to aspectual selectional restrictions. The embedded infinitives are perfective as well as imperfective. In (7) the infinitive is imperfective in the sense that speak is an homogeneous verb involving the mereological features of [+additivity] and [+divisibility].
(7) He can speak French.
(8) He speaks French.
In (7) there is no biphasicness involved. The modal verb can is used in the generic sense, and consequently the embedded infinitive is not necessarily perfective. Many exceptions to the rule that the deontic readings of modals are normally triggered by the embedded perfective infinitive are due to the generic readings of modals. The event in (7) is not anchored in time. The same holds for (8) where no modal is involved. There is good reason to assume with Ziegeler (this volume) that generic reference is not the basic function of deontic modals. Generic aspect is “primarily created by the non-specificity (or referentiality) and non-quantification of verb arguments, though, in the case of habituals, the indefinite quantification of the event referred to in the predicate is what creates the generic reference” (Ziegeler, this volume, 56).
The generic effect produced by indefinite quantification is not necessarily due to the deontic modal:
(9) He can gulp down a pint of beer in one second. (generic reading)
(10) He can gulp down this pint of beer in one second. (deontic reading)
The generic reading of the event in (9) is clearly induced by indefinite quantification. The non-generic reading in (10) is due to the definiteness of the demonstrative pronoun
The silent and aspect-driven patterns of deonticity and epistemicity
suggesting referential specificity. It is well known that definiteness and perfectivity share the same mereological features. The same holds for indefiniteness and imperfect ivity (for more detail, see Leiss 2000). Indefiniteness has imperfectivizing effects, while definiteness has perfectivizing effects. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that deontic modals which combine with embedded imperfective verbs tend to be read with the generic meaning (non-specific reference), and vice versa: Non-specific reference induces generic reading. The generic reading of imperfective verbs is explained by the “typereferring function of the imperfective” (Hedin 2000). In Leiss (2000) the imperfective aspect is defined prototypically as type-referring, whereas the perfective aspect refers preferentially to tokens which are anchored in time (Leiss 2000: 239–256). Ziegeler’s differentiation helps us to understand the fact that in Russian the generic reading is normally signalled by imperfective verbs and not by perfective verbs. The examples (11) and (12) are drawn from Gevorgyan-Ninness (2005): (11) Stella govorit po-russki. Stella speaks[+impf] Russian ‘Stella can speak Russian.’ (12)
Rebënok ešče ne govorit. child still not speaks[+impf] ‘The child cannot speak yet.’ The same reading holds for German: Das Kind spricht noch nicht.
A generic reading is not restricted to imperfective verbs only. Contextual factors may force the generic reading of perfective verbs as well (Rathmayr 1976). Illustrations for generic readings of perfective verbs are to be found in Weidner (1986: 156) where Russian perfective presents which are not anchored in time are qualified to be equivalents to “atemporal-potential” moč and smoč. Generic readings of perfective presents with the meaning of “can” are quite frequent. However, they are not subject to aspectual restrictions. Counter to Leiss (2002), and in accordance with Ziegeler (this volume), generic readings are not qualified as deontic readings (narrow sense). Figure 4 summarizes the arguments developed until now: modals 3 deontic/root epistemic (broad sense) 3 potential generic reading reading Figure 4. Potential vs. generic readings of modals.
Deontic modals (broad sense) are biphasic, anchored in time, and they are futureprojecting in the sense that they are not yet actualized events which are potentially
Elisabeth Leiss
actualized in the future. The emphasis is on “potentially actualized”. Potentiality is the core meaning of all deontic modals (wide broad sense). Following Ziegeler (this volume), I assume that the potentiality of actualization in the future is involved with all modals, no matter whether obligation or volition is involved. The modal expressing potentiality without alluding to additional semantics is obviously the modal ‘can’. It is the first modal arising in the history of Germanic languages (i.e., mugan in Gothic and in Old High German). The same holds for Russian for which the first and only modal verb derives etymologically from the same verb (moč’). Hansen (1999: 158) concludes that the first modal of all modern Slavic languages goes back to the Common Slavic etymon *mogti “can”: Table 2. Modal “can” in 12 modern Slavic languages (adapted from Hansen 1999: 158) Polish: Czech: Slovakian: Upper Sorbian: Lower Sorbian: Ukrainian:
móc moct môct’ móc moc могтú
Belorussian: Russian: Bulgarian: Macedonian: Serbo-croatian: Slovenian:
магчы мочь мога може moći moči
The next step in the classification of modals has to take into account that the prototyp ical modal, such as English can, German können or Russian moč’, is janus-faced as to its interpretation. The meaning of potentiality regularly switches between deontic and epistemic readings. Thus, two different readings can be associated with (13): (13) He can win the swimming contest.
The first reading is the so-called objective or deontic reading, the second reading being the so-called subjective or epistemic reading. The deontic meaning is inferred when the objective conditions are at the centre in interpreting the sentence: (13a) ‘He is in a condition to win the swimming contest.’
In contrast to this, the epistemic meaning is inferred when the subjective assessment of the event by the speaker is foregrounded. The speaker evaluates whether the objective conditions suffice to cause the event in the future. (13b) ‘I suppose, he is able to win the swimming contest.’
Switching between the deontic and the epistemic reading is what we label here as alethic meaning. There are different approaches to defining alethic modals. The approach favoured here is to label those modals as alethic modals which allow for deontic as well as for epistemic readings. There is some first evidence that alethic modals are
The silent and aspect-driven patterns of deonticity and epistemicity
underspecified modals which include a whole range of modal meanings in a nutshell. When languages develop a system of modals the underspecified modality explodes. The underspecified modal gets unzipped and a whole range of modal meanings explodes into different forms. The grammaticalization of modal verbs starts. Alethic modals are underspecified in two respects. First, they are underspecified as to the distinction between deonticity (objective reading) and epistemicity (subjective reading). Second, they are underspecified with respect to the kind of possibility involved. There is a whole range of possibilities which can be spelled out as possibility (narrow sense), necessity (strong possibility), obligation (social necessity = less strong possibility), and volition (personal necessity = weakest degree of possibility). The proposed definition of alethic modality is in line with arguments presented in Hundt (2003). Hundt’s main point is that alethic modality is defined as that kind of modality which switches between the objective and the subjective readings of potentiality. It seems that underspecification is the main feature of alethic modality. But this is not the whole picture. What matters even more is that the whole range of deontic possibility readings is underspecified. Thus, an alethic modal verb is a verb which hosts all kinds of possibility readings. When grammaticalization starts, this potential of potentiality explodes into different degrees of potentiality. This observation is in concord with Kotin (2008), who discovered that in former stages of the Slavonic languages the perfective aspect was normally used to symbolize deontic modality. At first sight the question arises how the whole range of deonticity comes to be encoded by just one formal means. The answer is again underspecification. Deontic potentiality had not yet exploded into subtypes of potentiality, the different readings being inferred by cotext and context. See Fig. 5 below. modals 3 deontic/root epistemic (broad sense) 3 potential generic reading reading 3 alethic non-alethic 3 deontic epistemic (narrow sense) 3 33 subtypes of future-projecting modals as later stages of grammaticalization Figure 5. Binary classification of modals.
Elisabeth Leiss
1.4 A braham’s generalizations in the light of the terminological fine-tuning of modality Let us now turn to our starting point which stated that modals combine with lexically perfective infinitives in order to generate deontic meaning (DMV). Exceptions to this rule can be accounted for when we refer to a fine-tuned taxonomy of deontic modals such as proposed in Fig. 5. Abraham’s generalizations apply to non-generic and nonalethic modals only. The explanations given were, first, that generic uses of modals are not especially sensitive to aspectual restrictions, and, second, that alethic modals use different aspects as a tool to specify modals as deontics or as epistemics. In Fig. 6 those deontic modals to which Abraham’s generalization apply to are highlighted in bold letters: modals 3 epistemic deontic/root (broad sense) (as opposed to ‘deontic broad sense’) 3 potential generic reading reading 3 alethic non-alethic 3 deontic epistemic (narrow sense) (as opposed to ‘deontic narrow sense’) 3 33 specified subtypes of future-projecting modals Figure 6. Deontic modals which clearly select embedded perfective infinitives (bold letters).
Analyzing the different layers of deonticity offers the insight that there are also two different notions of epistemicity: Epistemicity in the broad sense and epistemicity as opposed to deonticity in the narrow sense. Summarizing the results of the first part of this paper we can state that aspectuality counts. It counts even where Abraham’s generalizations do not apply to: Aspectuality is also involved when it comes to specifying the underspecified meanings of alethic modals. And what is even more revealing, in these cases the correlations between DMV and perfectivity, and EMV and imperfectivity, are the same as with non-alethic modals. This point is of utmost importance as it leads to the conclusion that aspect is necessarily involved when the semantics of modals is left underspecified. This is especially the case in languages which are devoid of a system of modals, such as the older stages of the Germanic languages. In these languages aspect suffices to encode the semantics of modals. A closer look at the development of the system of modals in German illustrates our central point.
The silent and aspect-driven patterns of deonticity and epistemicity
2. The rise of modals in the Germanic languages 2.1 Deonticity and perfectivity from a historical perspective The leading hypothesis guiding our research says that aspect languages use aspect to encode deontic and epistemic meanings. Languages which have lost aspect develop articles and a class of modals with deontic and epistemic meanings. This, to all appearances, pertains to Old English as well as to Old High German: In both languages the definite article developed relatively late from the demonstrative pronoun. In respect to Diachronic Typology the following correlation is investigated more thoroughly: The Germanic languages lose the former category of aspect (especially loss of perfective ge-verbs) and develop a system of deontic and epistemic modals which suffice to express deontic and epistemic modalities. Of utmost interest is the perfectivizing prefix ga-(Gothic) /gi-(Old High German) /ge-(Middle High German). Historical linguists working on aspect in older stages of the Germanic languages were puzzled by the fact that embedded perfective infinitives were more frequent than embedded imperfective infinitives, irrespective of the embedding auxiliary. Perfective infinitives were selected even when the aspectual semantics involved was imperfective. Along this line, Behaghel (1923/1989: 103–104) wondered why the aspectual opposition was formally neutralized in these contexts. He considers metrical reasons, but doesn’t seem to be very happy with this line of argumentation. A closer look at Behaghel’s examples reveals that exclusively deontic modals are involved. Modal verbs embedding perfective verbs yield a deontic reading only. See (14). (14) MV + [+perf/ *-perf]V > DMV-reading
The preferred selection of gi-/ge-prefixed infinitives by modals is due to the fact that epistemic uses of modals are still rare. There is good reason to explain the rarity of embedded imperfective infinitives with the rareness of epistemic uses of modals. In late OHG and in Middle High German (MHG), when the aspectual systems became more and more weakened, gi-/ge-infinitives survive as embedded infinitives of modals, even when the whole paradigm of word forms of the gi-/ge-prefixed verbs was already completely lost. The same distribution is found in the Gothic language. In Gothic (4th century) the preterite-present magan with the meaning “can”, “be able to” combines nearly exclusively with embedded perfective infinitives: “der abhängige Infinitiv [of magan] ist fast durchwegs perfektiv” (Streitberg 1910/2000: 87): (15) frauja, jabai wileis, magt mik ga-hrain-jan. lord.nom.sg. if you will (you) can me.acc. pf-clean-caus. ‘lord, if you want, you can make me clean/you are able to purify me’
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Furthermore, deontic predications + imbedded perfective infinitives are also attested with verbs which don’t qualify as preterite-presents (all modals except will). This proves that the aspectual selection generalizes beyond modal verbs. (16)
jah sokida ga-saihvan Jesu, conj. seek.past pf-see.inf. Jesus.acc.sg.m. and seeked to see Jesus ‘and he wanted to see Jesus,’
sokida (“to seek” in the sense of Latin “velle”) is a finite verb which combines with a perfective infinitive and transports deontic-voluntative meaning. How does it come about that sokida qualifies as deontic modal without being a preterite-present? Let’s assume that the event semantics of perfective verbs, which is approximately the same as the event semantics of a preterite-present, does the job of transforming verbs into functional equivalents of preterite-presents. It is interesting to note that the perfective prefix ga- compensates for the absence of a directional preposition. The insight that deontic modals clearly select perfective infinitives also holds for Old English and Old High German (see van Gelderen 2004: Ch. 8 for Old English (OE)). (17) OE
Swa sceal geong guma gode ge-wyrcean so shall young man good.dat. accomplish [pf-work] ‘So should a young man through good works accomplish’ (Beowulf 20)
(18) OE thaet ic saenaessas ge-seon mihte that I sea-bluffs see [pf-see] might ‘So that I could see the cliffs’ (19) OHG
uuer mag thaz gi-horen who can that hear [pf-hear] ‘Who can understand that?’
(Beowulf 571)
(Tatian (Masser-edition). 263, 30)
A first look at the data might state exceptions to this rule. There is for example no doubt that there are preterite-presents which select imperfective infinitives as often as perfective infinitives. This holds especially for the preterite-presents such as Gothic skulan (“shall”) and wiljan (“will”) (Streitberg 1910: 197) and their Old High German equivalents sculan and uuollen (Götz 2001). However, these constructions are not to be classified as modal, but rather as temporal constructions building imperfective futures. Preterite-presents which are not recruited as future auxiliaries select perfective infinitives only, whenever a clear deontic (non-generic) reading is intended. At least this holds for unmarked contexts. For marked contexts see the next section below. It is meanwhile common knowledge that in the older stages of the Germanic languages the analytic futures (auxiliary + infinitive) selected imperfective infinitives only (for OHG see Scaffidi-Abbate 1981, for Gothic see Streitberg 1910/2000: 197). We find the
The silent and aspect-driven patterns of deonticity and epistemicity
same selectional restrictions in Russian and Polish, where the auxiliary of the imperfective future tense selects imperfective infinitives only, whereas the perfective future is expressed by the formal perfective present. The same holds for the older stages of the Germanic languages such as Gothic and Old High German. These distributions are quite regular in languages with an elaborate aspect system (for more detail, see section 2.3). What we learn from this is that future-projecting modals and analytic future tenses start with the same auxiliary to construct either a modal or a temporal analytic construction. This is especially true for auxiliaries such as “shall” and “will”. Interestingly enough, the “first modal” with the meaning ‘can’ never qualifies as a temporal auxiliary. The functional load would probably be too heavy. The underspecified auxiliary “can” is specified by aspectual choice as being read as a deontic or epistemic modal. Therefore, there is no room left for additional temporal readings. Auxiliaries signifying “shall” and “will” are equally underspecified. However, with the exception of the janusfaced “can”, these auxiliaries are, at least in the older stages of the Germanic languages, devoid of epistemic readings. Therefore there is room for additional temporal specification. Their specification as deontic modal or as temporal auxiliary is equally effected by aspectual choice, the perfective infinitive being chosen to specify the auxiliary as modal, and the imperfective infinitive being added to create an analytical future tense. Both functions – the deontic function as well as the temporal function – derive from the inherent future-projecting meaning of preterite-presents. This meaning is just specified as two different kinds of the underlying future-projecting function. To sum up our findings, the distributional characteristics of modals and aspect, as stated by Abraham’s generalization, are very robust. So-called exceptions can be explained as mere artefacts created by terminological vagueness. However, there is still another kind of exception which might, at first sight, blur our picture of the interaction between modals and aspect. These factors concern marked syntactic contexts such as negation or definiteness effects. Most of the so-called exceptions to Abraham’s generalization are drawn from marked contexts. Marked contexts tend to select marked forms. Anyone who does not distinguish between unmarked and marked contexts will be confronted with an invasion of counter-examples which blur the patterns of aspectual selection.
2.2 Epistemicity, imperfectivity, definiteness, and negation Most of the so called exceptions to Abraham’s generalizations are triggered by marked contexts. Normally, deontic modals select perfective infinitives. In sentence (18) we find an interesting counter-example. In Gothic the imperfective infinitive of the verb “to do” is taujan, the perfective infinitive being ga-taujan. We would expect that the modal mugan should select the perfective ga-taujan, but in contrast to our expectations the imperfective infinitive taujan is used.
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(20)
ga-u-laubjats Þatei magjau (DMV) Þata [+def] taujan [-perf]? pf-pref-believe.opt.2pl. conj. can.opt.1sg. dem.acc.sg. do.inf. will you believe that I can that do ‘Would you believe that I am able to do that?’ (Gothic bible Matth. 9: 28)
However, what is even more important is that the semantics of the verb phrase “do+demonstrative pronoun” in this context is clearly perfective. Its meaning is “fulfil”/ “achieve”/“accomplish”. Why should the imperfective infinitive be chosen? The answer is obvious for those who are familiar with the aspectualizing effects of nominal definiteness. With the required theoretical background (provided by Leiss 2000) we are able to perceive that the perfective semantics of the formally imperfective taujan is produced by the demonstrative pronoun Þata which is clearly definite and induces an aspectuality effect (perfectivity) on the verb. In other words, if a neutral predicate selects a definite DP as a complement, the resulting verbal complex is perfective. The definiteness of the demonstrative pronoun, which is the source of the rising article in Gothic, creates a perfectivity effect. It is well known meanwhile that perfective verbs can create a definiteness effect. The reverse effect, a perfectivizing effect of DPs, arises with the beginning development of the definite article. In (20) this reverse effect explains the use of taujan, which is formally imperfective, but semantically perfective. Both rules are still valid in Gothic and Old High German (in more detail in Leiss 2000). (21) a. DP[+def] + V[-impf] > Vmax[+pf] b. V[–pf] + ACC. > Vmax[+pf]
Much better known than the definiteness effect is probably the effect of negation on the aspectual preferences of deontic modals. Take for example mugan in Old High German. Its meaning is clearly alethic in the sense defined above in section 1.3. The so-called objective (deontic) meaning of mugan is regularly triggered by the perfective infinitive, the so-called subjective (epistemic) meaning being triggered by the imperfective infinitive. However, in negated propositions this distribution is reversed. In other words, deontic modals in negated sentences normally select the imperfective infinitive. Quite obviously, marked contexts induce marked aspectual selection. The small corpus of magan tokens in Isidor as documented in Götz (2001: 314) easily documents this reversal of aspectual selection: In the Old High German text Isidor there are 8 instances of the “first modal” magan. The prefix chi- is an orthographic variant of the perfectivizing aspectual prefix gi. Three records are in the subjunctive past. The other records are in the present indicative (3) or past indicative (2). To simplify matters I leave out the items in the subjunctive past in order to avoid discussions on the difference between subjunctive and epistemic modality. Of course, the subjunctive is part of the proposition, whereas epistemic modality pertains to the illocutive level of a sentence. Thus, there are five records left:
The silent and aspect-driven patterns of deonticity and epistemicity
Table 3. magan tokens in Old High German ‘Isidor’ magan + perfective infinitive mac chi-rahhon DMV/*EMV mac = 3sg.pres.ind. can pf-speak ‘can tell’ mahta ar-rahhon DMV/*EMV mahta = 3sg.past.ind. could pf-speak ‘could tell’ magan + imperfective infinitive mac uuesan *DMV/EMV for more detail, see (22) can be [impf] ‘may be’ magan + imperfective infinitive + negation (2) haldan ni mahtun DMV/*EMV hold not they can ‘they can not hold’ ni mac uuesan DMV/*EMV not can be ‘can not be’
(22) huues mac dhesiu stimna uuesan, [nibu dhes nerrendin druhtines?] who.gen.sg. can dem. voice.nom.sg. be.inf.[+impf] whose can that voice be [if not that of our lord and saviour] ‘This voice must be the voice of our lord and saviour.’
The distributional characteristics of magan clearly reflect the aspectual sensitivities of modals as predicted by Abraham. The reading of magan is deontic when embedding perfective infinitives. It is epistemic when embedding imperfective infinitives, and, in the marked context of negation there is clearly a reversal of aspectual choice. These characteristics are typical of aspect languages. That deontic “modal predicatives” select perfective infinitives is well attested not only for historical stages of the Germanic languages but also for Russian. The same holds for the functional affinity between negation and imperfective aspect. In Russian negated verbs regularly select the imperfective aspect. This is well known and taught in reference grammars such as Tauscher & Birnbaum (1983: 251). Padučeva (this volume) treats this distribution as the regular selection of aspect by modals in negated sentences, contrasting it with marked contexts of negation where the perfective aspect of the affirmative sentence is preserved. So called “exceptions” to this distribution are also documented in Germanic languages. In contrast to the state of research in Slavic languages, they still wait for an exhaustive explanation (for Middle Dutch, see Postma 2002, who lists negated sentences where modals combine with perfective infinitives. The same holds for Old High German,
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Middle High German and Early New High German). We owe to Padučeva (this volume) the explanation of this hypermarked selection of perfective infinitives by modals in negated sentences in Russian. This selection is possible only when epistemic modals are negated. It does not show up when deontic modals appear in negated sentences. This insight has not yet been exploited to understand the aspectual behavior of modals in negated sentences in the older stages of the Germanic languages.
2.3 Epistemicity, imperfectivity, and tense In the earlier stages of the Germanic languages such as Gothic, Old English, Old High and Middle High German, the (analytic) future tense is formed by a modal verb such as “will” and “shall” + infinitive of an imperfective verb. In this respect, Germanic languages show the same picture as the Slavic languages: Perfective verbs in the present tense are read as futures. Therefore, they cannot form an analytic future tense. In spite of this fact, perfective infinitives regularly combine with modals. These constructions are nonoptimal encodings. Such constructions are either unacceptable (as in Russian) or they are reinterpreted as modal constructions following the path of ATM-reinterpretations: •
•
•
First step of reinterpretation: Perfective verbs in the present tense are non-optimal verbs when used with present time reference. The result is reinterpretation (A > T): The aspect construal reads as tensed. In other words, the formal present of a perfective verb reads as a non-present tense. In the case of Gothic, Old High German, Middle High German, and Russian it conveys the meaning of future time reference. Second step of reinterpretation: Perfective verbs in analytic future tense constructions (auxiliary + perfective infinitive) are non-optimal uses of the analytic future (auxiliary + imperfective infinitive). The result is that the tensed construal reads as a modal construction (T > M). Third step of reinterpretation: The analytic future tense (auxiliary + imperfective infinitive) is used without future time reference but with present time reference or without any anchoring in time. This “faulty” or non-optimal use of the construction is reinterpreted as an epistemic reading.
Obviously the interface between aspect and modals is tense. Modal constructions arise when temporal constructions are produced counter to the selectional restrictions of aspect and time reference. In Middle High German (MHG, 1050–1350) there are three modals which are used to form an analytic future tense: sol + infinitive wil + infinitive muoz + infinitive (less frequent)
The silent and aspect-driven patterns of deonticity and epistemicity
The insight that the temporal reading of the construction is triggered by the imperfect ive infinitive goes back to Scaffidi-Abbate (1981), who was the first to notice that in Old High German (OHG, 750–1050) only imperfective verbs were able to enter into the analytic future tense construction. But what can be said about the epistemic reading, which is still very rare in MHG? The epistemic reading, cross-linguistically, usually arises when modals combine with the imperfective infinitive without establishing future time reference. See (23). (23)
swer sîne tage alsô ge-lebet, […], der muoz ouch wider who his days so pf-lives, […], he must also against got wesen. got be ‘Whoever lives his live such [that …], that one must be against god’. (Der Stricker. Erzählungen. p. 66)
What we see here is a clear epistemic reading of the construction muoz + infinitive. The epistemicity of the construction is due to the generic reading of the sentence. Generic readings and time reference exclude each other. Thus, the construction muoz + imperfective infinitive cannot be read as a future tense. The deontic reading is excluded as well because of the embedded imperfective. The consequence of the nonoptimal use of the construction is extreme markedness: The extremely marked construction is reinterpreted as an epistemic modal. Thus, the emergence of epistemicity is due to the non-optimal choice of verbal aspect. Table 4 shows the whole picture of reinterpretations following the ATM-hierarchy. Table 4. Patterns of ATM-reinterpretations modal verb + perfective infinitive modal verb + imperfective infinitive modal verb + imperfective infinitive (without time reference)
deontic reading future time reference epistemic reading
(d/root-modality) (tense) (e-modality)
The insight into the functioning of these patterns helps to avoid misinterpretations of modal and temporal constructions in ancient texts. According to Fritz (1997: 13) epistemic readings of “must” developed quite late in the history of the German language (no earlier than in the 15th – 16th century). However, as we have seen, (23) is a clear example of an epistemic reading of a “must” + infinitive construction. The deontic reading is excluded for the embedded imperfective infinitive. Thus, the construction is either intended as referring to the future (future tense) or as a construction which is neither deontic nor temporal. The epistemic reading arises when there is no possible temporal anchoring in the future. This holds for the reading in (23): “Whoever leads such a live is necessarily at the same time against god”. Diewald (1999: 396–404) dates the first uses of “must” with wide scope into the Middle High German period,
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but hesitates to categorize such constructions as epistemic modal constructions whereby the speaker’s assessment of the probability of the event is reported. According to Diewald (1999: 402) the epistemic functions arise as late as in the 16th century. With reference to Table 4 above one is tempted to propose a systematic revision of the historical development of modals. In the light of the patterns discovered until now, one would expect that one or two modals should suffice to generate the functional spectrum listed in Table 4. In the light of these findings the tantalizing question arises why the Germanic languages developed a whole class of modal verbs. To answer this question we will take a closer look at the Slavic languages.
3. Modals in the Slavic languages Epistemic uses of modals in Russian are rare and restricted to one or two modals: to moč and, to a lesser extent, dolžen, which can not be defined as a modal in the strict sense. The same holds for aspect languages such as Gothic, Old English, Old High German, or Finnish, where case is used to aspectualize verbs (partitive vs. genitive). The “first modal” is regularly janus-faced. Depending on the aspectuality of the embedded infinitive it is either read as deontic or as an epistemic modal. Thus, we hypothesize that there is no need for aspect languages to have modals in order to signal deonticity and epistemicity. Aspect does the job, too. In a recent publication Kotin (2008) compared the number of modals in the differ ent translations of the Book of Psalms into German, Polish, Russian, and Old Bulgarian. The result of his analysis of the occurrences of modals is a clear correlation between the increasing number of modals and the weakening of aspect (see Table 5): Table 5. Number of modals in the Book of Psalms German Book of Psalms Polish Book of Psalms Russian Book of Psalms Old Church Slavonic Book of Psalms
518 modals + infinitive 69 modals + infinitive 28 modals + infinitive no clear occurrences of modals + infinitive
The formal correlates of the construction modal + infinitive in aspect languages such as Old Church Slavonic, Polish, and Russian are normally perfective aspect verbs. We see that modals + infinitive are relatively frequent in the German Book of Psalms, compared with the Slavic texts. However, a closer look at the Slavic data reveals that the amount of newly arising modal + infinitive constructions in the West Slavic language Polish clearly outnumbers that of the East Slavic language Russian. The rise of “new modals” obviously starts in the West Slavic languages and follows a gradient slope
The silent and aspect-driven patterns of deonticity and epistemicity
to the East Slavic languages. Kotin’s finding is supported by a recent master’s thesis (Meihsner 2006) on the rise of modals in the West Slavic languages. He sketched the following gradient continuum in the number of modals: German 7 können müssen sollen wollen mögen (werden) dürfte sollte
Silesian1 4 (5) moć musieć mieć
Polish 4 (5) moć musieć mieć
(będzie)
(będzie)
powinien
powinien
Russian 1 (2) moč (dolžen)
Figure 7. Number of modals with epistemic reading (Meihsner 2006; Hansen 1999 and 2001).
The modals in brackets are not regularly classified as modals; German werden and its equivalents in Silesian, Polish and in Czech, however, are to be classified as modals if we rely on the defining feature of modals, which is the unfolding of epistemic readings. The Russian modal dolžen is put in brackets, because it is a modal predicative and not a modal verb. However, it can trigger epistemic readings (Hansen 1999: 184), normally when combined with the imperfective verb “be” (byt’), which is in line with the aspect ual affinities of epistemic modals. The number of modals in Czech is the same as in Silesian and Polish. Its modal system, however, seems to be even more evolved than the Silesian and Polish ones. The reason is that the Czech future auxiliary budu exhibits more frequently epistemic readings than its Polish counterparts (Meihsner 2006, who refers to Rytel 19822). For Russian, epistemic readings of budu seem not to be attested. It comes as no surprise that the rise of modals in the East Slavic languages is attributed to language contact with German. However, there is an additional impact factor to be considered: the loss of aspect, which is characteristic of German. At the very moment, it is not easy to disentangle these two correlating features. Aspect loss triggers the unfolding of a system of modal verbs. It triggered for the Germanic languages, such as German and English, also the rise of a new perfect, which compensates for the loss of aspectual pairs in the Germanic languages (Leiss 2002a). Intere stingly enough, we observe, at the very moment, the rise of a new perfect in Polish
. With Silesian we refer to Polish Silesian (Polish) and not German Silesian. . Rytel, Danuta (1982). Leksykalne środki wyrażania modalności w Języku Polskim I Czeskim [Lexical means for the expression of modality in Polish and Czech]. Wrocław: Ossolineum. [Monografie slawistyczne 47 [Slavic Monographs 47].
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(Weydt/Kaźmierczak 1999; Piskorz 2007). Shall we attribute this rise of a new perfect, and, even of a new pluperfect and a future perfect (a sensational finding by Piskorz 2007), solely to language contact with German? Another hypothesis, explaining the rise of a new perfect, would be the weakening of the aspectual system in West Slavic languages. In any case, the aspectual system of West Slavic languages differs considerably from that in the East. The secondarily formed imperfective verbs (with suffix –va) display more often an iterative meaning in Czech and Polish than in Russian. This alludes to a lesser grammaticalization of the iterative marker –va into a imperfective marker. In other words, the aspectual system, which is largely based on secondary imperfectivization in West Slavic languages, seems to be less consistent in Czech and Polish. The weakening of aspect led to the rise of perfect, pluperfect, future perfect, definite and indefinite articles, and the rise of modals in Germanic languages. The whole system had to be restructured. The same process seems to have started in the East Slavic languages.
4. In search of functional equivalents for the modals 4.1 The non-equivalence of modal adverbs with epistemic modals Epistemic adverbs are sometimes supposed to be functionally equivalent to epistemic modal verbs. If it were so, epistemic adverbs should compensate for the absence of a system of modal verbs in any language devoid of modals. However, it would be erroneous to follow this line of argument. Epistemic adverbs are clearly functionally less complex than epistemic verbs. This insight has been elaborated by Diewald (1991, 1999). Epistemic adverbs belong to the class of so-called shifters, a notion introduced by Jakobson (1957/1971). Shifters are deictic elements which depend on the localization of the speaker in order to establish reference. Well-known shifters are personal pronouns and temporal adverbs. In order to track the reference of the personal pronouns I or you, first the speaker has to be localized. The speaker is taken to be the source of deictic reference which has to be accounted for by the hearer in order to understand the deictic element (the shifter). The same holds for temporal and modal adverbs such as yesterday or probably. There is, though, an essential difference between modal adverbs and epistemic modals. Modal adverbs, such as probably or certainly are less complex in terms of deixis. They are simple shifters (Diewald 1999 refers to them as “strong deictic elements”). They are in sharp contrast to epistemic modals where an additional deictic function is involved (“weak deixis” in the misleading terminology of Diewald 1999). Epistemic modals are clearly more complex. Complex deixis means that, additionally to shifting, there is some sort of additional displacement of the viewpoint of the speaker involved. In contrast to Diewald’s (1999) terminology we refer to epistemic modals as complex shifters which are clearly invested with more deictic force than epistemic adverbs.
The silent and aspect-driven patterns of deonticity and epistemicity
Before turning to the essential difference between epistemic adverbs and epistemic modals, we highlight their common denominator. Both epistemic adverbs and epistemic modals signal the speaker’s assessment of the probability of the reported event. There are different degrees of probability assigned to a proposition by modal adverbs such as perhaps, probably, or surely. The same holds for epistemic modals: (26) Er will in Grönland gewesen sein. he will/want.3ps.sg. in Greenland been be ‘He pretends to have been in Greenland [but I see it differently].’ (27) Er soll in Grönland gewesen sein. he shall.3ps.sg. in Greenland been be ‘He is said to have been in Greenland [and I cite the indirect evidence, nothing more].’ (28) Er muss in Grönland gewesen sein. he must.3ps.sg. in Greenland been be ‘He must have been in Greenland [as far as I am in a position to judge].’
The semantics of (26) to (28) can be paraphrased in terms of different degrees of probability. Whereas (26) is associated with a very moderate probability to be true, (27) evocates a high degree of truthfulness; and in contrast to both of them, (26) is associated with some sort of intermediate degree of probability. Would it therefore be acceptable to translate the epistemic function of German modal wollen in (26) by perhaps, of sollen in (27) by probably, and of müssen in (28) by certainly? The paraphrases would then be: (28) ‘Perhaps he has been to Greenland.’ (29) ‘He probably has been to Greenland.’ (30) ‘He certainly has been to Greenland.’
It is indeed common practice by translators to rely on epistemic adverbs when they have to translate epistemic modals into a language which has a restricted system of modal verbs, i.e., when translating German epistemic modals into Russian. However, there is good reason to doubt the adequacy of this common-sense practice. First of all, it is worth noticing that translations of this kind do exhibit far more epistemic adverbs than an average Russian text does. Obviously there are covert equivalents of the funct ion of epistemics, unconsciously used by native speakers, but still hidden to transla tors and linguists. Even more important is the argument that the use of modal adverbs as translational dummies for epistemic modals results in a substantial loss of information. What is lost is the source of information. While it is true that epistemic modals and epistemic adverbs are functionally equivalent insofar as an assessment of the reliability of information is commented on by the speaker, only epistemic modals such as German wollen, sollen, and müssen can additionally encode the source of information on which the speaker’s judgement relies on. When using the epistemic wollen in
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(26) Er will in Grönland gewesen sein. he want.3ps.sg. in Greenland been be ‘He pretends to have been in Greenland [but I see it differently].’
the speaker signals that the source is not very reliable because it pertains to a “third person”. The subject of the proposition in (26) is the very source of the judgement of the speaker. The speaker not being the objective source himself, the probability of the proposition is inferred to be quite low. In contrast to this, its probability achieves a maximum, when the source of information pertains to the “first person”. In this case the source on which the speaker relies upon is the speaker himself, as in (28): (28) Er muss in Grönland gewesen sein. he must.3ps.sg. in Greenland been be ‘He must have been in Greenland [as far as I am in a position to judge].’
An intermediate degree of probability is achieved when the source of information pertains to the “second person”. The second person (singular or plural) refers to a person who is neither the subject of the proposition nor the speaker himself. It refers to a person close to the speaker, being close enough to witness the event of which truth conditions are to be evaluated: (27) Er soll in Grönland gewesen sein. he shall.3ps.sg. in Greenland been be ‘He is said to have been in Greenland [and I cite the indirect evidence, nothing more].’
The picture can be completed by taking a close look at the German modal verb können “can”. (32) Er kann in Grönland gewesen sein. he can.3ps.sg. in Greenland been be. ‘He may have been in Greenland.’
The modal verb ‘can’ is always special in that it has a clear tendency to underspecification. We did already notice that this modal is regularly underspecified concerning its reading as a deontic or epistemic modal. It appears that ‘can’ is once again underspecified. This time the source of information is not specified. While the source is present, it is at the same time neutralized as to the quality of first, second or third person. We are only informed that the source of information is grounded on hearsay. The personal source of hearsay is left unspecified. The proposed classification, which is based on the category of person and its neutralization, leaves open one question. What happens to those additional modal verbs in German such as mögen or werden? Three or four epistemic modals should clearly suffice to identify different sources of hearsay. This question vanishes as soon as we
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become aware of the fact that we describe the system of modals being in the midst of a process of ongoing grammaticalization. Whenever a process of grammaticalization is not yet completed, a whole range of competitors for the same function is quite normal. In any case, when we start from the hypothesis that there is a close connection between the grammatical category of person and the functional specification of epistemics, then there is no room for additional specification. As to this point, much more research is to be done to understand the interface constraints between epistemic modality and the category of person. Summing up our arguments in this section, we can say that epistemic modals, unlike epistemic adverbs, involve a split up of the centre of judgment into two distinct parts, one being the speaker’s attitude towards the proposition, and the other being the source of the speaker’s information. What is involved here is double displacement. First, the speaker distances herself from the proposition in judging it (this being true for both epistemic modals and epistemic adverbs), and second, the speaker is presented as distant from the source of evidence, this being true only for epistemic modal verbs. This process of double displacement even holds for “first person”-evidence, such as is presented in (26). In such a case, the speaker cites himself as the source of evidence, this source being presented as independent from the viewpoint of the speaker. In other words, the speaker is splitting himself up into the source of judgement and into the speaker on whom the judgement relies. There are two viewpoints involved. In contrast to epistemic adverbs, it is the source of evidence which counts for epistemic modals and which has therefore to be laid open. The inferential processes, which trigger the quality of evidence, make us conclude that epistemic modals are to be classified as pertaining to the category of evidentials. This is a very interesting, but very controversial point. In the introduction we have presented the modal systems in the Germanic languages as quite exotic systems, not to be found with the same elaborateness in other languages. Note, that evidentials also are candidates for exotic categories, specific for well-defined linguistic areas in the world. Epistemic modals and evidentials seem to be phenomena which can be reduced to an identical function. This idea is not new, and it has its opponents (Aikhenvald 2004) as well as its advocates. Maybe this debate becomes superfluous as soon as we differentiate between epistemic adverbs and epistemic modals. Only epistemic modals can be compared with evidentials and their feature of double displacement of the speaker into source and viewpoint. Epistemic adverbs, with their simplistic design, certainly cannot be compared with evidentials. There is reason to assume that the proof of the functional equivalence of epistemic modals and of evidential markers would result in the reduction of idiosyncrasies in the description of cross-linguistic modality. To sum up this section: Our first result has been that epistemic adverbs such as probably cannot be considered as equivalents for epistemic modals, the very reason being that epistemic adverbs involve just one viewpoint whereas epistemic modals are characterized by two viewpoints: the viewpoint of the source of evidence, and the
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viewpoint of the speakers assessment of the proposition. Thus, we concluded that the functions of epistemic modals and epistemic adverbs do not compare. Their respective functions cannot be given a unified description. On the other side, the attempt at providing a unified description of epistemic modals and evidentials seems to be a much more promising task. Both grammatical categories are grounded on hearsay. This is well documented for evidentials (Johanson & Utas 2000; Mushin 2001; Aikhenvald 2004). As for epistemic modals, the importance of the feature of hearsay has either not yet been noticed or else been underestimated. In the next section some first hints will be provided why evidentials and epistemic modals can be seen as competitors for the same grammatical function.
4.2 O n the functional equivalence of epistemic modals and evidentials: Conclusion Evidentials involve both the source of information and the speaker’s judgement. Both are essential features of this category. Thus, they involve double displacement. The discussion of “subjectivity” normally ignores the abyssal difference between simple displacement (simple shifters such as epistemic adverbs) and double displacement which is characteristic of evidentials as well as of epistemics. Mushin (2001) tries to overcome this deficit in the recent research on subjectification by playing down the importance of both the source of the information and the speaker’s judgement. According to Mushin, just one component would be sufficient to define evidentials and all other kinds of epistemic modality. Mushin (2001: 33) even argues that both components are not necessarily interrelated. The aim of her proposal is to unify all linguistic means which express so-called “epistemic stance”: “As a conceptual structure, epistemological stance is independent of linguistic form and may be expressed by any of grammatical, lexical or paraphrastic means” (Mushin 2001: 53). The emphasis is clearly on “conceptual structure”. She achieves this result by ignoring the essential difference between lexical and grammatical devices of construing epistemic modality. Her ultimate goal is to fortify the axiomatics of those who believe in conceptualization as being independent of language. This is in sharp contrast to the position of radical nativism (i.e., of Bickerton 1990, and, quite close to it: Hinzen 2006, 2007). Hinzen (2007) argues that all sophisticated cognitive abilities which are species-specific of human cognition derive from linguistic structures. Mushin (2001) takes the contrary position and must downplay the fundamental difference between lexicon and grammar, which is in line with recent developments in construction grammar. Apart from this axiomatic difference, Mushin (2001) presents very insightful material on evidentials which helps us to understand the common denominator of epistemic modals and evidentials. Looking at the material presented in Mushin (2001), the evidential system of Quechua seems to be functionally very close to the evidential functions of the German
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epistemic modals wollen, müssen, and sollen. The following example from Quechua (from Mushin 2001: 18) is very similar to the epistemic modal sollen: (32)
waala- man- shi Wankayuu-ta li-n’a tomorrow- goal- rep.3 Huancayo-acc. go-fut. ‘He will go to Huancayo tomorrow (I hear)’ ‘Er soll morgen nach Huancayo gehen.’/ ‘Er soll morgen in Huancayo sein.’ (German) ‘He is said to go to Huancayo tomorrow/It is said that he will be in H. tomorrow’
Another marker in Quechua corresponds to the German epistemic modal müssen. The evidential marker -cha signals that the source of evidence is the speaker (Mushin 2001: 23). A third evidential marker is -mi. In some cases it seems to correspond to the evidential function of the German epistemic modal wollen, especially when it refers to the subject of the event as experiencer. It has to be admitted that there is a certain difference between the evidential functions of German modals and evidentials in languages such as Quechua. The use of evidential markers is obligatory, whereas the use of epistemic modals is not. Aikhenvald (2004) takes this as an argument against the functional equivalence of epistemic modals and evidentials. However, this argument is not very solid. There are many languages (i.e., Chinese) where grammatical categories such as aspect or tense are not used obligatorily, without them being suspect of being devoid of these categories. The correspondences between epistemic modals and evidentials can not be discussed in any more detail in the present study. They will be subject to future research. A last word, however, might be in place. There are many aspectual restrictions to be observed in the use of evidentials. In other words: The complete picture of the interplay between aspect and evidentials is still a matter of thorough investigation.
References Primary sources Die gotische Bibel. Edited by Wilhelm Streitberg (1910/72000). Band 1: Der gotische Text und seine griechische Vorlage. Band 2: Gotisch-Griechisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch. Heidelberg: Winter. Der Stricker. Erzählungen, Fabeln, Reden. Mittelhochdeutsch/Neuhochdeutsch. Edited, translated, and annotated by Otfrid Ehrismann 1992. Stuttgart: Reclam. [Reclam UniversalBibliothek 8797].
. Mushin (2001) does not list rep. in her list of abbreviations. Its meaning should be “reported speech” or “reportive”.
Elisabeth Leiss Tatian. Die lateinisch-althochdeutsche Tatianbilingue Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen Cod. 56. Edited by Achim Masser 1994, assisted by Elisabeth De Felip-Jaud. Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. [Studien zum Althochdeutschen 25]. Tatian. Lateinisch und altdeutsch mit ausführlichem Glossar. Edited by Eduard Sievers (21892/1966). Paderborn: Schöningh. [Reprint of the 2nd, revised edition 1892]. [Bibliothek der ältesten deutschen Literaturdenkmäler 5].
Secondary references Abraham, Werner. 1991. Modalverben in der Germania. In Eijirô Iwasaki (Ed.), Begegnung mit dem “Fremden”. Grenzen – Traditionen – Vergleiche. Akten des VIII. Internationalen Germanisten-Kongresses in Tokyo 1990. Vol. 4 (pp. 109–118). München: Iudicium. Abraham, Werner. 2002. Modal verbs. Epistemics in German and English. In Sjef Barbiers, Frits Beukema & Wim van der Wurff 2002 (Eds), (pp. 19–50). Abraham, Werner. 2005. Event arguments and modal verbs. In Claudia Maienborn & Angelika Wöllstein (Eds), Event arguments: Foundations and applications (pp. 243–276). Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Reihe Linguistische Arbeiten 501]. Abraham, Werner. 2008. Wie ist die historisch spezifische Ausgliederung der Modalitäten bei den deutschen Modalverben denkbar? To appear in Linguistische Berichte 2008. Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2004. Evidentiality. Oxford: OUP. Barbiers, Sjef, Frits Beukema & Wim van der Wurff (Eds). 2002. Modality and its Interaction with the Verbal System. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistic Today 47]. Behaghel, Otto. 1923/21989. Deutsche Syntax. Eine geschichtliche Darstellung. Band 2: Die Wortklassen und Wortformen. Heidelberg: Winter. [2nd, unrevised edition]. Bickerton, Derek. 1990. Language and species. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Diewald, Gabriele Maria. 1991. Deixis und Textsorten im Deutschen. Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Reihe Germanistische Linguistik 118]. Diewald, Gabriele Maria. 1999. Die Modalverben im Deutschen. Grammatikalisierung und Polyfunktionalitä. Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Reihe Germanistische Linguistik 208]. Fritz, Gerd. 1997. Historische Semantik der Modalverben. Problemskizze – Exemplarische Analyse – Forschungsüberblick. In Gerd Fritz & Thomas Gloning (Eds), Untersuchungen zur semantischen Entwicklungsgeschichte der Modalverben im Deutschen (pp. 1–157). Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Reihe Germanistische Linguistik 187]. Gelderen, Elly van. 2004. Grammaticalization as Economy. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Linguistik Aktuell / Linguistics Today 71]. Gevorgyan-Ninness, Stella. 2005. Die Herausbildung des epistemischen Ausdrucks im Deutschen, Russischen und Armenischen. Frankfurt: Lang. [Europäische Hochschulschriften. Reihe XXI: Linguistik 283]. Götz, Ursula. 2001. uuvo mag thaz sîn. Die unterschiedlichen Gebrauchsweisen der Präteritopräsentien im Althochdeutschen des 8.-20. Jahrhunderts. Habilitationsschrift: Universität Bamberg. Hammerich, L.L. 1960: Über die Modalverben der neugermanischen Sprachen. Zeitschrift für deutsche Wortforschung, 16, 47–70. Hansen, Björn. 1999. Die Herausbildung und Entwicklung der Modalauxiliare im Polnischen. In Tanja Anstatt (Ed.), Entwicklungen in slavischen Sprachen (pp. 83–167). München: Sagner. [Specimina Philologiae Slavicae; Supplementband 66]. Hansen, Björn. 2001. Das slavische Modalauxiliar. Semantik und Grammatikalisierung im Russischen, Polnischen, Serbischen/Kroatischen und Altkirchenslavischen. München: Otto Sagner.
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Hedin, Eva. 2000. The type-referring function of the imperfective. In Östen Dahl (Ed.), Tense and aspect in the languages of Europe (pp. 227–264). Berlin: de Gruyter. [Empirical Approaches to Language Typology: Eurotyp 20–6]. Hinzen, Wolfgang. 2006. Mind design and minimal syntax. Oxford: OUP. Hinzen, Wolfram. 2007. An essay on names and truth. Oxford: OUP. [Oxford linguistics]. Hundt, Markus. 2003. Zum Verhältnis von epistemischer und nicht-epistemischer Modalität im Deutschen. Forschungspositionen und Vorschlag zur Neuorientierung. Zeitschrift für Germanistische Linguistik, 31, 343–381. Jakobson, Roman. 1957/1971. Beitrag zur allgemeinen Kasuslehre. Gesamtbedeutungen der russischen Kasus. In Roman Jakobson, Selected Writings 2 (pp. 23–71). The Hague: Mouton. Johanson, Lars & Bo Utas (Eds). 2000. Evidentials. Turkic, Iranian and Neighboring languages. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 24]. Kangasniemi, Heikki. 1992. Modal expressions in Finnish. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden. [Studia Fennica Linguistica 2]. Kotin, Michail L. 2008. Zu den Affinitäten zwischen Modalität und Aspekt: Eine germanischslavische Fallstudie. Die Welt der Slawen, 53, 116–140. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2000. Artikel und Aspekt. Die grammatischen Muster von Definitheit. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Studia Linguistica Germanica 55]. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2000a. Verbalaspekt und die Herausbildung epistemischer Modalverben. Germanistische Linguistik, 154, 63–83. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2002. Explizite und implizite Kodierung von Deontizität und Epistemizität: über die grammatische Musterbildung vor der Entstehung von Modalverben. Jezikoslovlije, 3, 69–98. Meihsner, Peter. 2006. Aspekt und Modalität im Deutschen, Schlesischen und Polnischen. Master thesis. LMU Munich. Mushin, Ilana. 2001. Evidentiality and epistemological stance. Narrative retelling. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 87]. Piskorz, Jadwiga. 2007. Die Entwicklungslogik des Perfekts. Eine sprachvergleichende Studie des Deutschen und des Polnischen. MA thesis, LMU Munich. Postma, Gertjan. 2002. Negative polarity and modality in Middle Dutch ghe-particle constructions. In Sjef Barbiers, Frits Beukema & Wim van der Wurff 2002 (Eds) (pp. 205–244). Rathmayr, Renate. 1976. Die perfektive Präsensform im Russischen. Eine multilateral-kontrastive Funktionsanalyse der russischen Form anhand ihrer französischen und deutschen Entsprechungen. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. [PhilosophischHistorische Klasse: Sitzungsberichte 310,1]. Scaffidi-Abbate, B. Augusto. 1981. Möglichkeiten der Futurbezeichnung im althochdeutschen Tatian und anderen althochdeutschen literarischen Denkmälern. Sprachwissenschaft, 6, 288–234. Streitberg, Wilhelm. (1910/2000). Gotisches Elementarbuch. Heidelberg: Winter. [Reprint of the 3rd and 4th enhanced edition]. Tauscher, Elisabeth & Ernst-Georg Birnbaum. 1983. Grammatik der russischen Sprache. 15th, unchanged edition. Düsseldorf: Brücken-Verlag. Weidner, Anneliese. 1986. Die russischen Übersetzungsäquivalente der deutschen Modalverben. Versuch einer logisch-semantischen Charakterisierung. München: Sagner. [Slavistische Beiträge 203]. Weydt, Harald & Alicja Kaźmierczak. 1999. Gibt es ein Perfekt im modernen Polnisch? URL: < http://www.linguistik-online.de/3_99/weydt.html > (30.12.07).
Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English Debra Ziegeler
National University of Singapore The alignment of deontic modality with perfective lexical aspect and epistemic modality with imperfective lexical aspect has been observed in a number of recent publications on the interface between aspect and modality (e.g., Abraham 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003). The present study considers the way in which such associations arise, considering the possibility of compositional (propositional) aspect as a determining factor, and, at the same time, proposes a solution to a question arising from an earlier study (Ziegeler 2003) in which the source context for the generation of deontic modal inferences in a recently-developing semi-modal, be supposed to, was ill-defined. The earlier data is re-examined from the perspective of generic sub-categories, and it is demonstrated that the sources of the deontic modal inferences begin to appear in a normative generic type expressing social or moral duty. Deontic modality thus emerges out of an environment in which perfective lexical aspect is already a necessary feature of the original source context.
1. Introduction Apart from the syntactic studies of Abraham (1990, 1991a, 1991b, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003a/2005), very little work, to present knowledge, has been undertaken on the interface between aspect and modality, an area of aspectual studies which Sasse (2002) described as severely under-researched. It is certainly an area requiring of a semantic analysis. The role of aspect in the origin of tense marking across languages has been alluded to in studies such as Bybee, Pagliuca & Perkins (1994), and the continued relation between aspect and tense is at the basis for a vast number of predictions in grammaticalisation theory. The theme of this workshop underlines a central historical relationship between perfectivity and factivity, imperfectivity and non-factivity, a relationship which in some languages dispenses with the need for a full paradigm set of modal verbs, as suggested by Abraham (2003a, 2005). Further questions raised . Acknowledgement is due to the many suggestions received from the audience of the Workshop, Werner Abraham and Elisabeth Leiss, Tuck Choy, the referees, and An Verhulst, which have all helped to shape this paper. Any shortcomings, of course, remain my own.
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discuss the ‘‘aktionsart’’ properties of the main verb that distinguish deontic modality from epistemic modality, and why bounded or lexically perfective verb types are seen to co-occur most frequently with deontic or root modality (future-projecting modality, in the present study) and unbounded or lexically imperfective verb types most often co-occur with epistemic modal meanings. It is the latter question which is of most interest to the present study. In previous studies, it was observed that modal inferences in English may arise out of combinations of particular aspectual conditions, and that hypotheses such as the following could be made, with reference to the development of modality in English:
(1) “That modality arises principally as an inferential by-product of particular lexical-grammatical aspectual co-occurrence conditions” (Ziegeler 2006a).
The observation was based on various studies in which, for example, counterfactual modal inferences were seen to metamorphose out of past tense statives and imperfective grammatical aspect (e.g., Dowty 1979; Langacker 1987a, 1987b; Smith 1991: 109; Ziegeler 1995). In this way, it could be argued that modality is an emergent feature of grammar, in the sense of Hopper (1987); i.e., it is unstable and in a constant state of flux. Its emergence in aspectual conflict situations is pragmatic; it is not necessarily marked morphologically in such functions, as will be seen later in the study, but arises as a conversational implicature under certain semantic combinatory situations. The emergence of modal inferences out of particular aspectual co-occurrence conditions is not restricted to counterfactual modality either, but the same co-occurrence conditions are present, it is found, in the genesis of future-projecting (or ‘‘root’’) modality. With respect to the second question above, it will be seen that the role of pre-modal functions in the development of future-projecting modality, in some sample cases, has much to do with the tendency for future-projecting types to associate with aspectually perfective main verbs. In considering this question, a previous study of the development of be supposed to in English (Ziegeler 2003), a recently-emerging periphrastic modal with only infrequent epistemic uses, will be used as an example. In that particular study, it was hypothesised that the modal meanings of the developing semi-modal began in environments of ambiguity where a habitual action with a human subject could be construed as customary duty at the same time. Counter-arguments raised by later studies (e.g., Visconti 2004) referred to invited inferences arising when the time reference of the modal construction was future; however, without a temporal adverbial, it would not be possible to derive future meanings without the main verb being perfective or non-stative aspectually, and such aspectual tendencies were also found in earlier, “belief ” readings of the modal. It will be seen by this example that the association of deontic modals with perfective verb classes is intrinsically linked to the environments in which the deontic meanings first
. Ziegeler (2003) may be referred to throughout as “the earlier/previous study”.
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emerged, which expressed generic aspect using human subjects and non-stative verbs, and could be associated with habitual activities of customary duty; the aim of the present paper is to re-evaluate the previous study with a more fine-tuned semantic classification of such sources, and to provide a quantificational model of semantic change. Because of the associations between aspect and modal type, it is also questioned whether compositional aspect (Verkuyl 1993) can be taken into consideration in examining the co-occurring environmental features most likely to yield deontic modality from generic sources, or whether the deontic meanings are more likely to arise from a particular generic context. Discussion will be divided as follows: section 1 will discuss definitions and new terminology used to describe categories of modality and aspect; section 2 will consider the theoretical classifications of generics and review the possibilities of examining perfectivity in modal constructions compositionally; section 3 will examine as an example study the particular aspectual conditions that gave rise to future-projecting meanings in be supposed to, and section 4 will propose a quantificational model of grammaticalisation predicting the way in which non-modal, generic contexts may provide the sources for deontic meanings of obligation because of a deontic force already present as part of the generic meaning. The present model presupposes that the principles of semantic continuity underlying change in grammaticalisation processes will be operative; i.e., that the evidence of ambiguous overlap of meaning in sequential stages of development will be possible as a diagnostic tool to determine the accuracy of predicted pathways of formal change. It also reveals the way in which high text frequency can be correlated with functional replacement in the grammaticalisation of the early stages of modality in English. It is concluded that propositional or compositional elements of aspect, rather than contributing to the development of deontic modal meanings, are instead enabled by the deontic or future-projecting meanings already brought about by the contexts out of which they emerge: generic situations which are neutral to space-time constraints and therefore provide the optimum conditions for the creation of modal inferences.
2. Definitions and terminology 2.1 Generic modality The present paper will take into account a number of definitions of aspect and modality that have been used in past research, as well as additional reformulations of such definitions in terms of their usefulness to the present study. Previous, traditional studies of modality have distinguished such categories as deontic and epistemic modal verbs (e.g., Lyons 1977; Palmer 11986), and their successors have referred to a more general category of root modality (e.g., Coates 1983, 1995) to cover all non-epistemic categories, some referring more especially to the functional aspect of the modal verb paradigm,
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using terms such as agent-oriented, or speaker-oriented (Bybee, Pagliuca & Perkins 1994). More recently, terms such as participant-external and participant-internal have been used to apply to the variations in the semantics of the modal verbs in the sense of the modal source (Van der Auwera & Plungian 1998), cutting across the classical distinctions of previous studies which divided the modals into those which were related to commitment of the subject to the proposition in the complement of the modality (deontic) and those that were related to the degree of commitment that a speaker had or did not have regarding the facts of the complement proposition (epistemic). In addition to deontic, root, and epistemic modalities, Palmer (11986) has also referred to dynamic modality, which includes modal verbs expressing volition or ability (Van der Auwera & Plungian’s 1998 participant-internal types). In English, these modal verbs are represented in the form of can and will and their past tense forms, could and would. The sources of many other core modals, e.g., must and may also contained dynamic senses in their lexical origins (see e.g., Traugott & Dasher 2002), if dynamism in such cases should be related to the source of the modality as an innate characteristic or abilities of the subject. Although Palmer (11986) is reluctant to include such modals in a core description, it is difficult to avoid describing them as modals in the sense that a reference to the innate abilities or characteristics of their subjects carries the invited inferences necessary for establishing modal projections. Some accounts (e.g., Li 2003) have described them as “factive”, and functioning to make assertions, in keeping with Palmer’s (11986) rejection of their classification. However, it is difficult to make an assertion about a subject’s ability without evoking the inference of possibility arising from it. For example: (2) […] male putty-nosed monkeys […] in West Africa can combine different sounds to construct new messages […] (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/18/ wchimp18.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/18/ixuknews.html)
In (2), the modal verb, can, in expressing the abilities of the subject alone, also unavoidably projects the meaning of future possibility of the entire event as an inferential part of its meaning. The modality of the meaning of the proposition is related to speaker-knowledge; in the case of (2), that the speaker has knowledge that whatever is referred to in the proposition is known as true at any time and at all times.
. Abraham (2002) cites von Wright (1951) who notes that the word deontic comes from the Greek past participle deon meaning ‘‘the necessary”, ‘‘the appropriate”, and epistemic from the Greek noun episteme meaning ‘‘(human) knowledge, ability (to recognise)”. . Van der Auwera & Plungian (1998) do not reclassify epistemic modality.
Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English
Timeless truths are often referred to as nomic statements, and in English modalised propositions with nomic reference are, as also indicated by Abraham (2003b), interchangeable with non-modalised counterparts:
(2) […] male putty-nosed monkeys […] in West Africa combine different sounds to construct new messages […]
In (2), the same sense of genericity and ability is expressed simply by the use of the simple present tense, and as a non-continuous aspectual form it implies perfectivity relative to the time of speaking simply by contrast to the progressive imperfective, which expresses continuity over speech time. The genericity of the statement, though, is derived not from the use of modals or the simple present, but from the bare nominal arguments. The introduction of the modal in such cases as (2) may be discourserelated: its presence may signify that the facts are not well-established as nomic truths but rather newly-discovered phenomena, i.e., the sense is mirative by comparison to (2). Dynamic modals, in examples like (2), can also be used to express tense distinctions (Verstraete 2001: 1525), in expressing a past possibility or ability, e.g.:
(3) At that time, male putty-nosed monkeys […] in West Africa could combine different sounds to construct new messages.
The auxiliary verb is a stative verb expressing the subject’s ability in its basic lexical sense; it only develops modal inferences when the proposition over which it has scope refers to an event ascribable to an indefinite number of subjects, or is distributed across an indefinite number of occurrences. The interchangeability of modal generics with non-modal counterparts to express virtually the same meanings indicates that the distinctive semantic features of such modality types, characterising meanings, demonstrate a generic, aspectual function which is part aspect, part modal. Dahl (1995), citing Comrie (1976) has accommodated generics with habituals in the domain of aspect. However, he also reveals that they are marked in some languages with imperfectivity, though perfective marking on generics may also be found when the individual events they refer to are bounded; he concludes that aspectual distinctions are generally neutralised in generic situations (Dahl 1995: 420). Givón (1994) assigns habituals to a “swing” category between realis and irrealis, so referring to the modal nuances that may
. The spelling nomic to describe statements of timeless truth is in accord with Dahl (1975: 100fn.) who distinguishes the term from gnomic, a term used in traditional grammars of Classical Greek to refer to the uses of the aorist in proverbial expressions. . It could be suggested that the progressive describes continuity of the actuality of an event over speech time, while the generic/habitual aspect describes continuity of the truth of the event over speech time. The generic aspect thus expresses imperfectivity in its most abstract and subjectified form.
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arise from a generic situation. Bybee et al. (1994) also found that, crosslinguistically, generics and habituals were sometimes marked as realis, sometimes as irrealis, leading them to conclude that it was the realis/irrealis distinction that was not valid. However, it is the fact that generics refer to unrealised, but not truth-conditionally false events, that is confusing in the search for a universal classification – it is necessary to make the distinction between timeless fact and actualised fact (which is tied to a spatiotemporal reference point). In examining the interfaces between aspect and modality, and in answering the questions that arise from the aspectual sensitivity of modal types, it is essential to give consideration to particular areas in which both verbal categories may interact; i.e., generics are not anchored to a particular time, place or participant, and thus are neutral to space-time limitations. As such, it could be suggested that they provide fertile ground for the generation of modal inferences.
2.2 Aspectual interactions with modality types In the leading paper of this workshop, Abraham (2003b), and as noted in the introduction, it is emphasised that the distinction between deontic and epistemic modality may be determined by the tendency for deontic modals to have lexically perfective (non-stative) aspectual complement verbs and for epistemics to have lexically (or grammatically) imperfective (stative) main verb complements. This distinction, however, is not as strict as it might seem for English. Palmer (2004) raises the possibility that epistemic modal interpretations can be given to some examples containing perfective predicates:
(4) He must come tomorrow.
It is questionable, though, whether the use of must in such examples is epistemic, i.e., concerning a deductive evaluation made by the speaker over an existing state of affairs, or predictive, involving an inductive inference from evidence available in the present or past. Some speakers might prefer to use a semi-modal, e.g., He has (got) to come tomorrow, or a progressive with future reference: He must be coming tomorrow, suggesting the marginality of such uses: it is likely that they are in the stages of grammaticalising to express future probability as well as present time probability. Epistemic meanings, however, have been rejected as being associated with future reference by Abraham (2002) and Ziegeler (2006a, b), mainly for the fact that it is deontic or root meanings that have in common the attribute of future time reference. This leads us to believe that in examples like (4) the epistemic scope is outside the time reference of the proposition, just as in cases in which the epistemic modality appears to refer to the past: he must have come yesterday. In both cases, it is the temporal adverb which is supplying the time reference, the modality has temporal scope over a present evaluation of a past or future event (i.e., ‘‘It must (now) be the case that he comes tomorrow/came yesterday.’’). This example thus serves to contradict the usual tendency for epistemics to co-occur
Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English
with stative predicates in most Germanic languages as shown by Abraham (1998, 2002, 2003a/2005, 2003b). A similar example was pointed out by Ronny Boogaart (p.c.): She must win an Oscar (tomorrow). Although the use of the temporal adverb creates potential ambiguity between a deontic reading and an epistemic reading, the ambiguity remains in its absence, due to the type of ‘‘aktionsart’’ used: win an Oscar is an achievement verb, and achievements are frequently found to be less agentive than other types of non-statives, a feature shared with imperfectives in epistemic predicates (although win an Oscar requires agentivity, the event is not totally within the control of the subject). However, the question of agency in modal verb complexes is a disputable one, and will be addressed in more detail below. McDowell (1991) also discusses those which are “stative in interpretation”, referring to grammatical imperfectives such as progressives, and modal perfects, as in the following news headline:
(5) Speed of light may have changed recently (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6092.html – 09/08/06)
(5), nevertheless, is complemented by a stative auxiliary (have; be in the case of progressive complements), meaning that the aspectual co-occurrence constraints for the use of epistemic modality are the same as with any other predicate. In some cases the sense of stativity is not supplied by the co-occurring auxiliary, as in the imperfective grammatical habituals or generics discussed above:
(6) But while Montella must often sit on the bench in Rome while the fading Gabriel Batistuta takes his place, it must be even more frustrating to be kicking his heels while Inzaghi is on the pitch. (The Guardian – 13/06/02)
(6) (cited in the earlier study) could be interpreted with a deontic interpretation, though a habitual, generic aspectual reading (similar to (2), but with a specific subject) is more likely. Similar ambiguities may arise when the modal perfect passive refers to a future event rather than one which has been completed before the moment of speaking as in (7):
(7) Efforts must have been made to secure a new grant for further funding in good time before the expiry of the present contract and all other relevant sources of support fully and satisfactorily pursued. (http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/ps/staff/codes/cssbss.shtml – 09/08/06)
. Van Valin (1993), however, accords to achievements a sense of agentivity based on the premise that they can be identified as possessing a DO-operator in their logical structure (or decompositional representation).
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The time reference in (7) is future, as the example appears in a list of instructions to the reader; it does not express the speaker’s evaluation of a past situation, but instead a modal future perfect function. As such, it has a deontic force, at the same time sharing a form with an epistemic function. Another problem area is that of the ‘‘wide-scope’’ deontics of Nordlinger & Traugott (1997: 303), a stage hypothesised to occur diachronically between deontic and epistemic stages, and frequently marked with passive complements. This category could also be used to describe the examples of Verstraete (2001: 1508), due to their ability to carry deontic meanings which are not assigned to the speaker, nor to any other determinate source:
(8) But to reach orbit an object must accelerate to a speed of about 17,500 miles per hour […] and it must reach an altitude of more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) in order to be clear of the atmosphere. (ICE-GB: W2B-035 #39: 1)
It is clear from such examples that the distinctions between deontic and epistemic, if they rest entirely on the aspectual nature of the main verb, can produce areas of ambiguity or indeterminacy. In such hybrid conditions, the scope for shifting from one category to another is more enhanced; thus it can be hypothesised that in the historical development of modal forms, such domains are amongst those most likely to generate change. The example of the developing semi-modal, be supposed to, in English, bears testimony to such claims, as will be seen in later sections.
2.3 Semantic roles and modality In the last section, it was noted that epistemic readings may be slightly more possible with perfective predicates if the ‘‘aktionsart’’ of the predicate verb was an achievement, as such predicates share with perfectives the senses of dynamic action, and yet at the same time, the subject is not always in complete agentive control of the action and the action referred to is related to senses of chance or unpredictability (e.g., She must win an Oscar).10 The term ‘‘agent-oriented’’ modality has been frequently used, particularly
. Some speakers may prefer the use of a deontic semi-modal periphrasis such as will have to; it is not known to what extent such uses of must have + V-en are acceptable in some dialects. . The coding used by the International Corpus of English for this particular example (W2B-035) indicates that the example comes from the genre category of non-academic writing (non-technical). . By way of contrast, an accomplishment such as She must paint the fence, if used to express an epistemic meaning, carries with it an implicature of uncertainty that the subject will actually perform the action. The same kind of uncertainty is not found with deontic readings, which presuppose action subsequent to the moment of speaking.
Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English
in grammaticalisation studies, since its introduction in Bybee, Pagliuca & Perkins (1991), and Bybee et al. (1994) to refer to all the root, deontic and dynamic types of modality described by Coates (1983, 1995) and Palmer (11986, 2001). The role of an agent in the performance of a modalised event was taken into account by Bybee et al. (1994: 177) when they used it to describe “[…] the existence of internal and external conditions on an agent with respect to the completion of the action expressed in the main predicate.” This covered meanings such as permission, obligation, ability, desire, necessity and possibility. Verstraete (2005) also refers to the presence of a modal agent in deontic and dynamic modality and Abraham (2003b) and Abraham (2002) both discuss the presence of theta roles in modal meanings, with reference particularly to deontic modals (epistemic modals do not possess a theta role). The present study assumes, however, that agentivity is associated rather with completed causative acts than potential future acts, and finds the association of the term agentivity with modal verbs to be a hyperbole. If agency, as a phenomenon, were divided into a cluster collection of concepts (cause, control and intention), as shown by Schlesinger (1995), it would be closer to the truth to suggest that the modal senses of obligation, desire, permission and ability are only part of the meaning of agentivity cluster (perhaps “intention”), and that without evidence of the other concepts of “cause” and “control” over a performed action or event, the agentivity referred to in relation to root modals could be more accurately defined as merely “potential agency”. In Abraham (2003b) the concept of an agent is assigned only to modals of desire (volition) or possibility in German (wollen and mögen) with human subjects, and for other modals, especially with meanings of obligation and permission, the thematic role of experiencer is suggested, with covert semantic roles in the case of inanimate agents. It could be proposed instead that in most cases, it is the infinitive that supplies whatever semantic sentence roles are applicable, not the modal verb, which is stative (for all its acquired and developed senses of obligation, permission, volition and so on), and a stricter definition of role relations should be used. Non-epistemic modality refers, as it does, with future time reference, to no committed act, and thus no agency has been employed to define it as an agentive act. Volition, obligation, and permission, as well as ability, are merely enabling conditions for the execution of a causative act, they cannot articulate the causativity required for the action to be perceived as completed (see Ziegeler 1997 for an extended argument regarding the inadequacy of volition alone as a sufficient semantic determiner of agentivity). Diewald (2001) suggests that the only suitable role description for modal meanings is experiencer (for all modal meanings, including volition and ability); she claims (2001: 32) that the subjects of modals are thus both sources and goals: source as intended actor, and goal as the target of the modal directive, if the meaning is obligation or permission. Goossens (1987: 28) suggests the term “potency” to describe the subject role in such future agentive acts; “potentially agent-oriented” might also serve as a more suitable description.
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James (1986: 51) referred to the meanings of ability and obligation in non-epistemic modals as precursors or antecedents to action. If the definition of agent were thus reconsidered to account for change or result as “evidence” of agency, then there would be problems in describing verbs expressing only anticipatory action or potential action as agentive or agent-oriented. It is far safer to associate the semantic role of experiencer with the sentient subject of a modal verb, since, although it shares some of the features of an agent, it does not refer to the effecter of a completed event. This might lead us to question how to deal with examples with perfective achievement predicates and yet no agency in the subject (as in She must win an Oscar). It could be argued in such cases that the achievement predicate assumes no “potential” control over the action expressed in the predicate just as with epistemics (since winning and losing are not entirely within the control of the subject referent), and it is the loss of meanings of potential control that permits the shift to an epistemic function, as the modal verb grammaticalises. Thus, the justification for categorising agent-oriented as “potentially agent-oriented” is not affected by the appearance of such types, and a more fine-grained definition can still be applied. However, rather than “potentially agent-oriented”, the preferred definition for such types in the present study is as previously discussed in Ziegeler (2006a, b): “future-projecting”. Such a definition dispenses with the need to mention semantic roles and ambiguous cases as it deals with what is common to all such types, and that is that they refer to actions taking place after the moment of speaking. Such actions must be inherently bounded and perfective, and need only presuppose that the action has not yet taken place at the time of speaking. The term is neutral as to the involvement of agents of any kind, and it does not attempt to relate social impositions to the concept of modality (as discussed by Sweetser 1990). It also removes confusion as to what exactly ‘‘root’’ modality stands for and ties both participant-external and participant-internal to a clear-cut, temporal framework, providing a minimal, but sufficient definition to distinguish it from epistemic modality.
3. Generics and propositional aspect 3.1 Generic aspect As noted above, one of the functions of modal verbs is in expressing generic aspect, and such functions have sometimes been associated with dynamic classes of modals, or factive classes, depending on which account holds. However, as also seen above, the expression of generics is possible even without the use of modals, they can also be expressed using only the simple form of the verb (present or past) and this suggests that modal verbs may have a marginally additive function where genericity is concerned. An overview of the semantics of generics reveals that there are two principle
Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English
types of generic statements: those that refer to a kind or genus, and those that make generalisations or express general properties (Krifka et al. 1995: 2–3). The first type may be exemplified as (9a), the second as (9b): (9) a. The potato was first cultivated in South America. b. A potato contains vitamin C, amino acids, protein and thiamine.
The two types are distinguished by the fact that the first, the kind-referring type, do not allow for exceptions, and the propositions apply to every member of the kind, whereas the second type (characterising statements) generally allow for exceptions (e.g., ‘‘potatoes lose their vitamin C when boiled’’) (Krifka et al. 1995: 4). Characterising statements were also intended to describe habitual events with human subjects, e.g., John smokes after dinner, since, even if he sometimes did not smoke after dinner, the statement would still remain true (Krifka et al. 1995: 4). Carlson (1995) categorised two distinct types of generic sentences: the inductive type and the “rules-and-regulations” type. The inductive approach derived its truthconditionality from the assumption that the statements described under this approach were supported by an observed range of prior instances of the same event, accumulated in sufficient numbers for a generic statement to be made about them; for example: (10) The sun rises in the East.
According to Carlson (1995), the proposition expressed in (10) is based on a corresponding episodic such as The sun rose in the East (Carlson 1995: 227), and that this proposition would need to be expressed a sufficient number of times for the generalisation to be validated. He also claims that there are no languages which take generic forms as basic and derive episodics from them; it is always the other way around; language users abstract regularities inductively from frequently-occurring events. The other type, the rules-and-regulations type, can be uttered on the basis of a true assertion that does not require any prior observation of similar events to verify it. They express generic truths that are learned as rules; for example, in the case of learning a game of chess, it is not necessary to observe a chess game for a sufficient number of times to acquire the rules, which can be learned by instruction, and yet generic statements such as (11) Bishops move diagonally.
Carlson (1995: 225) can be still said to be true. Other examples provided by Carlson (1995) include: The Speaker of the House succeeds the Vice President; Tab A fits into Tab B. Such statements ensure that certain types of behaviour are followed because of the acquisition of knowledge of rules concerning them, and that they comply with a condition of the real world (Carlson 1995: 226–228). What Carlson emphasises also at this point is that the conditions of the rules-and-regulations approach must be related to a source, and that this source must be identified.
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Dahl (1975) discusses four main types of generics: (i) descriptive generics, referring to physical and biological laws; (ii) normatives, referring to social and moral norms, customs and regulations; (iii) dispositional properties, referring to properties that are revealed under certain conditions; (iv) tendencies, which express approximate laws, such that any exception is not considered abnormal, e.g., Englishmen tend to like whisky is acceptable, whereas Dogs tend to have four legs would not be included amongst this class, considering the abnormality of non-four-legged dogs. Dahl’s (1975) descriptives are probably equivalent to the inductive generics of Carlson (1995), while his normatives would equate to a particular sub-group of the rules-and-regulations types described by Carlson (1995), which require an identifiable source for their imposition. An example given by Dahl (1975) of the latter is: (12) A gentleman does not offend a lady.
which is similar to a type of characterising sentence described by Krifka et al. (1995: 53) claimed to have a deontic interpretation and not requiring interpretation with respect to an episodic base of real instances. Dahl’s (1975) dispositional properties class included examples such as soluble in water; such statements required that the conditions for their verification need not be satisfied in order to utter such statements; i.e., they need not be actualised for the statement to be a true statement. Such examples are similar to the “artifactual” types discussed by Laca (1990), who contrasts generic habitual statements that require past instances of similar behaviour in order to derive assumptions about future behaviour, e.g., (13a), with generic statements about artefacts that may include assumptions about future behaviour with no reference to past instances at all (13b); e.g., (1990: 28): (13) a. Bill helps his wife. b. My new computer plays bridge.
Laca (1990) explains the tendencies shown in (13b) by suggesting that the properties of artefacts are known to us in advance as they are connected with the type of artefact it is, and knowledge of their design and function is something we cannot associate with natural objects. It might be also suggested that the function of an artefact is instrumental, and that the generic statement concerning its properties not only concerns properties, but function and human intention of its use. The importance of such aspects will become clearer in the following sections. Lenci & Bertinetto (2000: 267) refer to the latter type of generic as deductive, as opposed to Carlson’s (1995) inductive generics, using the example: (14) This machine crushes peanuts.
which can be said of a machine, even though it had never been used; they are deductive because of what we know about the design and structure of the machine itself.
Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English
Lenci & Bertinetto (2000: 268) suggest that even human subjects can be associated with such types: (15) John sold used cars.
which may describe a duty on John’s job contract and have nothing to do with his prior success at selling used cars (he may never have sold a car in his life). Such examples, then, may fall within the rules-and-regulations approach suggested by Carlson (1995) as they express propositions relating to a system of rules and properties, but are unrelated to the speaker’s observation of the events they refer to. The intersection of generic aspect and modality has been considered in some accounts; Krifka et al. (1995: 61) claim that even unmodalised generics are ‘‘modal’’ by the fact that they make claims about an open-ended class of entities, e.g., A lion has a mane. It is difficult to see, though, how the open-endedness of the participant class in such statements can be used to explain the modality of generics; it would be more accurate to suggest that they express events which are not necessarily realised events at speaker-time, and this is why they shade into modal classification and readily accept reinforcement with modal auxiliaries. If it is considered, as stated earlier, that they are half-aspectual, half-modal hybrids, it would be easy to predict the generation of modality from a generic source; the incipient modal inferences are there from the beginning. The question remains how this comes about. In the cases listed above, the types of generic modality most likely to project modality are those expressible without the need for a range of prior instances to provide their verification. The deductive approach, using Lenci & Bertinetto’s (2000) terms, or the rules-and-regulations approach of Carlson (1995), the normatives or dispositional types of Dahl (1975), all have one common semantic denominator: that they express potentiality as part of their meaning, and potentiality is a sense shared also by future-projecting modal verbs.11 It would thus be expected that the overlap between genericity and modality would be most likely to be found in such environments. Although the inductive generic may equally provide the basis for overlap with modal meanings as well, it is necessary to consider a range of circumstances. In the historical data below, it will be seen that both environments provide a viable aspectual base for the generation of modal inferences where modal verbs are employed to express generic aspect.
. Although the modal meanings are derived from deductives through knowledge of the potential capabilities of the subject, this does not rule out the fact that some modal meanings can also be derived from inductive types as well: The sun will rise in the east is more likely as a predictive, modalised statement than The sun can rise in the east, while This machine can crush peanuts is equally possible as This machine will crush peanuts. The case for episodic-supported modal predictions versus non-episodic-supported predictions is unrelated to the facility with which generics can derive predictions, whether deductive or inductive.
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3.2 Propositional aspect Generic aspect, it will be seen, is primarily created by the non-specificity (or referentiality) and non-quantification of verb arguments, though, in the case of habituals, the indefinite quantification of the event referred to in the predicate is what creates the generic reference. The aspectual accounts of Verkuyl (1993, 1999) discuss what he labels as inner aspect, i.e., the verbal properties of aspect plus the relationship between a verb and its arguments (outer aspect including also the contributory role of adverbial adjuncts in determining the aspectual category). Thus, the basic essentials of Verkuyl’s (1993, 1999) theories of aspect looked at not just the ‘‘aktionsart’’ of the verb but also the role played by nominal arguments in the sentence, and its combination with such arguments. This approach to aspect is compositional, but for the purposes of the present study, it will be labelled “propositional” (as against “verbal” aspect). The approach suggests that the nature of aspectual meaning is not restricted to the morphological encoding of verb meaning, but emerges in the distribution and scattering of information across certain components of a sentence (Verkuyl 1993: 14). The distinctions of perfective and imperfective in the languages which did express this distinction were instead expressed as terminative and durative and the following are typical examples given to illustrate the principles of such an approach (Verkuyl 1993: 15): (16)
a. b. c. d. e.
They ate cheese. They ate from the cheese. They ate sandwiches. They ate three sandwiches. They ate a sandwich.
(durative) (durative) (durative)
Aspectual features of terminativity, therefore, were associated with sentences in which the direct object of the verb referred to a specific quantity; in (16d) three sandwiches, in (16e) one sandwich. In (16c), however, the direct object argument, sandwiches, is unquantified and conceptually equivalent to a mass noun, as in (16a and b). As such, it leaves the aspect of the entire proposition unbounded and durative, regardless of the dynamic nature of the verb itself. Verkuyl (1993) used the notation (+/–SQA) to indicate that the verb was accompanied (or not accompanied) by a specifically quantified argument, and the notation could be made to refer to any argument in the sentence, subjects included. In addition, the verb was given a notation of (+/–ADD TO) to refer to verbs which were dynamic and involved change (what Verkuyl 1993 labels “movement”). According to Verkuyl’s (1993) analysis, the only verbs which are (–ADD TO) are state verbs. The other categories, which are divided into “processes” and “events”, are both (+ADD TO). Terminative aspect [+T] could only be built, according to Verkuyl (1993) on the combination of all plus features: every argument must be (+SQA) and the verb must be (+ADD TO). In any other situation, the presence of only one minus feature can render
Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English
the aspect of the entire proposition durative [–T]. Thus the following contrasts may be seen in (17) (where the order of [SQA] terms matches the order of the arguments in the example sentences – Verkuyl 1993: 20): (17)
a. b. c. d. e.
Judith ate three sandwiches. Judith ate sandwiches. Nobody ate a sandwich. Judith wanted a sandwich. No-one wanted a sandwich.
[+SQA] + [+ADD TO] + [+SQA] = [+T] [+SQA] + [+ADD TO] + [–SQA] = [–T] [–SQA] + [+ADD TO] + [+SQA] = [–T] [+SQA] + [–ADD TO] + [+SQA] = [–T] [–SQA] + [–ADD TO] + [+SQA] = [–T]
Thus, various permutations involving quantification of the arguments and changes in the verb type might be attempted, but the principle remains the same: that terminative aspect is only obtainable when the sentence contains all plus-features, as in (17a). Verkuyl (1972) also noted that in Germanic languages, negation blocked a terminative reading of a sentence (Verkuyl 1999: 109), and this is clearly evident in the data in (17c) and (17e), with negative indefinite subjects. It is interesting, therefore, to consider why the auxiliary do, considered by some accounts to be a perfective marker (Denison 1985; Ziegeler 2004) was used in English to support negation with non-stative, nonauxiliary verbs. Perhaps it could be speculatively the case that the introduction of do with negatives was as a kind of reinforcement where negation would neutralise the senses of perfectivity in the main verb alone. In a similar vein, in the development of future-projecting meanings in modal verbs, it was hypothesised in previous studies (Ziegeler 2003, 2006b) that one of the only differences between such meanings and generic meanings is in the nature of the verb arguments: if they refer to specific, bounded or individualised arguments, with a non-stative main verb, then the meaning of the modal form would be specific, otherwise it would be generic. The criterion for shift to future-projecting meanings would then be found in the bounded or unbounded nature of the direct object (if present), as even with a specific, bounded subject, the aspect of the proposition would remain generic as a habitual action if the object argument was non-specific, e.g., for the generic modal can: (18)
a. b. c. d.
People can cook coconuts. Chris can cook coconuts. Chris can cook a coconut. Chris can cook that coconut.
[generic] [habitual generic] [habitual generic] [non-generic, future-projecting modality]
(18a–d) illustrate that the decrease in genericity of the propositions accompanies the increase in specific, bounded arguments – in (18a), using Verkuyl’s (1993, 1999) terminology, the arguments are [–SQA; –SQA], for (18b), [+SQA; –SQA], for (18c), [+SQA; ±SQA] (the indefinite reference to the nominal object in (18c) being ambiguous between a specific coconut and a non-specific one), and for (18d) [+SQA; +SQA]. Although (18a–c) may accommodate a future-projecting sense of permission
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a longside the generic sense, (18d), though, the only example with a [+SQA] direct object, is also the only example of an environment in which exclusively future-projecting meanings can be found – it expresses permission associated with future-projecting meanings solely because of the potential for bounding of the verb by the individuation of the direct object. As noted earlier, future-projecting meanings refer to events which are terminative after the moment of speaking, i.e., they are perfective in nature. In the discussion below, we shall see whether the compositional approach to aspect is a viable one when studying the effects of transition at the aspect-modality interface.
3.3 Evidentiality and epistemic meanings McDowell (1991: 327) noted that the domain of timeless truth and physical laws (i.e., the domain of Dahl’s 1975 descriptive generics, or Carlson’s 1995 inductive generics described above) intersects with the domain of prediction; in other words, any generic statement may contain an underlying inference of prediction within its meaning. Although McDowell (1991) did not claim for which of the two domains was basic and which derived, in a previous study of the modal verb will (Ziegeler 2006b), it was considered that it was the predictive meanings which were derived from the generic sources, as the data from Old English occurrences seemed to demonstrate an unusually high number of tokens of generic types, far greater in number than those which could be described as unambiguously future in meaning. Moreover, there were examples in which there was overlap between generic meanings and future-projecting or predictive meanings, but not volitional meanings and future-projecting meanings. In Ziegeler (2003), the same high frequency of generic uses was found with the semi-modal verb be supposed to, but the precise point at which the shift occurred was found to be much more difficult to isolate. The source of this periphrastic modal form is believed to have originated in an evidential use with the meaning “be believed to”, as early as the 15th century. In this respect, proponents of claims that attest to the alignment of epistemic modality and evidentiality (e.g., Abraham 2003b) will suggest that the modalisation of this expression was undergoing a counter-directional grammaticalisation. However, Ziegeler (2003) and Visconti (2004) refute such suggestions, for the following reasons. Fitneva (2001), for example, makes a clear distinction between evidentiality as only the source of information and epistemic modality as reflecting more the attitudes and judgements of the speaker on that information. Others, such as Salkie (1996: 385) distinguish evidentiality from epistemic modality by the fact that evidentiality shows the way in which the information was arrived at, whereas epistemic modality reveals the speaker’s judgement on the reliability of the information. This can be demonstrated in the following pair, from Nuyts (2001: 384–385): (19) a. John probably made it to the bakery. b. Mary considers it probable that John made it to the bakery.
Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English
The first example (19a) may be considered an epistemic judgement on the part of the speaker; (19b) perhaps less so. Nuyts (2000: 27) distinguishes the two categories by suggesting that the speaker’s reference to the nature and type of evidence justifying the utterance does not have to include the speaker’s assessment of its truth, in fact, (19b) may illustrate a non-commitment using the expression of hearsay; it could be equally possible, then, that the speaker is distancing herself from the proposition. Evidentiality, thus, may be used to express the speaker’s rejection of commitment to the truth of the utterance. Lazard (2001) also supports the claim that there is a detachment from the truth of the utterance in expressing an evidential. Chafe (1986: 268) and Nöel (2001) both include be supposed to under the general category of hearsay evidence and Nöel (2001) classifies the form along with a collection of passive matrices which supply evidential meanings in English, e.g., (Chafe 1986: 268): (20) I think it’s supposed to be the most expensive place in Europe to live.
Others, such as Van der Auwera & Plungian (1998) consider be supposed to to be a modal in every instance; e.g., (Van der Auwera & Plungian 1998: 96): (21) John is supposed to be in Calcutta.
Another reason why the evidential use should not be associated with epistemic meanings is because epistemic modals cannot be converted into questions without a change of meaning (Coates 1983: 244; Nuyts 2000: 121) (as this would mean the speaker was questioning her own judgement), and in: Is John supposed to be in Calcutta? for example, there is no change in the meaning of the modal (cf. Must John be in Calcutta? seems to question John’s role in being in Calcutta, as it is difficult to interpret such a question as associated with a prior assumption of John’s whereabouts). Finally, the data presented below illustrates that evidentiality can be found associated with perfective lexical aspect as well as imperfective lexical aspect. If evidentiality were the same function as epistemic modality, it would be restricted to imperfective ‘‘aktionsart”; many examples from the sampled data surveyed express evidentiality in the use of be supposed to with perfective main verbs, as shown below.
4. Data under investigation The present study considers the modal meanings to be restricted to cases with primarily human subjects with the auxiliary form expressing obligation, or instrumental subjects, the form expressing intention or expectation. In (20) the original meanings of belief associated with early uses seem to adhere; there is no possibility of an obligation, future-projecting modality obtainable from such examples. (21), on the other hand, could be ambiguous between obligation and belief, for the simple reason, as seen
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also in (23–24), that the main verb expresses a controlled state. In order for a purely future-projecting interpretation, the main verb must be non-stative, and thus, the earlier study focussed mainly on non-stative verbs, with the exception of a few stative verb types which will be discussed below. The two distinct meanings obtained, of belief and obligation, and possible ambiguities, were examined in the previous study in order to investigate whether there was a historical transition. The meanings of belief, with non-human subjects, thus express evidential meanings rather than future-projecting modal meanings, and come to as much as 63.4% of the earliest uses (1400–1800), with only 7.5% of such uses having human subjects. However, in the later data (1901–1989), the meanings of obligation or expectation with human subjects increased slightly. The former study, though, did not examine closely enough the semantic conditions that were generating the change, and the present study re-examines the same data with a different means of categorisation.12 The earliest example of a “belief ” meaning with a non-human subject and a nonstative verb was the following: (22) an herbe like fenel with a white flowre and short stalke, and is supposed to come of naughtye persely seede. It is also called bastarde persely. (1548 – Elyot Caucalis)
As the example reports a general fact or belief, with a generic subject referring to a kind or species, it can be classed, alongside the earliest uses of the modal will described above, as expressing a generic evidential. It expresses a timeless proposition about a natural law, and reflects the same tendencies found in the earliest uses of the modal will: generic, non-human subjects with indefinite or non-specific reference (Ziegeler 2006a). The first human subject to appear in the data revealed ambiguity in the be supposed to passive matrix between belief meanings and obligation: (23) A flat or dead irrelativeness, in point of merit, in him to whom grace is shewn or to be shewn, in reference unto him that is supposed to shew grace. (a. 1665 – J. Goodwin Filled w. the Spirit (1867): 29)
The meanings of obligation are possible only for the fact that there is a human subject, but the potential for ambiguity remains due to the non-specific nature of the subject, and the non-specific, unbounded direct object. As well as the generic or non-specific arguments, the verb could be rendered as stative (show meaning ‘‘exhibit’’ or ‘‘demonstrate’’). These ingredients, as long as they are present, will inhibit a purely futureprojecting meaning from developing (in which the main verb could be interpreted as an action). The same tendencies are seen in (24):
. An additional 41 examples which were not found in the earlier study have been added to the present one.
Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English
(24) He did not do as the rest did, who are all supposed to understand their trade. (1687 – A. Lovell tr. Thevenot’s Trav. II.: 170)
In (24), there is a stative verb, though it could well be hypothesised to refer to the active acquisition of understanding as part of the general meaning. However, the capacity for ambiguity in such contexts is quite noteworthy, since the “belief ” meanings should prevail with a stative interpretation of passive understanding, but given an inchoative reading of acquisition in the main verb, meanings of obligation begin to appear. In such environments, the obligation meanings are associated with alternative renderings of the main verbs, depending on whether they are treated as stative or non-stative. In (25), though, the verb is unequivocally non-stative: (25) They [elders] are supposed to act in a kind of co-ordinancy with the minister. (1796 – J. Morse. American Geography, Ii.: 157)
(25), on the other hand, still allows for ambiguity, and the reason is possibly due to the absence of [+SQA] object quantification (the subject may be [+SQA], but there is no direct object). It is clear that the perfective aspect of the infinitive verb alone is not sufficient to trigger the change, as examples like (22) cannot derive future-projecting meanings of intention/expectation, since they are aspectually unbounded by their non-specific subjects. Moreover, the presence of imperfective verbal aspect in (24) does not rule out the deontic reading possible. It is not until the 19th century, according to the data surveyed, that unambiguous meanings of obligation, reflecting future-projecting meanings, start to appear: (26) He […] was supposed to make an indifferent good thing of it (1824 – Sir Walter Scott. St. Ronan’s Well. iii)
(26) has an obligation modal meaning, as the subject is specific and individuated, the verb is non-stative, though the object is, strictly speaking, bounded and quantified but not specific or referential. The earliest examples found in which both the subject and object were specific, bounded and referential, and in which the verb was non-stative, did not start to appear in the data sample with any frequency until the turn of the 20th century: (27) I am supposed to report Münchhaussen’s doings; (1916 – H. Gernsback in Electr. Experimenter Jan. 474/1.)
At the same time, during the 18th century, there were a number of non-human subjects which were also developing future-projecting meanings of expectation or intention on the part of unexpressed agents of the passive matrix verb in certain circumstances, e.g.: (28) Billets, in Heraldry, are supposed to represent pieces of cloth of gold or silver. (1727–41 – Chambers. Cycl.)
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(29) Writs, not ministerially directed, (sometimes called prerogative writs, because they are supposed to issue on the part of the king,) (1759 – LD. Mansfield in Burrows Reports II. 855)
In (28–29) the meaning of supposed to is ambiguous between belief and intention because the subject is generic, referring to a kind, and in (28) the object is as well.13 It is again questioned why examples such as (22) do not produce the same ambiguities, since (22) shares the same aspectual properties. In (29), the verb is non-stative. The likelihood of the development of unambiguous intention meanings, which are future-projecting, appears thus to be impeded by the presence of non-specific or referentially unbounded arguments in the entire proposition, and the development to future-projecting meanings may not progress. Nevertheless, it is also questionable why there should be nuances of intention or expectation in the matrix auxiliary, when the full quota of aspectual ingredients for the shift to future-projecting meanings is not present ((28) has a stative verb as well as non-specific, generic arguments). The following section discusses alternative reasons why such meanings may develop in the first place.
5. Discussion 5.1 Semantic explanations If we are to propose a generic aspectual source for the development of modal meanings, the different categories of Dahl’s (1975) and Carlson’s (1995) sub-types must be taken into account. The data reveal that up until the early 20th century, the tendency for unambiguous meanings of intention (with non-human subjects) or obligation (with human subjects) is restricted to expressions in which all the arguments must be quantified, specifically-referring and the verb must be non-stative. It is only under such environmental conditions that the shift to future-projecting meanings can take place. For deontic modality to emerge, the subject must be human, but in the previous studies, there is no indication of a dramatic increase in the number of human subjects in the time periods covered that would lead to the hypothesis that such an increase was solely responsible for the development of deontic modal meanings, as shown in Table 1:
. It should be noted that the complement verb in (29) is in the active form rather than the passive (are supposed to be issued). This may be an indication that epistemic functions had not grammaticalised by then for be supposed to, as passive modal complements, having a stative verb be, usually suggest epistemic functions (or quasi-epistemic, ‘‘widescope’’, according to Nordlinger & Traugott 1997).
Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English
Table 1. Percentages of human/non-human subjects for be supposed to at different periods in the former study (Ziegeler 2003) Time period
Non-human
Human
1400–1800 72 27.9 1801–1900���������� ��������� 75.6 24.3 1901–1989 65.3 34.6
The statistics reveal only a roughly 7% increase in human subjects relative to nonhuman ones over the full time-period. Thus, it cannot be the case that the nature of the subject is driving the change to modal meanings. Bybee (1985) and Visconti (2004) both consider that changes in the meaning of the form be supposed to to deontic, or future-projecting meanings took place when the time reference of the complement was future. As noted earlier, what is problematic about such a hypothesis is that, in the absence of a temporal adverbial in the context, the time reference cannot be future unless the meaning of the form changes to one of expectation rather than belief, and such a change cannot be held to take place unless the aspectual environment of the complement infinitive is perfective or non-stative as it is the aspect of the main verb which creates the future time reference (perfective aspect must refer to events happening either before or after the moment of speaking). The explanation appears circular. Thus, for a “belief ” meaning to prevail, the complement must be either typically stative or referring to a time-stable state or condition, and thus in aspectual harmony with the state of cognition expressed in the matrix verb; e.g., Ziegeler (2003): (30) a.
She is believed to be tall.
is more acceptable than
b. She is believed to flee the country.
However,
c.
She is expected to flee the country.
is quite normal, while
d. She is expected to be tall.
is not. In (30b), the only sense possible is generic, that fleeing the country is a regular event in the subject’s life. There is no other interpretation possible, since non-stative, perfective verbs cannot combine with “belief ” meanings of be supposed to unless they express genericity. Similarly, as the matrix verb changes to one of expectation, it must express harmony with events rather than states as states pervade indefinitely over the moment of speaking. It is therefore future-projecting and cannot in most circumstances have scope over a stative verb. The only possible interpretation of (30d) then, is that the speaker is expecting the future event of discovering some previously
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unknown attribute of the subject. In such cases the meaning does not include any deontic imposition on the subject, but merely the speaker’s evaluations of a present state which will be determined in the future. The change from “belief ” meanings to “expectation” or future-projecting deontic meanings, therefore, cannot take place the moment the passive matrix form enters the environment of an aspectually perfective complement, and some intermediate context is required in which there might be a period of semantic ambiguity prior to the shift to future-projecting meanings. In the previous study it was presumed that the tendency for generic sources to supply the base for the generation of deontic meanings of obligation could be attributed to the fact that certain habitual activities involving human beings exhibiting regular patterns of behaviour could at the same time be interpreted as obligations and this yielded to a deontic reading of expectation in the subject; for example, Westney’s (1995) example: (31) Catholics are supposed to go to church on Sundays.
which is ambiguous between a belief reading and an obligation reading as are examples such as (25). Visconti (2004), who also agrees that the future-projecting meanings of expectation arose out of the earlier “belief ” meanings as an invited inference when the event time is future, does not, however, reveal in detail the way in which this transition takes place, nor does she espouse the possibility of such generic habitual aspectual environments providing any justification for such a transition. The problem with such an analysis is that in the above examples, there are nuances of “expect” meanings emerging in essentially time-stable environments with no implied event referred to at all (e.g., 23–25). The question remains how such meanings became an inference of the former “belief ” meanings, and so supplying an environment for the derivation of invited inferences of futureprojection. There is therefore also a need to explain ambiguities in stative environments. It could be the case, as suggested earlier, that the use of specific arguments may provide the base for the development of unambiguous expectation meanings. Thus, while (31) may be ambiguous, with a generic subject and a generic time adverbial, a similar example with a specific, individuated subject argument may not be interpreted ambiguously. However, (32) Mrs. Brown is supposed to go to church.
has neither a generic subject nor a generic time adverbial and still leaves open the possibility of a “belief ” evidential as ambiguous with an “expectation”, future-projecting sense. This is due to the fact that there is no bounded object argument to supply senses of terminativity. If a specific, quantified object argument is used in the infinitive clause, though, the example becomes unambiguously future-projecting: (33) Mrs. Brown is supposed to write the letter.
assuming that, under most interpretations, the reference of the letter is already known and it is a specific letter. Such an analysis would accord with Verkuyl’s (1993)
Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English
theories of aspectuality, such that the arguments in (31), which may be expressed using the terms [–SQA, –SQA], lend a durative aspect to the entire sentence, and thus render it imperfective, while in (33), the arguments are expressible as [+SQA, +SQA], provide a terminative aspect to the composition of the sentence, and thus allow for interpretations of future-projecting meanings (which can only be accounted for when the compositional aspect, not just the aspect of the infinitive, is perfective). The quantification of the arguments, regardless of the aspect of the verb (which, under Verkuyl’s (1993) analyses should be [–ADD TO], referring as it does to an event which has not taken place), appear then, on the surface, to permit a transitory “bridging context” (to use Heine’s 2002 terms) for the grammaticalisation of future-projecting meanings in the form of the matrix verb, and hence modality. The aspect of the complement appears to be affected in such cases by the quantification or specificity of the arguments in the entire proposition, and a change in the semantics of the infinitive to a [+ADD TO] type is also necessary, as the predicate must express potential agency. However, it is easy to hypothesise on the basis of constructed examples. If we consider the range of data again, the picture is not a neat as the propositional aspectual proposals might suggest. For a start, there are examples in the data appearing quite early, with obligation or expectation senses arising ambiguously out of the same form as belief meanings, and they may or may not involve the addition of specificallyquantified arguments, e.g., (23–25). The data do not reveal any examples of unambiguous, future-projecting, expectation meanings prior to the first example of an ambiguous case (23). The first, possible, future-projecting example with a specifically quantified subject and object does not appear until the 18th century in the data, and is found to contain a negative: (34) Mr. Knox was so well seated, and could not be supposed to leave such an estate. (1720 – Defoe. Capt. Singleton (1906): 278)
The meaning is clearly one of expectation, but not obligation on the part of the subject; it is the objective predictions of unexpressed agents which are articulated in such examples. The subjectification of the speaker to become the deontic source of the modal meanings of later stages is not anticipated in such examples as be supposed to is an infinitive form itself, and is within the scope of a possibility modal; as such, the agent source of the passive infinitive is still unexpressed and attributable to hearsay. As an isolated example, though, it does clearly illustrate the shift of evidential meanings from belief to (evidential), future-projecting expectation in the environment of quantified arguments and a perfective predicate. The example illustrates a possible intermediate stage between general expectation (derived from general belief) and speaker-based obligation, a deontic sense. If we consider again the environments in which the first expectation/obligation meanings started to appear in (23–25), the earlier observations of regular patterns
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of human behaviour (habituals) supplying the source for the invited inferences of obligation with generic human subjects still holds. What is needed, however, is a clear-cut analysis based on theories of generic semantics. The developing evidential was used first most frequently with perfective predicates in describing regular patterns of behaviour of species or kinds, often non-human and in scientific contexts. According to Carlson (1995) such situations are generically inductive and involve the evidence of prior events and episodes in order for the speaker to be able to assert them with any confidence. Such environments, if used with a developing modal form, could well provide the lexical source constructions for the grammaticalisation of future-projecting modality, since the verification of prior events permits the speaker to make predictions about the future. The inductive generic environment therefore may have been significant in the grammaticalisation of dynamic modals such as can and will. With deontic future-projecting types, though, the source of the modality, as suggested above, is external to the subject; i.e., the subject is a passive goal or recipient of the modality. Thus, for passive matrix verbs such as be supposed to, the subject becomes the recipient of the modality, imposed by an external source, in this case, the unexpressed agent, the believer, or source of expectation. The recipient of expectation cannot be non-human, as there is an imposition of the modality from source to goal, and the goal must refer to an entity capable of responding to the expectations of the source. The modality, therefore develops principally in human subjects, or in nonhuman, instrument-subject sources of human invention. As the belief readings extend from generic, non-human subjects to generic, human subjects, the context therefore provides the optimum conditions for the development of modality. There is no necessity for inductive evidence as the contexts become more reflective of the type of generic contexts described by Dahl (1975) as normative; i.e., expressing human social or moral duty. As such they may express events which have no prior evidential basis at all, and are solely reflective of potential future acts or events; they may thus readily develop modal nuances of future-projection, or deonticity. As noted by Dahl (1975) such contexts require a deontic source; they are thus the early contextual roots for deontic modality, when what is understood as regulated human behaviour becomes reanalysed as meanings of expectation and finally obligation. Such environments then, may provide the link to the observations made in Ziegeler (2003) that ambiguities seemed to be associated with habitual activities which could otherwise be interpreted as customary duty. It is noted also in the data that there is a very gradual shift in the distribution of generic human subjects, vis-à-vis specific human subjects, once the obligation meanings are established. The following table illustrates the percentage increase in specifically-referring human and non-human subjects over 581 examples extracted from the OED Online until the end of the sampling period, 1989:
Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English
Table 2. Percentages of specifically-referring subjects over the three time periods, illustrating the slight rise in human specific subjects in the 20th century period Time period
Non-human
Human
1400–1799 (N = 87) 5.75 6.9 1800–1899 (N = 156)������ ����� 5 7.7 1900–1989 (N = 338) 5.6 11.2
It is clear from the data that the proportion of specifically-referring human subjects, one of the features necessary to produce an unambiguous, future-projecting modal meaning of deonticity, rises slightly compared to generic subjects, which are still very much the majority of cases even in the 20th century period, and therefore must have contributed to the source functions. It was also noted, though, that the number of human subjects does not rise very abruptly compared with the number of non-human subjects, and it may be questioned how future-projecting meanings of obligation are interpretable in non-human subjects. In most cases, the future-projecting meanings of non-human subjects were found to be associated with some kind of intention or purpose, with the generic subject referring to an artefact of human creation designed for a specific function, for example (28–29). It is not possible to apply the normative generic description to such situations; they are exemplary of the “rules-and-regulations” approach of Carlson (1995) and Laca (1990) who refers to generic statements about artefacts which have no reference to any past events but concern the speaker’s knowledge about the type of function for which they were designed. The target of obligation in the human-subject deontic expression is thus understood metaphorically as the target of intention or purpose in the non-human subject, both subject types sharing the common feature of initially being recipients of reported evidential expectations. Examples such as (28) were used to express facts, and in particular, predictions about effects with which the artefacts were associated, in the same way as the non-modalised (13b), but within the frame of an evidential instead. In this way, both human subjects and non-human subjects are seen to fall into generic subcategories which have their equivalences in non-modal aspect environments, and it can be hypothesised, then, that the proliferation of such environments allowed for the development of future-projecting modal meanings out of meanings of belief in both cases, with human subjects in the normative generic environments and in the case of non-human inanimates, artefactual, rules-and-regulations environments. Over time, the “intention” or “expectation” meanings attributable to generic, non-human subjects would extend to include specific, non-human subjects as well, though these were not nearly as frequent as the human specific subjects, as shown in Table 2. However, as illustrated in (32–33) above, the environments necessary to generate totally unambiguous, future-projecting meanings with no possibility of alternative
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interpretations as “belief ” meanings in the expression, are those in which both the subject and the object refer to specific quantified nominals, as discussed earlier, according to Verkuyl’s (1993) formula: [+SQA, +SQA], the quantification of the direct object bounding the aspectual composition of the entire construction, and thus creating propositional perfectivity. For a future-projecting meaning to prevail, there is a necessity for the aspect of the verb to express perfectivity, as perfectivity in the verb is indicative of past or future temporal reference, as noted by Abraham & Leiss (in the introduction to the present volume). However, if only the verb expresses boundedness, the presence of a generic subject will still derive generic aspectual meanings in the proposition, and as shown in (31–33), even with a specific subject and perfective verb, the presence of a specific object is necessary to create ambiguity between generic aspectual functions and future-projecting modality. In the data illustrated in Table 2, the specifically-referring [+SQA] argument is only the subject; in Table 3 below, the percentage proportion of examples with specifically-referring objects is illustrated for each time period until the end of the sampling period, 1989: Table 3. Percentage proportions of [+SQA] specifically-referring, quantified objects found in each time period, showing the slight increase in the later period Time period
[+SQA] objects
1400–1799 (N = 87) 3.4 1800–1899 (N = 156)���� ��� 2.5 1900–1989 (N = 338) 6.8
The data in Table 3 clearly illustrate a slight increase for [+SQA] objects over the time periods given, though there are fewer tokens of [+SQA] objects than [+SQA] subjects, as shown in Table 2. The reduced numbers of [+SQA] objects, therefore, relative to subjects, indicates that the features of specificity in the arguments of the modalised verb were not in any way instrumental in the development of modal, future-projecting meanings of be supposed to over the data shown, and are more likely to be a result or consequence of the shift to future-projecting deontic meanings than a cause factor. The development of future-projecting meanings seems to have gone on, unconstrained, in spite of the specified quantity of the whatever arguments co-occurred with them, and the number of [+SQA] objects does not affect the introduction of deontic, future-projecting meanings as it is less than, and far too insignificant to be likely to have affected the development of modal meanings. In addition, there are ambiguous belief/future-projecting meanings appearing in examples without specific, quantified arguments, as (31) readily illustrates. A rise of only 3.4% in [+SQA] objects across the three time periods indicates that it was probably not this particular environment which contributed to the rise in future-projecting, deontic meanings, rather that the increase in obligation meanings enabled [+SQA] objects to co-occur with them. In the same way, the increase in [+SQA] subjects is also not enough to be able to
Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English
link it with the rise in future-projecting meanings (the rise in future-projecting functions between the second period and the last was almost 11%, whereas the rise in specifically-referring subjects came to less than 4% for either human or non-human subjects – see Tables 2 and 4). It may be predicted that compositional aspect is, therefore, not a principle contributing factor to the historical shift to modal meanings from generic meanings. The future-projecting modal meanings in be supposed to are instead hypothesised to be derived directly from the source generic functions, in which, in contexts equivalent to those described by Dahl (1975) as normative, and therefore defining of not-necessarily-performed social or moral duties, the obligation meanings emerge as a polysemy, creating the conditions necessary for shifts in the meaning of the passive matrix verb to express future-projecting modality with human subjects, and forming the lexical sources for the grammaticalisation of deontic modality. It is in such environments that future-projecting meanings start to arise, and thus they may be considered to have provided the sources for a grammaticalisation pathway. These normative generics may be considered to be a human-referring sub-category of the rules-and-regulations approach of Carlson (1995); i.e., they refer to actions which are learned as rules rather than by observation of prior episodic instances. For non-human (inanimate) subjects, the generic, passive, instrumental subject co-occurring with the matrix auxiliary can be analysed as equivalent to the contexts of the rules-and-regulations approach in which the subject is an artefact and the generic expression is employed to define the functions known by the speaker for which the artefact was designed; i.e., the futureprojecting meanings arise out of contexts expressing an ambiguity between belief and intention/expectation on the part of the unexpressed passive agent. In this way, the term future-projecting is seen to serve a more inclusive role than deontic which, for the most part, involves what Lyons (1997) referred to as “morally responsible agents” (Traugott & Dasher 2002: 106). The fact that it is in the context of artefacts that the ambiguities leading to change begin to arise is even more clearly highlighted by the frequent absence of ambiguity in contexts which contain a non-human, non-artefact subject, e.g.,: (35) Many natural hallucinogens – peyote is a good example – are supposed to trigger nausea by their direct pharmacological actions. (1975 – High Times Dec. 49/3)
Thus, while (35) occurs quite late in the sampling period, the developing auxiliary still retains the “belief ” meanings associated with the first uses of the form, as meanings of intention are not so frequently anticipated either in contexts in which the subject is not an artefact of human invention and purpose, or in environments, as shown, in which an intended action would result in an unpleasant or undesirable effect. Such functions continue alongside the developing modal meanings throughout the time periods
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s urveyed.14 Both the social duty normatives and the rules-and-regulations generics may be classified together as deductive generics, since, as noted earlier, they do not require observation of prior episodes for verification; the evidential source functions ensure that this is the case. The evolution of future-projecting meanings in be supposed to is therefore based on unsupported, rather than supported prediction. (24) and (25) provide typical examples of the normatives, or “social duty” generics under discussion; (28) and (29) exemplify the “rules and regulations” type (with non-human, inanimate or artefact subjects). Some more examples include the following: Social duty normatives: (36) Who are supposed to administer to the King’s pleasures. (1779 – J. Moore. View of Society xiv. (1789) I. 99) (37) The picture of we three. I believe Shakspeare had in his thoughts a common sign, in which two wooden heads are exhibited, with this inscription under it: ‘We three loggerheads be’. The spectator or reader is supposed to make the third. (1790 – Malone. Shaks. Wks.,Twel. N. II. iii. 17 note) (38) When the player gives his service at the beginning of a set, his adversary is supposed to return the ball. (1797 – Encycl. Brit. XVIII. 380/2 (Tennis)) (39) The spectator is supposed to stand in the *ante-garden. (1861 – Gard. Chron. 6 July 621/3)
All of such examples could just as readily express the same sense of social obligation without be supposed to – as non-modal, normative generics (e.g., The spectator stands in the ante-garden). It is possible, therefore, that the grammaticalising semi-modal was recruited into these deontic environments to help to distance the speaker from the deontic force, since it is a generic passive and still carries senses of the speaker-external evidentiality ascribed to its original source contexts. Non-human subjects usually referred to general functional facts describing the intended use of an artefact, as in the following. Rules and regulations generics:15 (40) The cloth […] is then passed through a copper of weld or woold, prepared as for dying yellow, which is supposed to soften the cloth. (1763 – W. Lewis. Chem. Philos.-Techn. 412)
. Traugott & Dasher (2002: 14) also note that, the grammaticalisation of ought to in English has its deontic roots in generic environments of social or moral duty in early Middle English, and it is only at a later stage that epistemic meanings develop. In the present study, the acceptance of epistemic be supposed to is indeterminate, and without consideration of the stative be/have complements, it would not be possible to attempt to investigate exactly when it was introduced into the modal functions. Visconti (2004), however, does include some possible examples in her data. . The use of the OED Online as a data-base could be argued to be too restricted in its genre, in that the types of tokens available would all be likely to be expressing a definitional function
Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English
(41) The expence of fishing must be paid […] after which the benefit of the catch is supposed to accrue to the proprietors. (1799 – J. Robertson. Agric. Perth 377) (42) This word, used by poets in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries […] is supposed to mean the small box-shaped psaltery, sometimes depicted in MSS. (1880 – Grove. Dict. Mus., Citole) (43) All boats going down are supposed to give way to boats coming up. (1881 – Rowing, Steering & Coaching on Cam 25)
The last example, although it occurs with a non-human subject, presumably implies that the deontic force is directed to the crew of the boats; an evidential, “belief ” interpretation would be less likely. However, the example carries both a generic sense as well as a future-projecting sense at the same time, since its subject is non-specific, and therefore adequately exemplifies a context in which the shift to future-projecting meanings must have occurred.
5.2 Quantitative justification The following table illustrates the rise in future-projecting meanings with specific subjects relative to the drop in “social duty” normative generics (with human subjects) and rules-and regulations “artefact” generics (with non-human subjects) as functions of be supposed to over the time period (the percentage proportions not expressed in the data are all generic evidentials with unambiguous “belief ” meanings). As shown in the data, the number of “social duty” normative functions and “rulesand-regulations” functions for non-human subjects tends to increase dramatically in the 19th century period following which there is a sharp drop in the 20th century accompanied by a rise in future-projecting functions. According to Bybee (2003, 2005), grammaticalisation tends to occur in environments of high text frequency (of the grammaticalising item), as it is often evidenced by semantic weakening or phonetic loss and erosion. Although the future-projecting functions of be supposed to may not reveal either of such characteristics, the general increase in frequency of the generic environments seems to justify that if any change in the meaning of the premodal form would take place it would be in such environments of high frequency. The coincidence of the directions of the data patterns reveal that the two environments may be causally associated, the drop in frequency of the generics contributing to the development of the modal meanings which replace the earlier functions in 10.3% of the environments associated with the other two categories, and thus revealing that
for the developing modal anyway. In order to test this possibility, a semi-modal with a similar meaning, be meant to was investigated for the same tendencies, and there were no parallels in the types of genre in which the data appeared.
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the modal meanings may be beginning to compete for functional dominance. In this way it is seen that a particular aspectual condition gives rise to the generation of modality and future-projecting modal inferences; i.e., that modality emerges as an inferential by-product of particular lexical-grammatical aspectual co-occurrence conditions, as noted in (1). The early stages of grammaticalisation of modal auxiliary status in be supposed to are hypothesised as following the pathways shown below: (44) i. Human subjects: Meaning changes: belief > belief/obligation > obligation Functional changes: EVIDENTIAL GENERICS > DEDUCTIVE (NORMATIVE) > GENERICS > FUTURE-PROJECTING MODALS ii. Non-human subjects: Meaning changes: belief > belief/intention > intention Functional changes: EVIDENTIAL GENERICS > DEDUCTIVE (RULES-ANDREGULATIONS) GENERICS > FUTURE-PROJECTING MODALS
It may be questioned how the evidential generic environment provides the source for the development of uses in deductive generic environments. The data reveal that in the early sampling period there are no more than 21.84% of deductive generics, the remaining 78.16% of instances being made up of evidentials with belief meanings. The ratio seems to suggest that the use of be supposed to must have therefore spread from the majority evidential uses to the more restricted environment of deductive generics before this environment increased to provide the context for change. Figure 1 illustrates the absolute figures shown in Table 4, showing the steep rise in deductive generics in the middle period (1800–1899).
Table 4. Percentages of modal meanings and generic/modal meanings in be supposed to across three time periods (SD = Social Duty generics; R & R = Rules and Regulations generics) 1400–1799 1800–1899 1900–1989 SD generics R & R generics FP modals
(N = 87) 10.34 11.5 3.44
(N = 156) 23 29.48 5.7
(N = 338) 5.31 13.91 16
Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English 35
% difference
30 25 SD generics R&R generics FP modals
20 15 10 5 0
1400-1799
1800-1899 Time period
1900-1989
Figure 1. Graph showing the hypothesised grammaticalisation of future-projecting modals from “social duty” generics and “rules and regulations” generics across the three time periods.
Table 5 illustrates the percentage relative factor increase or decline of the three different categories across the three time periods. Table 5. Relative factor increase in modal compared with generic aspectual functions of be supposed to across three time periods 1400–1799 1800–1899 1900–1989 SD generics R&R generics FP modals
100 100 100
222.4 256.3 165.6
−210.7 44.4 446.3
Figure 2 projects the data illustrated in Table 5 in relative terms, demonstrating the increase in modal meanings relative to the generic aspectual source meanings, which in the 20th century period decline by up to 425% of their 19th century proportion of the total data, compared with an increase of over 281% of the 19th century proportion of modal meanings for the same time period. The figures in the 20th century column are cumulatively scored.
6. Conclusions As can be seen in the two graphs, it is the generic environments which decline significantly, relative to the incipient rise of future-projecting meanings in the latter period, and even though the modal meanings do begin at an earlier time, the differences between the frequencies of generic aspectual environments and modal environments
Debra Ziegeler 500 %increase/decrease
400 300 200
SD generics
100
R&R generics FP modals
0 -100 -200 -300
1400-1799
1800-1899
1900-1989
Time period
Figure 2. Graph showing relative factor increase and decrease of the proportions of the three environmental categories for be supposed to across the three time periods.
do not begin to appear until the 20th century. It is believed, therefore, pace Visconti (2004), that the environments for the generation of future-projecting meanings were those in which there was a generic subject and, necessarily, a perfective main predicate, as these show the most dramatic decline. The inductive environments of “belief ” evidential meanings do not decline as much as the deductive generics as they are the majority, remaining at 64.58% of the total uses of be supposed to at the final period, though there is a drop to 42.41% in the middle period (= –152.2% fall), when deductive generics are on the increase. Their fairly stable ratio all through the surveying period indicates that they are not the environments out of which the changes developed. The question regarding the attraction of deontic modality to perfective predicates is readily explained in the examples of be supposed to, an emerging semi-modal with established deontic functions appearing historically quite late relative to the core modals. The changes are thus more clearly perceptible in more recent data. Perfective aspect is associated with deontic modals because deontic modality emerged out of environments in which perfective aspect was a feature of the context: habituals and generics are usually found in co-occurrence with perfective, or non-stative verbs. As such, the first uses of be supposed to expressed evidential meanings of belief. Evidentiality in the early uses, therefore, cannot be equated with epistemic modality, as it is found associated with both perfective verbs and imperfectives, and epistemic modality is restricted to imperfective main verbs. The generic sources refer to events which take place at no particular time, or at all times, except at the moment of speaking, at which they have no actualisation, i.e., they have a universal-existential distribution. The resulting situation is midway between an aspect and a modality. It is not surprising that the source forms for many of today’s modal verbs are found in such environments and that modality arises out of generics as a secondary inference. In previous studies (Ziegeler 2001, 2003, 2006a, b), it was seen that the source contexts for modals such as could, be able to, be supposed to, and will were all generic, or referred to characterising
Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English
attributes of the subject. The same has been noted in Traugott & Dasher (2002) for must, and in Traugott (1989) for should. Modal meanings arise out of generic situations mainly because even in the absence of a pre-modal form, there are incipient modal inferences already present in an unmarked generic sentence. However, it is also shown that the perfective environment is not the sole contributing factor to the shift to future-projecting or deontic, modal meanings, as there are ambiguities shown in examples even with stative verbs (e.g., (21), (23) and (24)) The presence of compositional aspectual features will not alter the fact that ambiguities are found in environments without the full quota of perfective elements in the proposition. It is just that the majority of the deontic meanings were associated with perfective verbs originally occurring in generics, and it is such distributional sources which provided the grounds for further development in particular generic types. It would be more appropriate to suggest that the development of deontic or future-projecting meanings was associated with a shift in the distribution of evidential uses of the semi-modal from generics referring to kinds or characteristics of species to those referring to norms of human behaviour and artefacts of human invention. Alterations in the compositional aspect of the sentence are thus unlikely to trigger shifts to deontic modality. The study also demonstrates that grammaticalisation can be seen as an effect of frequency, and a particular function increasing in frequency will provide the optimum situation for grammaticalisation to develop. The frequency of an ambiguous environment can be shown quantificationally, and predictions can be made regarding the future directions and trends, as shown in Figure 2 – the divergence of each value signifies the unlikelihood of any return to the original values and is visible evidence of a unidirectional tendency to continue along the same path of development. Grammaticalisation changes take place through intermediate or “overlap” stages (Heine, Claudi & Hünnemeyer 1991), and the sudden drop in the frequency of the ambiguous generic/future-projecting types relative to the unambiguous modal types is evidence of “grammaticalisation in action”, as one sense of an overlap situation becomes more salient and rapidly assumes dominance, taking over in frequency and eventually replacing the other functions. Such replacement, however, may take many generations to accomplish, and it is certainly not apparent in the present data, where the original meanings of “belief ” evidentials persist in large numbers alongside the developing modal functions. The story does not finish here, naturally, and there are many questions left unanswered. The large number of examples of be or have infinitives with be supposed to in the data sample were left unanalysed for future study as they were believed not be relevant to questions regarding the development of future-projecting modality, which must have a perfective verb. The study has therefore taken a top-down approach assuming that all future-projecting meanings are associated with perfective, or non-stative predicates, and has endeavoured to isolate the environments providing the sources of their development to explain how such development took place. A more rigorous approach would have looked at all examples, including stative predicates, to determine
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whether an order of progression from deontic to epistemic was predictable from the data (as is assumed in most grammaticalisation studies), but also to consider marginal examples of deontics expressed with stative predicates, as in (21), (23) and (24), which may be alternatively interpreted as inchoatives. The present study simply touches the surface of the problem, leaving many stones unturned for future investigation.
References Abraham, Werner. 1990. Modalverben in der Germania. In Marga Reis (Ed.), Akten des VIII. Internationalen Germanisten-Kongresses. Sektion Kontrastive Syntax (pp. 79–98). München: Iudicium. Abraham, Werner. 1991a. Modalverben in der Germania. In Eijiro Iwasaki (Ed.), Begegnung mit dem “Fremden”: Grenzen – Traditionen – Vergleiche. Akten des VIII. Internationalen Germanisten-Kongresses in Tokio 1990. Vol. 4 (pp. 109–118). München: Iudicium. Abraham, Werner. 1991b. Syntaktische und semantische Korrelate zum Lesartwechsel zwischen epistemischen und deontisch/volitiven Modalverben. In Eberhard Klein, Francoise Pouradier-Duteil & Karl-Heinz Wagner (Eds), Betriebslinguistik und Linguistikbetrieb. Akten des 24. Linguistischen Kolloquiums, Universität Bremen 1989. Bd. 2 (pp. 3–13). Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Linguistische Arbeiten 261]. Abraham, Werner. 1998. The aspectual source of the epistemic-root distinction of modal verbs. In Winfried Boeder et al. (Eds), Sprache in Raum und Zeit. In Memoriam Johannes Becher. Band 2: Beitrage zur Empirischen Sprachwissenschaft (pp. 231–249). Tübingen: G. Narr. Abraham, Werner. 2000. The morphological and semantic classification of evidentials and modal verbs in German: the perfective catalyst. ZAS Papers in Linguistics, 15, 36–59. Abraham, Werner. 2002. Modal verbs in English and German: Epistemics and the English loss of aktionsart. In Sjef Barbiers, Frits Beukema & Wim van der Wurff (Eds), Modality and its interaction with the verbal system (pp. 19–50). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics today 47]. Abraham, Werner. 2003a. Event arguments and modal verbs. DGfS paper, Munich, February 2003. = 2005 Event arguments and modal verbs. In Claudia Maienborn & Angelika Wöllstein (Eds), Event arguments: Foundations and Applications (pp. 243–276). Tübingen: M. Niemeyer. [Linguistische Arbeiten 501]. Abraham, Werner. 2003b. Epistemic creationism: myths vs. profunda facie explanatory irrefutables on modal verbs in German and in general. In Lars-Olof Delsing, Cecilia Falk, Gunlög Jossefsson & Halldór A. Sigurdsson (Eds), Grammatik i focus. Festskrift till Christer Platzack 18 november 2003. Dept. of Scandinavian Languages, Lund University. Vol. 2 (pp. 1–8). Lund: Wallin & Dalholm. Bybee, Joan L. 1985. Morphology. A study of the relation between meaning and form. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Typological studies in language 9]. Bybee, Joan L. 2003. Mechanisms of change in grammaticization: The role of frequency. In Brian D. Joseph & Richard D. Janda (Eds), The Handbook of Historical Linguistics (pp. 602–623). Malden, MA: Blackwell. [Blackwell handbooks in linguistics]. Bybee, Joan L. 2005. From usage to grammar: The mind’s response to repetition. LSA Presidential Address, Oakland, CA. (manuscript downloaded from http://www.unm.edu/%7Ejbybee/ Bybee%20plenary.pdf).
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Bybee, Joan L., William Pagliuca & Revere D. Perkins. 1991. Back to the future. In Elizabeth Closs Traugott & Bernd Heine (Eds), Vol. 2 (pp. 17–58). Bybee, Joan L., William Pagliuca & Revere D. Perkins. 1994. The evolution of grammar: Tense, aspect and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Carlson, Gregory N. 1995. Truth conditions of generic sentences: Two contrasting views. In Gregory N. Carlson & Francis J. Pelletier (Eds), (pp. 224–237). Carlson, Gregory N. & Francis J. Pelletier (Eds). 1995. The generic book. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Chafe, Wallace. 1986. Evidentiality in English conversation and writing. In Wallace Chafe & Johanna Nichols (Eds), Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology (pp. 261–172). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. [Advances in discourse processes 20]. Coates, Jennifer. 1983. The Semantics of Modal Auxiliaries. London: Croom Helm. [Croom Helm linguistics series]. Coates, Jennifer. 1995. The expression of root and epistemic possibility in English. In Joan L. Bybee & Suzanne Fleischman (Eds), Modality in grammar and discourse (pp. 55–66). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Typological studies in language 32]. Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge: CUP. Dahl, Östen. 1975. On generics. In Edward Louis Keenan (Ed.), Formal semantics of natural language (pp. 99–111). Cambridge: CUP. Dahl, Östen. 1995. The marking of the episodic/generic distinction in tense-aspect systems. In Gregory N. Carlson & Francis J. Pelletier (Eds), (pp. 412–425). Denison, David. 1985. The origins of periphrastic do: Ellegård and Vissser reconsidered. In Roger Eaton, Olga Fischer, Willem F. Koopman & Frederike van der Leek (Eds), Papers from the 4th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics. Amsterdam, April 10–13, 1985 (pp. 45–60). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Current issues in linguistic theory 41]. Diewald, Gabriele. 2001. A basic semantic template for lexical and grammaticalized uses of the German modals. In Johan Van der Auwera & Patrick Dendale (Eds), Modal verbs in Germanic and Romance languages (pp. 23–41). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Belgian Journal of Linguistics 14]. Dowty, David R. 1979. Word meaning and Montague Grammar. Dordrecht: Reidel. Fitneva, Stanka A. 2001. Epistemic marking and reliability judgements: Evidence from Bulgarian. Journal of Pragmatics, 33, 401–420. Givón, Talmy. 1994. Irrealis and the subjunctive. Studies in Language, 18, 265–337. Goossens, Louis. 1987. Modal shifts and predication types. In Johan van der Auwera & Louis Goossens (Eds), Ins and outs of predication (pp. 21–37). Dordrecht: Foris. [Functional grammar series 6]. Heine, Bernd. 2002. On the role of context in grammaticalization. In Ilse Wischer and Gabriele Diewald (Eds), New reflections on grammaticalization (pp. 83–101). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Typological Studies in Language 49]. Heine, Bernd, Ulrike Claudi & Friederike Hünnemeyer. 1991. Grammaticalization: A conceptual framework. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hopper, Paul J. 1987. Emergent grammar. Proceedings of the thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 13, 139–157. The International Corpus of English, Great Britain. Survey of English Usage Project, University College, London. Director: Bas Aarts. James, Francis. 1986. Semantics of the English subjunctive. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
Debra Ziegeler Krifka, Manfred, Francis Jeffrey Pelletier, Gregory N. Carlson, Alice ter Meulen, Godehard Link & Gennaro Cherchia. 1995. Genericity: An introduction. In Gregory N. Carlson & Francis Jeffrey Pelletier (Eds), (pp. 1–24). Laca, Brenda. 1990. Generic objects: Some more pieces of the puzzle. Lingua, 81, 25–46. Langacker, Ronald W. 1987a. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 1. Theoretical prerequisites. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press. Langacker, Ronald W. 1987b. Nouns and verbs. Language, 63, 53–94. Lazard, Gilbert. 2001. On the grammaticalization of evidentiality. Journal of Pragmatics, 33, 359–367. Lenci, Alessandro & Pier Marco Bertinetto. 2000. Aspects, adverbs, and events. Habituality vs. perfectivity. In James Higginbotham, Fabio Pianesi & Achille C. Varzi (Eds), Speaking of events (pp. 245–286). Oxford: OUP. Li, Ren Zhi. 2003. Modality in English and Chinese: A typological perspective. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Antwerp. Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics II. Cambridge: CUP. McDowell, Joyce P. 1991. Quasi-assertion. Journal of Semantics, 8, 311–331. Noël, Dirk. 2001. The passive matrices of English infinitival complement clauses. Studies in Language, 25(2), 255–296. Nordlinger, Rachel & Elizabeth Closs Traugott. 1997. Scope and the development of epistemic modality: Evidence from ought to. English Language and Linguistics, 1, 295–317. Nuyts, Jan. 2000. Epistemic modality, language, and conceptualization. A cognitive-pragmatic perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Human cognitive processing 5]. Nuyts, Jan. 2001. Subjectivity as an evidential dimension in epistemic modal expressions. Journal of Pragmatics, 33, 383–400. Palmer, Frank R. 11986. Mood and Modality. Cambridge: CUP. [Cambridge textbooks in linguistics]. Palmer, Frank R. 22001. Mood and modality. Cambridge: CUP. [Cambridge textbooks in linguistics]. Palmer, Frank R. 2004. Modal strength, conventionalization and explication in the English modal system. Plenary paper presented at the Second International Conference on Modality in English, University of Pau, France, 2–4 September. Salkie, Raphael. 1996. Modality in English and French: A corpus based approach. Language Sciences, 18, 381–392. Sasse, Hans-Jürgen. 2002. Recent activity in the theory of aspect: Accomplishments, achievements, or just non-progressive state? Linguistic Typology, 6, 99–271. Schlesinger, Izchak M. 1995. Cognitive Space and Linguistic Case. Semantic and Syntactic Categories in English. Cambridge: CUP. [Studies in English language]. Smith, Carlota. 1991. The Parameter of Aspect. Dordrecht: Kluwer. [Studies in Linguistics and philosophy 43]. Sweetser, Eve E. 1990. From Etymology to Pragmatics. Cambridge: CUP. [Cambridge studies in linguistics 54]. Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid. 1987. The auxiliary do in eighteenth-century English. A sociohistorical-linguistic approach. Dordrecht: Foris. [Geschiedenis van de taalkunde 6]. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1989. On the rise of epistemic meanings in English. Language, 65, 31–55. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs & Richard Dasher. 2002. Regularity in Semantic Change. Cambridge: CUP. [Cambridge studies in linguistics 97].
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Traugott, Elizabeth Closs & Bernd Heine (Eds). 1991. Approaches to grammaticalization. 2 Vols. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Typological studies in language 19.2]. Van der Auwera, Johan & Vladimir Plungian. 1998. Modality’s semantic map. Linguistic Typology, 2, 79–124. Van Valin, Robert D. 1993. A synopsis of role and reference grammar. In Robert D. van Valin (Ed.), Advances in role and reference grammar (pp. 1–164). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Verkuyl, Hank J. 1972. On the compositional nature of aspects. Dordrecht: Reidel. Verkuyl, Hank J. 1993. A theory of aspectuality. The interaction between temporal and atemporal structure. Cambridge: CUP. [Cambridge studies in linguistics 64]. Verkuyl, Hank J. 1999. Aspectual issues. Studies on time and quantity. Stanford CA: CSLI Publications. [CSLI lecture notes 98]. Verstraete, Jean-Christophe. 2001. Subjective and objective modality: Interpersonal and ideational functions in the English modal auxiliary system. Journal of Pragmatics, 33, 1505–1528. Verstraete, Jean-Christophe. 2005. Scalar quantity implicatures and the interpretation of modality. Problems in the deontic domain. Journal of Pragmatics, 37, 1401–1418. Visconti, Jacqueline. 2004. Conditionals and subjectification: Implications for a theory of semantic change. In Olga Fischer, Muriel Norde & Harry Perridon (Eds), Up and down the cline – The nature of grammaticalization (pp. 169–192). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Typological studies of language 59]. von Wright, Georg H. 1951. An essay in modal logic. Amsterdam: North-Holland. Westney, Paul. 1995. Modals and periphrastics in English. Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Linguistische Arbeiten 339]. Ziegeler, Debra P. 1995. Diachronic factors in the grammaticalization of counterfactual implicatures in Singaporean English. Language Sciences, 17(4), 305–328. Ziegeler, Debra P. 1997. Aspects of the grammaticalisation of hypothetical modality. Ph.D. Dissertation, Monash University. Ziegeler, Debra P. 2001. Past ability modality and the derivation of complementary inferences. Journal of Historical Pragmatics, 2, 273–316. Ziegeler, Debra P. 2003. On the generic origins of modality in English. In David Hart (Ed.), English modality in context. Diachronic perspectives (pp. 33–69). Frankfurt: Lang. [Linguistic insights 11]. Ziegeler, Debra P. 2004. Reanalysis in the history of do: A view from construction grammar. Cognitive Linguistics, 15, 529–574. Ziegeler, Debra P. 2006a. Interfaces with English aspect. Diachronic and empirical studies. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Studies in language companion series 82]. Ziegeler, Debra P. 2006b. Omnitemporal will. Language Sciences, 28, 76–119.
Towards an understanding of the progressive form in English The Imperative as a heuristic tool Zygmunt Frajzyngier with Marion Bond, Lori Heintzelman, Dan Keller, Saeko Ogihara & Erin Shay1 University of Colorado
The general aim of the study is an exploration into the meaning of a grammatical form and the proofs of its meaning. The scope of this study is the form referred to as the “progressive aspect” in English. The absence of an imperative progressive is used as a heuristic tool in the determination of the categoriality of the progressive. The study proposes that the primary function of the progressive form in English is not that of indicating the internal structure of the event, that is, an aspect, but rather of coding the clause as pragmatically dependent. Such clauses must be interpreted in connection with another proposition or time. The other proposition might be mentioned in the preceding or the following discourse. The time may be overtly coded in the same or in a different clause. If no time or other proposition is overtly coded, the clause containing the progressive form is interpreted with respect to the time of speech or the situation surrounding the speech event.
1. The aim and the scope of the study The general aim of the study is an exploration into the meaning of a grammatical form and the proofs of its meaning. The scope of this study is the form referred to as the “progressive aspect” in English. The stimulus for the study was the general question posed by the editors of this volume regarding the relationship between aspect and modality and a conversation with Michael Thomas at the University of Colorado.
. Marion Bond, Lori Heintzelman, Dan Keller, and Saeko Ogihara worked with me on the functions of the progressive form in 1999. They did not participate in the preparation of the present study, and are therefore not responsible for the hypotheses, argumentation, or evidence presented here. Our 1999 work, however, allowed us to eliminate a number of hypotheses concerning the function of the progressive form. The conclusion that we reached then turned out not to be valid.
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The method used in this study is the one described in Frajzyngier (2007), which involves the study of the relationships among grammatical forms within a language as the first step in semantic analysis and the use of cross-linguistic analysis as a tool in hypothesis formation and proofs of meaning in a single language.2
2. The terms Functional domain is defined as follows: a. A domain D is a class of mutually exclusive types of expressions constructed by a set of specific means of coding M(D). b. The types of expressions within the domain D have a specific pragmatic or semantic function in common. c. A domain D is a class of types of expressions with a certain set of meanings D* such that D* is disjoint with E* for any domain E ≠ D of the same language (Frajzyngier & Mycielski 1998). The functions of grammatical markers are determined by their role in the functional domains. The term progressive in this study refers to the English structure consisting of the auxiliary verb be and its tense forms followed by the verb with the suffix –ing. Thus the term does not refer to a meaning or a function, which has yet to be discovered, or to forms referred to as “progressive” in other languages. The term meaning refers to the totality of information that the speaker may want to convey and that the listener may understand. The progressive form is one of the means to convey a meaning. The term aspect is understood as in the standard literature as referring to “the status of the event in relation to specific periods of time” (Matthews 1997: 27). The term modality refers broadly to the speaker’s attitude to his or her utterance. The functional domain of modality varies across languages and may consist of the epistemic modalities coding the speaker’s attitude toward the truth of the proposition and root modalities, including deontic modalities. Other terms are defined as needed later in this study. . The present study was supported by a grant Nr 0439940 from the National Science Foundation to Zygmunt Frajzyngier and Erin Shay. I am most grateful to Erin Shay for critical comments on this study and for several examples. The participants at Linguistic Circle at the University of Colorado, especially David Rood, have provided additional comments and examples. To Werner Abraham go my thanks for requiring a more precise use of terminology and for pointing me to relevant literature. I am grateful to Marian Safran for the editorial work on this study. All errors of fact and interpretation remain my own.
Towards an understanding of the progressive form in English
3. The starting question The starting question in the present study is why the progressive in English cannot be used in the imperative. The evidence that this form indeed cannot be used in the imperative is provided by the absence of such forms in natural discourse, whether written or oral, natural or elicited (see Bertinetto 2000: 582). De Clerck (2006) was able to find only one instantiation of the progressive in the imperative mood:
Get that Summer Static sticker on your vehicle now, and be listening to 88.9 SHINE.FM. (De Clerck 2006: 19 as quoted in van der Auwera et al. 2007)
The progressive can be used with auxiliaries that otherwise code root modalities. With the progressive, however, these auxiliaries have an epistemic rather than a deontic meaning, as observed with respect to the perfective in Abraham (this volume). Here is a selection of examples with various auxiliaries. All examples are from the LondonLund corpus and have the pronunciation notation suppressed. I did retain LondonLund numbering for ease of tracking the larger context of utterances:
(1) 2_2_1 〈129 a〉 [mhm] we should be very glad to have these [@m] oddly enough - - - strange that in nineteen sixty-three people should be writing from the Westminster Bank in manuscript
(2) 3_3_0 〈457 A〉 3_3_0 〈458 B〉 3_3_0 〈459 A〉
(3) 3_3_0 〈1010 A〉 3_3_0 〈1011 A〉 3_3_0 〈1012 C〉 3_3_0 〈1013 (A〉 3_3_0 〈1014 A〉
any graduate students here
you should be meeting those later on this afternoon oh this afternoon# but I I I thought I would be meeting you#
in the common-room# [\m] and that
I should be having some coffee
(4) 5_9_0 〈1120 a〉 I I felt they should be speaking on a more 5_9_0 〈1119 (b〉 the approach wasn’t really critical enough
Similarly, the auxiliary must when used with progressive form has an epistemic meaning: (5) 1_6_0 〈1068 A〉 1_6_0 〈1069 A〉
he must have been dishing up the same lectures for thirty years
(6) 2_11_2 〈269 A〉
you must be running your brain in neutral
(7) 2_14_0 〈943 A〉
and I suppose she must be earning quite well
As stated in van der Auwera et al. (2007), the use of the negative clause in various aspects with a deontic modality is much more frequent. The progressive form can occur in negative clauses that on the face of it may have a deontic meaning:
(8) 1_1_0 〈223 A〉
and we shouldn’t be imposing on you in vacation time
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(9) 2_4_1 〈343 B〉 at eight o’clock the porter comes ‘round and says you shouldn’t be working now Sir
The prohibitive value of these sentences may be only an apparent one. Deontic auxiliaries used with the progressive in negative clauses are not really prohibitive. They are used when the event is actually going on, and their meaning is contrary to assumptions/norms/etc., the event actually takes place. They have the same epistemic meaning as they have in affirmative clauses. Compare also the discussion of deontic auxiliaries in Abraham (this volume). Even when the deontic auxiliary does not have an epistemic function, it has a jocular-pleading meaning as in: (10) Don’t be hating
(overheard in children’s speech, Erin Shay, p.c.)
Hence, it is not only that the progressive cannot occur with the imperative, but it also cannot occur with deontic auxiliaries and have a deontic function as a result. We can, therefore, generalize and state that the progressive cannot be used in the deontic modality. If the progressive is an aspectual category, as commonly claimed in the literature (Matthews 1997; Biber et al. 1999; Bertinetto 2000; Bertinetto et al. 2000; Huddleston & Pullum 2002), it should freely co-occur with the deontic modality. Modality and aspect in English belong to different functional domains, and their members should be free to occur with each other (Frajzyngier & Mycielski 1998). Hence, something about the progressive and the deontic modality makes the two functions incompatible.
4. The current explanations of the incompatibility Bertinetto (2000), who noted the incompatibility of the progressive and the imperative in English, notes that the incompatibility is a characteristic of English and does not provide any other explanation of this fact. Van der Auwera et al. (2007), who do not directly address the issue of the progressive, postulate the hypothesis that “the most frequent and typical imperative appeals for a new action, not for a continuation or a repetition”. While this may indeed be the most frequent use of imperatives, imperatives can be formed with respect to continuing actions and states. Bertinetto (2000: 582) reports the use of progressive forms with imperatives in Catalan, Portuguese, and in Romanian. And the following is additional evidence for the co-occurrence of imperatives in clauses describing ongoing events. Polish does not have the distinction between the present tense and the progressive aspect. The same form, imperfective, can be interpreted as describing an ongoing event or a habitual action. The interpretation of whether the event is ongoing or habitual can be computed from other information in the clause, such as time adverbials, spatial information, the time of speech, and the time and space situation with respect
Towards an understanding of the progressive form in English
to the subject of the clause (when the example is not attributed, it comes from introspection): (11) Gdzie jest Piotr? where be.3sg Peter ‘Where is Peter?’
Ongoing event: (12) Gra na skrzypcach w jadalni. play.3sg.pres prep violin in dining room ‘He is playing violin in the dining room.’
Habitual event: (13) Ostatnio gra w orkiestrze w Niemczech. lately play.3sg.pres prep orchestra in Germany ‘Lately, he plays in an orchestra in Germany.’
The imperative form can be formed for both ongoing and habitual events: (14) Graj na skrzypcach w jadalni, nie tutaj. play prep violin in dining room not here ‘Play your violin in the dining room rather than here.’ (15) Graj w orkiestrze w Niemczech więcej zarobisz. play.prf.fut prep orchestra in Germany more earn.2sg.fut ‘Play in an orchestra in Germany! You will earn more.’ An ongoing event, in the past tense: (16)
Stała nad Panem, jak Pan leżał stand.3sg.f.past above addr while addr lie.3sg.m.past pod tym domem z kolumnami. under dem.instr building.instr with columns
‘She was standing above you while you were lying next to that building with columns.’ (Sources3) Compare the imperative: (17) Stój nad nim stand.imper above 3sg.m.instr ‘Stand above him till he comes to.’
aż się till refl
ocknie. come to
. “Sources” refers to textual sources to Kurcz et al. (1990). I am grateful to Zygmunt Saloni for providing me with the electronic copy of this material.
Zygmunt Frajzyngier et al.
(18) Myślicie, poruczniku, że się opłaci robić tyle szumu. think.2pl.pres lieutenant.voc comp refl pay off make so much noise ‘Do you think lieutenant, that it is worth-while to make so much noise [around this matter]?’ (Sources) (19) Rób tyle szumu ile chcesz. make.imper so much noise as want.2sg.pres ‘Make as much noise as you wish.’
From the stative verb leżeć “lie down” one can form two imperative forms. One is the simple form of the verb and the other is a reduplicated form, each with a different modal force. The reduplicated form appears to code empathy with the addressee. The simple form is a straight imperative. Both forms can be addressed only to somebody who is already lying down: (20) Leż! ‘Keep lying down!’
or (21) Leż leż. ‘Lie down! There is no reason to get up.’
Similarly with the verb siedzieć ‘sit down’: (22) Siedź i ani słowa. sit.imper conj none word ‘Keep sitting and not a word!’ (Sources) (23) Siedź siedź. sit sit ‘Keep sitting, do not get up!’
In prohibitives, the incidence of the imperative form of the verb is more frequent. Here are examples with the verb coding an ongoing event: (24) Ja was proszę, nie siedźcie tak z założonymi rękami. 1sg 2pl beg neg sit.pl.imper so with folded hands ‘I beg you! Do not sit like that doing nothing!’ (Sources) (25) Nie siedź sobie lepiej na neg sit.pl.imper refl.dat better on ‘Do not just sit on the tree.’ (Sources)
drzewie. tree
Although there are no instances of the imperative progressive form, English has actually grammaticalized a construction to give an order for the continuation of an event or state. This construction consists of the imperative of the auxiliary keep followed by a gerund, i.e., the verbal form ending in -ing: (26) 5_9_0 〈291 b〉
you must just keep on going at it
Towards an understanding of the progressive form in English
(27) 7_1_3 〈1047 (A〉 7_1_3 〈1049 b〉
occasionally gets free tickets you see for the Phoenix oh well I mean do keep on ringing me you know I mean
(28) 7_2_6 〈562 (A〉 7_2_6 〈563 B〉 7_2_6 〈564 (A〉
you have to – you have to be rather robust in return ^[\m]# and keep – and keep telling him that [@:m]. you know
(29) 8_1_1 〈269 B〉 8_1_1 〈270 B〉 8_1_1 〈271 B〉
well you keep trying and [@:m] # I’ll be in touch
The existence of this form indicates that there are really no constraints in English against giving orders with respect to an ongoing activity or a state. The existence of the form “keep verb-ing” with respect to verbs of a state makes it even more interesting to find out why there is no imperative in the progressive formed with the verb “be verb-ing.” Since there are no constraints on the use of the imperative mood with respect to an ongoing event, the reason for the ungrammaticality of imperatives and progressive form must be something else.
5. Categorial status of the progressive: Traditional approach The form marked by “be + verb-ing,” the “progressive form,” has been, with few exceptions, analyzed as coding an aspectual category. “The distinction between progressive and non-progressive (I am reading vs. I read) is one of aspect” (Matthews 1997: 298). Aspect describes “the status of the event in relation to specific periods of time” (Matthews 1997: 27). There is a fairly large literature regarding the function of the progressive in English, and the present study is not a place to review this literature. Huddleston (2002) represents a contemporary consensus, saying that the form “has as its basic use the expression of progressive aspectuality: hence, of course, the name” (Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 162). Huddleston (2002) also represents a common way of examining the meaning of a form through the description of a situation that the linguist thinks the form refers to. Huddleston (2002) makes his characterization more precise by listing six features of the progressive, two of which are implicatures: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
The situation is presented as in progress, ongoing, at or throughout Tr. The situation is viewed imperfectively. Tr is a mid-interval within Tsit [implicature]. The situation is presented as durative. The situation is presented as dynamic. The situation is presented as having limited duration [implicature]. (Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 163)
Zygmunt Frajzyngier et al.
Huddleston (2002) does not say how to interpret these features, viz. whether every instantiation of “be verb-ing” has to meet all of these features or at least one of them. The features are not described in a way that would allow an objective assessment of whether a given situation is dynamic or durative, has limited duration, or is viewed imperfectively. In effect, there are no objective criteria to assess whether the use of the form “be verb-ing” meets those criteria. Let’s take these features one by one and examine whether indeed they define the category in such a way that it is distinguished from other relevant categories in English. “The situation is presented as in progress, ongoing, at or throughout Tr.” The adverb always implies unbounded time. If indeed the progressive were to code the situation as in progress, ongoing, at or throughout Tr, the use of the adverb always together with the progressive form should constitute an internal contradiction. And yet, sentences containing the adverb always and the progressive are perfectly grammatical: (30) 1 5 55 8210 1 1 C 11 she somehow worked her way in 1 5 55 8220 1 1 C 11 but she’s now having difficulty 1 5 55 8230 1 1 A 11 yeah (31)
1 5 65 9750 1 1 C 1 5 65 9760 1 1 C 1 5 65 9770 1 1 C 1 5 65 9780 1 1 C
11 this is a battle that I’m always fighting 11 that a degree 11 does not 11 qualify you
It is true that the situation in both clauses is presented as in progress. But the use of the simple present would give exactly the same results. (32) 1 5 55 8210 1 1 C 11 she somehow worked her way in 1 5 55 8220 1 1 C 11 but she now has difficulty 1 5 55 8230 1 1 A 11 yeah (33)
1 5 65 9750 1 1 C 1 5 65 9760 1 1 C 1 5 65 9770 1 1 C 1 5 65 9780 1 1 C
11 11 11 11
this is a battle that I always fight that a degree does not qualify you
Moreover, the use of the progressive with the verb to go may well refer to punctual events, as illustrated by the following example: (34) 1 5 6810290 1 1 C 11 and in fact I have been offered one 1 5 6910300 1 1 C 11 it’s just that I’m going to America 1 5 6910310 2 1 C 21 so this (35) 1 5 6910410 1 1 A 11 are you going to America 1 5 6910420 1 1 C 11 yes . . . 1 5 7010480 1 1(A 11 wherea’bouts are you going?
Towards an understanding of the progressive form in English
“The situation is viewed imperfectively.” This feature shifts the point of view from the event described by the form to the way the event is perceived or is directed to be perceived by the listener. The term “imperfective”, a term of trade, is unknown to linguistically untrained speakers, and it is not clear what semantic characteristics it involves. They are not unbounded events, as demonstrated by the phrase Are you going to America? in the preceding example. “The situation is presented as durative.” This is the correct interpretation for some sentences, but not necessarily for others, e.g., not for the clause Are you going to America? “The situation is presented as dynamic.” This presumably explains why one cannot say: (36) *I am knowing it.
But there are other verbs that are not dynamic in any sense of the word, and yet occur in progressive, such as the verb wait: (37) 8_2_2 〈943 B〉
I’m still waiting for a phone call from his secretary to tell me
Spoken English has numerous attestations of the verb love in the progressive, without implying that the event has a dynamic characteristic: (38) I am loving March Madness this year because of the intensity of the competition and the talent of the athletes and because I am currently first in my …
(feeds.sfgate.com/~r/sfgate/rss/ feeds/jcarroll/~3/103557880/article.cgi)
Or consider this example, recorded in Boulder on Oct. 8, 2007, from a native speaker with college education who uses the progressive form of the inherently stative verb like: (39) I have been liking it very much
(comment on a topic of a preceding conversation)
Some speakers consider this sentence ungrammatical. Nevertheless, it has been produced by a native speaker, who confirmed that this is indeed what she said. We see that none of the presumed characteristics of the progressive distinguishes this form from the present, and none uniquely defines the function of this form. The properties of the form “be verb-ing,” the ones that Huddleston (2002) provides for the progressive, are the basis for characterizing this form as aspectual, viz. characterizing “the status of the event in relation to specific periods of time” (Matthews 1997: 27). Matthews reaffirms that the “distinction between progressive and non-progressive (I am reading vs. I read) is one of aspect” (Matthews 1997: 298). Thus, the characterization of the form is based solely on the analysis of the events to which the form is claimed to refer. Huddleston’s (2002) arguments for the aspectual value of the progressive are based on examples containing the progressive form. But as Quine (1960) noted, we do not know to what elements of the observed event the given form refers.
Zygmunt Frajzyngier et al.
Bertinetto (2000) does not state explicitly what the meaning of progressive is. Implicitly, he is assuming something like the coding of an ongoing action. Since the use of the progressive with respect to future events does not match this assumption, he simply excludes such sentences from the progressive category: “ To quote an obvious example, consider English prog [i.e., the form consisting of “verb-ing”] with future time reference, as in: I am leaving tomorrow. Although the development of this meaning must originally have been licensed by some specific property possessed by what we might call the “prototypical” progressive aspect … it is clear that this usage of prog does not convey any progressive meaning, in the proper sense of this term.” (Bertinetto 2000: 560)
Hence, instead of a semantic analysis of the grammatical form, Bertinetto (2000) proposes a non-specified aprioristic assumption about the meaning and checks how well the form matches the proposed meaning. The long-standing tradition of studies of the progressive looked only at one facet of its function, viz. the internal structure of the event. Moreover and crucially, all of these studies have looked at sentences containing the progressive form in isolation, i.e., outside of their natural discourse environment. The common method was to look at the use of progressive with various verbs, i.e., using inherent properties of verbs as a diagnostic tool. In addition to the works cited earlier, compare also the discussion in Biber et al. (1999). This particular approach has in a way skewed the results of synchronic analyses in English and has affected typological studies. Thus Bertinetto (2000) and Bertinetto et al. (2000) used a questionnaire aiming at the elicitation of data pertaining to the internal structure of the event with certain assumptions about the meaning of the form. The only exception to the commonly taken approach is Jespersen (1927), who states that past progressive is used in a connective narrative which serves as frame or setting to what follows (Jespersen 1927: 182). Bertinetto (2000) acknowledges that “the major syntactic function of PROG is of course backgrounding” but does not elaborate on it further because “not all languages appear to be equally ready to repeat PROG in adjacent sentences” (Bertinetto 2000: 583). The implications of Jespersen’s (1927) analysis of the meaning/function of the past progressive have been largely ignored by subsequent generations of linguists.
6. The discourse function of the progressive In order to explain the function of the progressive form, I propose to use the notion of a “pragmatically dependent clause”, described in Frajzyngier (2001), Frajzyngier & Shay (2002), and Frajzyngier et al. (2005), as well as Frajzyngier (2008). A clause is formally marked as pragmatically dependent in order to force the listener to interpret it in connection with some other element outside of the clause, be it a proposition, or a situation, whether previously mentioned or yet to be mentioned. Pragmatically independent clauses
Towards an understanding of the progressive form in English
can be interpreted on their own. Pragmatically independent clauses can also be interpreted in connection with other clauses or situations, but they do not have to be. Pragmatically dependent clauses must be interpreted in connection with other propositions or events. See also Abraham & Gonçalvez (2007), which draws emphatically on the narrative backwarding function of the progressive in Portuguese and other Romance languages. I propose to extend Jespersen’s (1927) pioneering observation that progressive is used in a connective narrative which serves as frame or setting to what follows in two ways. (1) Not only the past progressive, but also the present progressive and the future progressive in English can provide the background for the interpretation of another proposition. (2) All progressive forms must be interpreted in connection with another proposition, or event, or time. Clauses containing the progressive form are thus pragmatically dependent clauses, in that either they provide the background for the temporal interpretation of other clauses or must be interpreted in connection with some other situation or proposition. The progressive forms force the listener to look for the proper context to interpret the clause. The progressive aspect is used when the time of the event has been specified by another clause: (40)
112 57 5350 1 2 a 112 57 5350 1 1 a 112 57 5360 1 1 D 112 57 5370 1 1 B
(41)
10_10_0 〈370 c〉 10_10_0 〈369 (a〉 10_10_0 〈371 a〉 10_10_0 〈372 a〉 10_10_0 〈373 a〉 10_10_0 〈374 a〉
(42) 1_1_0 〈28 B〉
20 20 11 11
well what are you going to do now Elsie that you’ve raised your brood she’s getting all political no I’m not# .
love fifteen nervous volley now really earlier in the in the Wimbledon fortnight she was playing those volleys with such precision now I mean this fellow’s doing the language of advertising
The progressive form provides the background for another proposition. In the following case the progressive is in the second clause: (43) 10_10_0 〈362 b〉 10_10_0 〈363 b〉 10_10_0 〈364 b〉
she really does look confident and very very firm and solid in everything she’s doing
The progressive is to be interpreted in connection with the time of speech, as evidenced by the use of the proximate deictic “this set”: (44)
1_1_0 〈9 A〉 1_1_0 〈10 A〉 1_1_0 〈11 A〉 1_1_0 〈12 A〉
may I ask what goes into that paper now because I have to advise a couple of people who are doing [dhi]
Zygmunt Frajzyngier et al.
(45) 10_10_0 〈366 a〉 10_10_0 〈367 a〉
Mandlikova serving from the royal box end to try and stay in this set
The progressive form provides the background for another proposition: (46) 1_2_1 〈106 B〉 well Mallet is is is hopping mad 1_2_1 〈107 B〉 about all this 1_2_1 〈108 B〉 because Mallet sees a hundred and fifty thousand pounds for a building 1_2_1 〈109 B〉 and various other things going down the drain
One cannot say *be hopping! or *be hopping mad! One of the pieces of evidence that the past progressive codes a clause as pragmatically dependent is provided by the fact that the past progressive is often un-interpretable without another utterance that precedes or follows it. The past progressive may also force the listener to interpret the clause in connection with something that preceded it. In the following fragment, the clause produced by B, B > I was just pointing out that it was expensive, has to be interpreted with speakers A’s statement, well that’s no criterion as far as I’m concerned I can quite see that: (47) 2_1_2 〈1371 B〉 2_1_2 〈1372 a〉 2_1_2 〈1371 (B〉 2_1_2 〈1373 B〉 2_1_2 〈1374 B〉 2_1_2 〈1375 B〉 2_1_2 〈1376 B〉 2_1_2 〈1377 B〉 2_1_2 〈1378 a〉 2_1_2 〈1379 B〉 2_1_2 〈1380 B〉 2_1_2 〈1381 B〉 2_1_2 〈1382 B〉 2_1_2 〈1383 B〉 2_1_2 〈1384 B〉
but I think that Frisco (laughs) so is most of America probably is the best place to go to in the States it’s really very very nice very expensive more expensive than New York well that’s no criterion as far as I’m concerned I can quite see that no I didn’t mean I didn’t mean to yeah I didn’t mean that the expenditure was was I mean made a place any better I was just pointing out that it was expensive
6.1 The progressive and future time reference In future time reference the progressive form forces the listener to interpret the clause in connection with a specific time. In each of the following examples the time of the event is specified within the clause in which the progressive is used: (48) 1_1_0 〈90 B〉 1_1_0 〈91 B〉
I wouldn’t want it before the end of June anyhow Reynard because I’m going to Madrid
Towards an understanding of the progressive form in English
1_1_0 〈92 B〉 1_1_0 〈93 B〉 (49)
1_0 〈545 A〉 1_1_0 〈546 B〉 1_1_0 〈547 B〉 1_1_0 〈548 B〉
on the tenth and coming back on the twenty-ninth was it did you say you were going to Burgos I’m going to Burgos Wednesday week.
6.2 The progressive aspect and present time reference If the function of the past and the future time reference of the progressive form is to code pragmatically dependent clauses, assuming that the present time reference is pragmatically independent, that would require an explanation of why the present tense progressive differs in its function from past and future time references. The evidence in favor of the pragmatic dependency of the progressive in the present tense is provided by the fact that whenever the progressive is used in natural discourse (and not in examples made up for the sake of linguistic argumentation), clauses containing the progressive must be interpreted in connection with the time of speech, with a proposition that preceded them, or in connection with a proposition that is yet to follow. Consider the question Anybody sitting here? Such a question can be produced only in reference to a place that is physically unoccupied. The pragmatic dependency of this clause consists of the fact that it must be interpreted as the speaker’s desire to take the seat. The larger context for this question is “I ask because I would like to sit here.” The simple question is pragmatically dependent in that it must be interpreted as connected with the intentions of the speaker. (I am grateful to Erin Shay for pointing me to this example.) Both the progressive form and the present tense may be used with the same verb with the same temporal reference, e.g., the time of speech. The progressive form, however, directs the listener to interpret the proposition with another proposition. The present tense does not force the listener to consider such an interpretation. In the following example, the form he’s still living forces the interpretation in connection with speaker A’s knowledge, reminiscences, or other information that the speaker had about the subject. The form they now live can be interpreted on its own, without any previous knowledge, although the use of the adverb now contrasts the temporal reference of the proposition with the temporal reference of the previous proposition: (50) 1_9_0 〈425 A〉 1_9_0 〈426 a〉 1_9_0 〈427 A〉 1_9_0 〈428 A〉 1_9_0 〈429 A〉
just because he he’s sort of gone withdrawn into himself rather again oh - oh dear he’s still living way out at Bexted is he no no they now live you know where the – the Mitchells used to live up by the observatory
Zygmunt Frajzyngier et al.
6.3 Summary of the pragmatic dependency of the progressive The progressive form forces the listener to interpret the proposition in connection with the time specified within the clause or in the preceding or the following discourse. The progressive may also provide the temporal background for the interpretation of other clauses in discourse. The temporal reference for interpretation may be overtly marked through adverbs of time, other overt indicators of time, or another clause. If the time is not overtly marked, the progressive form has to be interpreted in connection with the time of speech.
7. A n explanation of why the progressive cannot be used in the imperative mood As stated at the beginning of this study, corpora contain very few instances of the use of progressive in deontic modality. Native speakers, however, can produce imperative progressives, and can use deontic modals with progressive form, and still retain the mood of obligation, as in the following examples, courtesy of David Rood, p.c.): (51) Be sitting there when I get back. You must be sitting there when I get back. Be sitting there until I tell you to get up.
The crucial element that assures grammaticality of these clauses is the presence of adverbial phrases or clauses, which set a time with which the progressive form has to be interpreted. As Werner Abraham has formulated (p.c.) “the progressive is anchored only relative to some other time reference, which may be provided in [another] clause”. Without the adverbial expressions, these clauses would be ungrammatical. The pragmatic dependency coding of the progressive is responsible for the incompatibility of the progressive and the imperative. That coding is an instruction to interpret the clause in connection with another time or in connection with another event. The imperative is an order for the addressee to be involved in the event; hence it requires a different interpretation. The two interpretations are mutually contradictory. The internal contradiction in the functions within one proposition results in an ungrammatical expression. Thus, although the progressive does indeed code events as incomplete and in many cases as ongoing, this is not its primary function. This function should not prevent the co-occurrence of the progressive with the imperative. Pragmatic dependency is the primary function of the progressive. This brief study has illustrated that the description of the function of a form cannot be accomplished through an observation of the reality to which the form presumably refers. The observation of individual sentences in isolation, even of sentences
Towards an understanding of the progressive form in English
occurring in natural discourse, may not necessarily provide sufficient data for the description of a grammatical form. Bertinetto (2000) and Bertinetto et al. (2000) observed that the progressive in English has properties different from those of the progressive in Romance and in other Germanic languages. These facts were merely noted without specifying them or illustrating them. We can now provide an explanation for those differences. The progressive in English is not an aspectual category. It codes the pragmatic dependency of a clause with respect to time-referential anchoring or with respect to other factors. The aspectual characteristic of the event is only a secondary characteristic of the progressive form. At this point, it is legitimate to ask why pragmatic dependency is accompanied by imperfective aspectual characteristics. Is it coincidental? The answer is that most likely it is not coincidental. There is another category that shares with the progressive the property of not allowing imperatives of intransitive verbs. This form is the perfect. Here are just a few examples in the mood of obligation: (52)
1_3_0 〈114 A〉 1_3_0 〈115 A〉 1_3_0 〈116 b〉 1_3_0 〈115 (A〉
(53) 3_3_0 〈359 C〉 3_3_0 〈360 C〉 3_3_0 〈361 C〉
because the person who hasn’t used one and *(([m]))* has to have it all demonstrated and I had to fill in the form and bring it back and have it signed
One cannot have the mood of obligation in perfect for intransitive verbs: (54) *you have to have slept (not with the meaning of obligation) *you have to have run
The analysis of the co-occurrence constraints of perfect of intransitive verbs with imperatives and root modals, however, must await another occasion.
References Abraham, Werner & Cláudio Gonçalvez. 2007. Non-state imperfectives in Romance and WestGermanic: How does Germanic render the progressive? In Walter de Mulder & Tanja Mortelmans (Eds), Proceedings of Chronos 7. Antwerps, September 2006. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Bertinetto, Pier Marco. 2000. The progressive in Romance as compared with English. In Dahl (Ed.) (pp. 559–604). Bertinetto, Pier Marco, Karen Ebert & Caspar De Groot. 2000. The progressive in Europe. In Dahl (Ed.) (pp. 517–558). Biber, Douglas, Stig Johanson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad & Edward Finegan. 1999. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow: Pearson Education. Dahl, Östen (Ed.). 2000. Tense and aspect in the languages of Europe. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 20,6].
Zygmunt Frajzyngier et al. De Clerck, Bernard. 2006. The imperative in English: A corpus-based, pragmatic analysis, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Ghent. Frajzyngier, Zygmunt. 2001. A Grammar of Lele. Stanford, CA: CSLI. [Stanford Monographs in African Linguistics]. Frajzyngier, Zygmunt. 2007. Towards a theory of functional semantics: Discovery, description, and the proofs of meaning. Plenary talk at the Third Seoul International Conference on Discourse and Cognitive Linguistics. Frajzyngier, Zygmunt. 2008. A grammar of Gidar. Frankfurt: Lang. Frajzyngier, Zygmunt & Eric Johnston with Adrian Edwards. 2005. A Grammar of Mina. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Mouton grammar library 36]. Frajzyngier, Zygmunt & Jan Mycielski. 1998. On some fundamental problems of mathematical linguistics. In Carlos Martin-Vide (Ed.), Mathematical and computational analysis of natural language. Selected papers from the 2nd International Conference on Mathematical Linguistics, Tarragona, 2–4 May 1996 (pp. 295–310). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Studies in functional and structural linguistics 45]. Frajzyngier, Zygmunt & Erin Shay. 2003. Explaining language structure through systems interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Typological studies in language 55]. Frajzyngier, Zygmunt, with Erin Shay. 2002. A Grammar of Hdi. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Mouton grammar library 21]. Huddleston, Rodney. 2002. The verb. In Huddleston and Pullum (pp. 71–212). Huddleston, Rodney & Geoffrey K. Pullum. 2002. The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: CUP. Jespersen, Otto. 1927. Modern English Grammar on historical principles. Vol. 4. Heidelberg: Winter. Kurcz, Ida, A. Lewicki, J. Sambor, K. Szafran & J. Woronczak. 1990. Słownik frekwencyjny polszczyzny współczesnej. Cracow: Polska Akademia Nauk, Instytut Języka Polskiego. Matthews, Peter. 1997. The concise Oxford dictionary of linguistics. Oxford: OUP. Quine, Willard V. 1960. Word and object. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. van der Auwera, Johan, Andrej Malchukov & Ewa Shalley. 2007. (Im)Perfective imperatives. Paper presented at the ALT 7, Paris.
Epistemic modality and aspect contingency in Armenian, Russian, and German1 Stella Gevorgyan-Ninness
Temple University, Philadelphia This study compares modality and aspect patterns in Armenian and Russian with German, paying special attention to the existence of modal verbs. Armenian and Russian are both languages with strongly developed aspect. German serves as a launching point for this study because of the extensive research available on modal verbs. In my comparison of Armenian and Russian, aspect-modality patterns are described by linking the perfective aspect with root modality. Furthermore, my analysis of the separation between necessity and possibility in modality proves that both modal functions are supported by different aspect dependencies.
1. Introduction2 This study deals with the influence of aspect on modality. Its goal is twofold: First, to reveal the relations between root modality, epistemic modality, and aspect by comparing modal auxiliaries in German, Armenian, and Russian; second, to demonstrate the need for empirical revision of the canonic view on the development of epistemic modality.3
. I would like to thank Werner Abraham and Elisabeth Leiss for their editorial and professional comments. I am also thankful to Margaret Devinney and Robin Aronow-Meredith for critically reading this article. All shortcomings are mine. . The following glossing abbreviations are used in this article: acc – accusative, d – dative, def – definite, fut – future, g – genitive, imper – impersonal, ipf – imperfective, ind – indicative, inf – infinitive, inst – instrumental, m – masculine, n – nominative, neg – negation, obl – obligative, past – past, part – participle, perf – perfect, pf – perfective, ppp – past participle passive, pres – present, res – resultative, sg – singular. . Narrog (2005: 699) claims that the unidirectional development from root modality towards epistemic modality or, coined differently, event-oriented modality towards speaker-oriented modality may be wrong. I do not question the evidence for or against this thesis but want to emphasize the need to rethink epistemic modality.
Stella Gevorgyan-Ninness
The research on modal verbs in Germanic languages often focuses on the grammaticalization path from root modality to epistemic modality.4 In German, the core modal verbs like müssen “must”, sollen “should”, wollen “want”, können “can”, dürfen “may”, mögen “to like”, and möchte “would like” (in Krug’s (2000) terminology “central modals” in English: See Krug 2000: 4, 244f.) are unique because they form a close, autonomous group. German modals developed historically from preterit present and express possibility, necessity, volition, and permission. In comparison with full verbs, they are grammatically abnormal because they lack imperative and passive forms. The infinitive, when used with a modal verb, does not need zu “to”.5 Russian and Armenian possess modals as well. In comparison with German and other Germanic languages, though, Russian and Armenian did not develop such an autonomous group of core and emerging modal verbs. The modal system in Armenian and Russian is an open system expressing possibility, necessity, volition, and permission not only through modals but also through modal predicates, modal adjectives, and mood. Aspect could be the explanation for the differences in modality expression between Russian, Armenian, and German. Lacking an autonomous group of modal verbs, Russian and Armenian possess a strongly developed aspect system, while aspect in German is weakly developed at best. A significant body of research has grown around the phenomenon of aspectual influence on modality. Some linguists studying aspect and modality in Russian argue that a clear connection usually does not exist. In fact, they argue that the influence of aspect in the modal domain is perceivable only in certain verbs or in certain structures (Rathmayr 1977: 196); aspect does not play an important role for modality (Choi 1994: 228); and aspect alone cannot articulate modal expressions (Burkhardt 1990: 12). Yet, despite complex combinations between aspect and modality and despite disagreements in interpretation, aspect and modal auxiliaries do form regular patterns in language. Leiss (2000) arrived at the conclusion that languages with a pronounced aspect system tend to have a small number of modal verbs because aspect takes over modal functions. Abraham (1991), Leiss (2000), and Hyams (2003) demonstrate
. For research on grammaticalization in English modals see among others Traugott (1989) and Coates (1983). Diewald (1999) describes the grammaticalization path in German modal verbs. . These are only a few characteristics of modal verbs in German. A complete list of grammatical abnormalities of modals in German can be found in Buscha & Zoch (1981: 11ff.), Diewald (1999: 51ff.), and Abraham (2002). The modal auxiliaries in Russian share some of these features. For example, Russian modals cannot have imperative forms. Choi (1994: 116–129) and Gevorgyan-Ninness (2005: 113–119) provide detailed account of grammatical features of the modal auxiliaries. Gevorgyan-Ninness (2005: 119ff.) describes the differences between Armenian auxiliaries of possibility and full verbs.
Epistemic modality and aspect contingency in Armenian, Russian, and German
clear patterns where root modality and perfective aspect are linked. Furthermore, Leiss (2000: 78) and Abraham (1991: 109) have observed a pattern of epistemic modality emerging from imperfective aspect. The overall conclusions of all these authors overlook the ways in which possibility and necessity interact differently with the aspect. Building on the research of Abraham (1991), Leiss (2000), and Hyams (2003), this study evaluates the connection between aspect and modality in aspect languages such as Armenian and Russian by comparing them with German modal verbs emphasizing the difference between possibility expressions (in German expressed through können “can”) and necessity (müssen “must”). The emphasis on the distinction between necessity and possibility may seem trivial, but it has important consequences for epistemic modality. In German, epistemic können expresses the speaker’s uncertainty whereas epistemic müssen signals the speaker’s certainty. The difference between a speaker’s uncertainty and his/her certainty affects the aspect pattern in Armenian and Russian. In the possibility area for Russian and Armenian, where few modal verbs exist, perfective is strongly tied with root modality, and more specifically with root modality with wide scope, which is commonly mistaken for epistemic modality. In Armenian and Russian, necessity is expressed without modal verbs, and epistemic modality can emerge with both imperfective and perfective aspect because it signals the speaker’s certainty. To begin examining the influence of aspect on modality, I compare modal auxiliaries in Russian and Armenian with German in section 2. In section 3, I analyze epistemic and root modality in the possibility area, and section 4 concentrates on necessity functions.
2. Theoretical framework 2.1 Possibility and necessity in German Different theories illustrate the distinction between possibility and necessity in German, which originated in the research on modal logic in Germanic languages. Mortelmans (2001: 12) uses Langacker’s (1991: 277) schema about “grounding predications” demonstrating in German modals the differences between “projected reality” (müssen “must”) and “potential reality” (können “can”). Furthermore, in German, epistemic modality shows a “degree of commitment by the speaker” (Bybee et al. 1991: 24): epistemic können “can” expresses a speaker’s uncertainty, while epistemic müssen “must” indicates a speaker’s certainty about a course of events (Fritz 2000: 120, 203). Narrog (2005: 679), in contrast, criticizes the distinction between possibility and necessity because it is too “narrow.” One should also add that the epistemicity of können in
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German is not widely acknowledged in the linguistic literature. Abraham (2001: 8) based on von Wright’s (1951) treatment of modal verbs assumes that können is alethic and hence does not maintain the split between the epistemic and root meaning. Similarly, epistemic can is not well developed in English. A German dialect such as Pennsylvania German shows similar tendencies. Kenne “can” (possibility) seldom reveals epistemic modality, whereas misse “must” (necessity) shows no such limitation. Epistemic modality expressed through a modal verb is rare in Pennsylvania German and is usually expressed with the phrases ich glaab’s “I think/believe it” or er hot gedenkt “he thought”.6 Although epistemic modality among the modal verbs is rare in Pennsylvania German, when it is expressed, one uses the modal, misse “must”, combined generally with sei “to be”: (1) [Wer singt mir so’n bekanndi Weis? ‘Who is singing such a familiar tune?’] Des muss die Mudder sei! It must the mother be ‘It must be the mother!’
(Birmelin 1988: 235)
The frequent appearance of misse + sei “must + to be”7 points to epistemic modality in the necessity area with a stative verb. Despite being a modal verb, kenne “can” usually does not reveal epistemic modality, but root modality with wide scope. Root modality with wide scope is similar to epistemic modality because it expresses a speaker’s emotions or beliefs while simultaneously expressing possibility or necessity. Diewald (1999: 33, 79–90) has defined this type of modality. She characterizes root modality with wide scope as a subtype of modality or as a transition stage from root to epistemic modality. Root modality possesses a narrow scope, whereas the epistemic modality has wide scope. The author herself refers to Lyons’s (1995: 330, 352f., 398f.) distinction between subjective and objective epistemic modality. Because the objective epistemic modality (in Diewald’s 1999 term root modality with wide scope) as in He may not come can be interpreted as epistemic or as root modality, Lyons (1995) categorized this type of modality as objective epistemic modality observing that the distinction between objective and subjective modality is only significant from a theoretical standpoint. Contrary to Lyons (1995), Diewald (1999) places root modality with wide scope under root instead of epistemic modality. The question whether root modality with wide scope belongs to epistemic or root modality is important for aspect-modality research. If placed under root modality, it tends to appear with imperfective aspect, but if root modality with
. This result is similar to Kärkkäinen’s (2003: 36f.) conclusions stating that in spoken American English epistemic modality often is expressed with I think. . For the examples, see Haag (Ed.) (1988).
Epistemic modality and aspect contingency in Armenian, Russian, and German
wide scope belongs to root modality, it should be connected with perfective aspect. As we will see in the following sections, root modality with wide scope in Russian and Armenian appears with perfective aspect.
2.2 Expressing possibility in Russian In Russian and Armenian, necessity and possibility auxiliaries interact differently with aspect in epistemic modality. In Russian, both the imperfective modal verb moč’ “can” and its perfective modal opponent smoč’ “can” are used to express possibility.8 This pair of modal verbs is widely acknowledged in the linguistic literature.9 In addition to modal verbs, the modal predicate možno “possible, allowed” and the modal adjective vozmožno “possible” are widely used for “can”. Possibility contrasts sharply with necessity. In Russian, modal verbs are used to express possibility, but necessity is usually expressed by impersonal modal predicates nado and nužno “must/to be necessary” or by modal predicate dolžen “must.” Similar to words expressing mood such as grustno “sad” or skučno “boring,” nado and nužno use an agent in dative case instead of a subject.10
2.3 Modal auxiliaries of possibility in Armenian Armenian shows a striking resemblance to the Russian modal system. Possibility is expressed by the modal verb karołanal “can,” the modal predicate karoł em/ēi “can. pres/past”, and the impersonal kareli ē “can/may.” In Armenian, karoł em/ēi “can. pres/past” has default tense forms. It can only be used in the present tense or in the imperfect. In comparison to karoł em/ēi “can.pres/past,” karołanal “can” almost has a complete paradigm which allows it to function like a regular verb. It shows, however, . Henceforth, all possibility expressions in Armenian and Russian used in this article will simply be translated with “can” and all necessity auxiliaries with “must”. . Van der Auwera & Plungian (1998: 106) mention the other perfective opposites to moč’ like peremoč’ (dialectal, “to overcome/overpower”) and zanemoč’ (“to get sick”) and prevozmoč’ (“to overcome/overpower/control”). But these are rarely considered as an aspectual opposite to moč’ because they do not share enough meaning with smoč’. Beside that, they have their own imperfective pairs like iznemogat’ to iznemoč’ and prevozmogat’ to prevozmoč’. Another aspectual pair of modal auxiliaries which could compete with moč’ vs. smoč’ is umet’ “can.ipf” and sumet’ “can.pf”. If we adopt Krug’s (2000) definition, we could definitely count moč’ vs. smoč’ amongst the central modals because of their widespread usage. In the case of umet’ vs. sumet’, it is questionable if they belong to the core modals because they are not used as frequently as the other pair. . Some other verbs can express necessity like vynužden “coerced/compelled” or objazan “obligated/beholden,” and sleduet “it is necessary”. In comparison with nado and nužno, they are rarely used and have their own meaning which is different from “must.” This is the reason why we do not count them amongst the core modal auxiliaries.
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a lack of resultative forms and secondary tense forms with auxiliary linel “to be, iterative” (Kozinceva 1991: 69). In Armenian, modal verbs do not express necessity. Instead, the obligative mood takes on the function of necessity, whereas in Russian, modal predicates and adjectives are used. Despite the bilingual situation in Soviet Armenia, the similarities between necessity and possibility areas in Armenian and Russian cannot be explained in terms of Russian influence.
2.4 Aspect in Russian and Armenian Using the auxiliaries of necessity and possibility in Russian and Armenian from above, we will now look at how they interact with aspect. In Russian, the aspectual difference between smoč’ “can.pf” and moč’ “can.ipf” is clearly marked by the perfective prefix s-. Unlike in Russian, where aspect is morphologically manifested in prefixes and suffixes, the Armenian aspect system is more complex. As in Russian, aspect can be expressed morphologically through infixes -an/en/n-(imperfective), -ac’-(perfective), ec’-(perfective), -j-(perfective), -n-(imperfective), -č’-(imperfective), and -r-(perfective) (Jˇahukyan 1974: 249–255), or syntactically. An Armenian conjugated verb in indicative consists of a participle, which is a carrier of aspectual features, and an auxiliary “to be”, which determines the tense (Abełyan 1974: 459). Together the participle and auxiliary of a conjugated verb in indicative show the overlap of the aspect category with tense in Armenian.11 In Armenian, aspect in auxiliaries is not apparent and is also not clearly defined in linguistic literature. ˇJ ahukyan (1974: 286) describes the opposition between karoł em/ēi “can.pres/past” and karołanal “can” as semelfactive (a one time action) and . iterative (a repeated action). According to Ačaryan (1959: 54), the difference between these two Armenian auxiliaries lies in Aktionsart instantaneous vs. durative. Kozinceva (1991: 69) translated karoł em/ēi “can.pres/past” as imperfective moč’ “can.ipf” but karołanal as imperfective moč’ “can.ipf” and perfective smoč’ “can.pf”. The discrepan. cies in the findings of ˇJ ahukyan (1974), Ačaryan (1959), and Kozinceva (1991) can be explained because aspect in Armenian is morphologically marked as in Russian, . and it is also expressed in tense. Ačaryan and ˇJ ahukyan, however, only consider the infinitive. Therefore, karołanal “can” in their work appears as iterative or durative because karołanal “can” is one of the few imperfective verbs which expresses iterativity with the suffix -an-. On the other hand, Kozinceva (1991) considered the infinitive and
. The manifestation of aspect in Armenian needs further research. Also open to discussion are the so-called secondary forms, causative verbs or composite verbs (Gevorgyan-Ninness 2005: 159–173).
Epistemic modality and aspect contingency in Armenian, Russian, and German
the tense forms, explaining why in her translation of karołanal “can”, the verb is shown as perfective and imperfective. None of these accounts correctly explains the aspect of karoł em/ēi “can.pres/past”. Is the verb perfective (vs. semelfactive) or imperfective? Despite the fact that karoł em “can.pres” is in the present tense and karoł ēi “can.past” is in the imperfect tense, linguists tend to lump them together leading to a mistaken understanding of aspect. Like karołanum em “can”, karoł em “can.pres” is imperfective and expresses events in the present. Unlike karołanum em “can”, it can also describe future events. Even though perfective verbs typically describe the future in the present tense, karoł em “can.pres” is not perfective. Instead, it behaves like a typical modal verb. In Ich kann dich besuchen “I can visit you,” the sentence can apply to today or tomorrow. The inability of karołanum em “can.pres” to express future can be traced to its status as a full verb. In the case of karoł ēi “can.*ipf”, some accounts wrongly interpret it as imperfective. Usually in Armenian, in addition to the past tense, verbs in the imperfect tense also express imperfective aspect, but this is not the case with karoł ēi “can. past”. The absence of perfect tense for karoł em/ēi “can.pres/past” demonstrates that we cannot treat this modal auxiliary like a regular verb. The infrequent use of karołanal “can” in perfect tense, though karołanal “can” in aorist is common, means that karoł ēi “can.past” should rightly be seen as perfective.
2.5 Necessity in Armenian Necessity in Armenian is expressed in obligative mood by piti or petk’ ē (obligative particles) “must” + verb and has two forms, the obligative future and the obligative future in the past. Although linguists do not differentiate between piti and petk’ ē “must”, they are not the same because they have different grammatical environments. Petk’ ē “must” can be conjugated. In obligative mood, it can appear with or without an infinitive, whereas piti “must” constantly needs a conjugated verb and cannot appear in a sentence independently. Petk’ ē “must” without infinitive does not express necessity, but rather need. Petk’ ē “must” + verb usually indicates necessity, whereas piti “must” constructions commonly express future or modality. Petk’ ē “must” usually expresses situational-external necessity, while piti “must” is more often used for person-internal necessity. Piti “must” is commonly used for epistemic modality, while epistemic modality with petk’ ē “must” is rare. In Russian, the situation is completely different. Being personal or impersonal auxiliaries, the occurrence of an agent in dative case is the reason for the differences between Armenian and Russian. I will demonstrate this by looking at nado “must,” nužno “must”, and dolžen “must”.
2.6 Necessity in Russian By comparing nado “must”, nužno “must”, and dolžen “must” in Russian, Choi (1994: 201) concluded that the supposed synonymity of nado “must” and nužno “must” is incorrect.
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Nužno “must”, more than nado “must”, expresses person-internal modality, whereas nado “must” is likely to be used for situation-external necessity. In contrast, dolžen “must” always indicates situation-external necessity. Only dolžen “must” can express epistemic modality regularly (Choi 1994: 187, 192; 1999: 64). The expression of epistemic modality, however, cannot be explained because of situation-external necessity. Nado “must” and nužno “must” are impersonal predicates and need a dative agent. Earlier, petk’ ē “must” was only an impersonal predicate, but now it can also be used with a nominative agent. The transition from an impersonal to a personal predicate enables petk’ ē “must” to develop epistemic modality. In Russian and Armenian, being a personal or an impersonal modal restricts the emergence of epistemic modality in the necessity area, but not in the possibility area. The existence of personal and impersonal auxiliaries raises questions about the interplay between person and modality. We know from research on German modal verbs that the category of person is directly connected within epistemic modality. The epistemic use of modals describes a speaker’s beliefs. In German, the speaker can express his assumptions directly through the pronoun I as in Ich denke, er ist krank “I think, he is sick” or indirectly through epistemic modals Er muss/kann krank sein “He must/can be sick”. In the last example, the speaker distances himself from his statement either because he does not want to take a clear position or he does not want to be responsible for the statement. In epistemic modality, the speaker expressing his beliefs is not explicitly mentioned, and as a result, there are no subject restrictions (Diewald 1999: 18). In root modality, the subject orients itself semantically with an infinitive as a logical subject, not with a modal verb. Epistemic modality often appears in German with es “it”, an inanimate subject in third person singular. An animated subject is usually connected to the root modality (Diewald 1999: 39, 255f.). In contrast to German, epistemic modality in Russian and Armenian interacts differently with the category of person. Within the necessity domain of Russian and Armenian, impersonal auxiliaries have difficulty expressing epistemicity. In possibility expressions, however, epistemic modality favors impersonal auxiliaries.
3. Epistemic functions of possibility The possibility domain in German and English has received a great deal of attention among linguists (Hanowell 1991; Gammon 1993; Stevens 1995). Based on their research, I will analyze some tendencies noticeable in Russian and Armenian such as the rarity of epistemic modality with possibility modals. Linguists observe that the epistemic use of can in English is not well developed (Coates 1983: 85; Palmer 1990: 185; Narrog 2005: 694–695). By researching the overlapping of aspect tense and modality in children with specific language impairments, Leonard et al. (2003: 793)
Epistemic modality and aspect contingency in Armenian, Russian, and German
demonstrated that children do not show tense deficits for can because before learning the tense functions of the auxiliary, they learn “the modal functions of can (ability/ possibility)”. With the help of this new research view, one might conclude that in contrast to necessity, the tense-modality connection for possibility does not have to be strongly expressed. The necessity domain in Armenian stands as an extreme example of overlapping of tense and modality. In German, können “can” expresses ability and possibility. Fritz (2000: 123f.) distinguishes können1 “Fähigkeit” (can “ability”) and können2 “Möglichkeit” (can “possibility”), whereas können1 “can” cannot express epistemic modality. The rare occurrence of epistemic can in English explains why some accounts deny its existence (Perkins 1983: 35). Russian and Armenian also show the infrequent use of epistemic modality in possibility auxiliaries.
3.1 Root modality with wide scope In Armenian and Russian, epistemic modality in the possibility dimension is often confused with root modality with wide scope. This confusion is a source of controversy in research dealing with aspect in modality. Bulygina & Šmelev (1997: 293) provide the following example of epistemic modality in Russian: A Pet’ka mog i sovrat’ “Pet’ ka might have been/might be lying”. The authors correctly identified the example as a hypothetical assumption, except that is an example of root modality with wide scope, not epistemic modality. We can easily confuse one for the other because both express a speaker’s belief. Yet, despite interpreting an event as hypothetical, root modality with wide scope still expresses possibility. In root modality with wide scope, the hypothetical assumptions are often accompanied by modal adjuncts or emerge with the use of subjunctive. Because epistemicity usually appears only once in a sentence, epistemic modal verbs and modal adjuncts are not compatible; its use with modal adjuncts (in (2) it is modal i “surely/indeed”) indicates root modality. (2) [A ešče bojatsja, čto ne pojdet k nim Vanjuška, ostanetsja s dedom, a ded – svoenravnyj,] [‘Also they fear that Vaniushka will not come to them and will stay with the grandfather. He [the grandfather] is headstrong.’]
on i tret’ju masterskuju s Ivankoj zavesti he indeed third workshop.acc with Ivan.inst to establish.inf.pf možet, – can.3sg.pres.ind ‘He might also establish a third workshop with Ivanka,’
[i djadjam – to ėto ne vygodno budet, ponjal?] [‘but for the uncles this will not be profitable, understand?’] (Gor’kij 1980: 11)
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3.2 Is root modality with wide scope distinct from epistemic modality? It is difficult to separate epistemic from root modality with wide scope because in both languages they tend to occur with a subject in third person singular when the speaker describes a hypothetical event (root modality with wide scope) or speculates about an event or person (epistemic modality). Nevertheless, an animate or inanimate subject can determine the difference between root modality with wide scope and epistemic modality. According to Choi (1994: 152ff.), one might think that modality in Russian prefers an inanimate subject. The author further emphasizes that this is not a grammatical but rather a statistical tendency. By separating root modality with wide scope from epistemic modality, a grammatical tendency is observable where the root modality with wide scope has fewer restrictions in choosing a subject and can accept an animate (3) or inanimate subject. Epistemic modality (4), however, tends to have an inanimate subject. (3) [Dal’še rassuždat’ absurdno stanovitsja opasno.] [‘It is becoming dangerous to further reflect on in an absurd way.’]
Rodstvenniki Borovika mogut v sud relatives.n.pl Borovik.g can.3pl.pres.ind in court.acc podat’. to bring [an action].inf.pf ‘Relatives of Borovik can bring [me] to court.’ (Limonov 2000: 201)
(4) [Dom byl obrečen.] [‘The house was doomed.’] On ne mog ne sgoret’. he not can.3sg.m.past.ind not to burn.inf.pf ‘It [the house] had to burn.’
(Il’f & Petrov 1986a: 395)
Root modality with wide scope is easily separated from epistemic modality when modal verbs are present, although complications arise with the use of impersonal modal auxiliaries like možno, moglo, možno bylo, and moglo byt’ “possible/it is possible”: (5) Rossiju možno Russia.acc can.impers.pres.ind ‘One can trick Russia,’
obmanut’, to trick.inf.pf
[a kogda ona dogadaetsja, budet pozdno.] [‘when she [Russia] guesses it, it will be late.’]
(Erofeev 1999: 55)
Both modalities, epistemic and root with wide scope, express different degrees of a speaker’s belief. In the case of epistemic modality in the possibility area, the speaker is not sure about circumstances or facts. In the root modality with wide scope, the speaker expresses certainty about facts or events by using perfective aspect. In Armenian, perfective karoł ēi “can.past” is widely used for root modality with wide scope.
Epistemic modality and aspect contingency in Armenian, Russian, and German
.
.
(6) Karoł ēi veradarnal tun, gri arnel can.1sg.perf.ind to return.inf home.acc to write.inf ‘I could go home, write it’ ev tanel nerkayac’nel 6nt’erc’oł i ušadrut’yan6, and to bring to show.inf reader.g/d attention.g./d.def ‘and inform the reader’ [bnav č’mtahogvelov, t’e čšmartut’yan dem mełanč’el em.] [‘without thinking that I sinned against the truth.’]
(Sahinyan 1965a: 54)
Yet, examples where karoł ēr “can.past” express epistemicity and karoł em “can. pres” root modality with wide scope also exist. In (7), epistemic speculation about a course of events is reinforced with karoł ēr (3sg.perf.ind) “can.past” and a negated infinitive. (7) [– Ekac klini. Ekac klini, ev arden hing rope anc’el ē.] [‘– She [surely] came. She came and already five minutes went by. I said,’] – Na karoł ēr he/she can.3sg.perf.ind ‘She might also not come,’
ev č’gal, and to come.inf.neg
[es, – asac’i – du uriš ban mtacir.] [‘Think about something else.’]
(Grigoryan 1966: 139)
Root modality with wide scope, which is usually the domain of perfective karoł ēi “can.past”, can also be expressed through the imperfective karoł em “can.pres” as in (8). (8) [Instituti bolor ałJ¦ikneri ač’k’6 nra vra ē, aysōr ēl huys6 k’ezanic’ ktri,] [‘The eyes of all girls in the institute are directed at him, if today he will lose faith in you,’] vał6 karoł ē tomorrow can.3sg.pres.ind
uzaci vra mat6 desired.g/d at finger.acc.def
dnel u amusnanal. to place.inf and to marry.inf ‘tomorrow he can point his finger at every desired woman and marry.’ (Sahinyan 1965b: 179)
One can argue that both sentences are an example of the reduction of tense and aspect occurring when the subject is in third person singular. Reduced tense functions are common for epistemic modality. For example, epistemic modality in German can cause defaults in tense and mood. (Mortelmans 2001: 14). In Russian, the past tense of moč’ “can.ipf” demonstrates tense reduction (Choi 1999: 54). In Armenian, karoł em “can.pres” and karoł ēi “can.past” have default tense-aspect forms in third person singular, since aspect and tense are combined together. This explains the tense and aspect reduction in (7) and (8).
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When epistemic modality does appear in Russian and Armenian, it shows a tendency towards the imperfective aspect. In Russian, moč’ “can.ipf” and the imperfective verb are used to express epistemic modality. In Armenian, it is the imperfective karoł em “can.pres” and the verb. The rise of epistemic modality in both languages needs, though, a marked context such as negation or a subject in third person singular. (9) Sirt6 č’i karoł xabel, heart.n.def can.3sg.pres.ind.neg lie.inf ‘The heart cannot lie, [it will tell you the truth.]’
[na k’ez čišt6 kasi.]
(Šahinyan 1981a: 33)
(9) has an ambiguous reading and is not a clear example for epistemic modality because it can also be interpreted as root modality with wide scope. Epistemic modality in Armenian is expressed with impersonal kareli ē “can / may” which like karoł ē (3sg. pres) “can.pres” has the auxiliary ē (3sg.pres) “to be”. Like Armenian, epistemic modality occurs in Russian with impersonal auxiliaries: (10)
Jodom ili goloviznoj paxnut’ ot nee iodine.inst or hunger.inst to smell.inf.ipf from her ne moglo. not can.impers.past.ind ‘She could not smell of iodine or hunger.’ (Il’f & Petrov 1986b:115)
When dealing with possibility modals in Armenian and Russian, the distinction between epistemic modality and root modality with wide scope is pronounced in perfective aspect. Root modality with wide scope emerges with perfective and epistemic modality, an uncommon trait for possibility modals with imperfective aspect. As we will see in the next section, these modality functions can be formed in a variety of ways for necessity in Armenian and Russian.
4. Necessity In Armenian and Russian, the perfective verb combined with auxiliaries usually expresses necessity. By using an imperfective verb, the speaker emphasizes features such as iterativity and the universality of a statement. In addition, an imperfective verb is needed because perfective aspect will change the “Aktionsart”, as in the following example from Russian: (11) [Tixo,– skazal Ostap,] – [‘Quiet’, said Ostap,’] nužno dejstvovat’ bez šuma. must to act.inf.ipf without noise.g ‘We must act without any noise.’
(Il’f & Petrov 1986b: 87)
Epistemic modality and aspect contingency in Armenian, Russian, and German
4.1 Aspect in necessity expressions in Armenian Difficulties occur in establishing an aspect-modality pattern because necessity interferes with the tense functions. We can observe the complicated relations between tense, aspect, and modality in Armenian. A common opinion is that obligative in Eastern Armenian expresses necessity and in Western Armenian future (see for example Vaux 1995: 136). This conclusion about Eastern Armenian is incorrect because it fails to consider the influence of aspect. In fact, obligative in Eastern Armenian is able to express future. Piti (an obligative marker) “must/will” and the imperfective verb are usually used to indicate the future: (12) –Du orevē teł? piti gnas,– you any place.acc go.2sg.fut.obl ‘Do you have somewhere to go/Will you go somewhere?’ [Hasmik6 nayec’ inj, ev es t’et’evut’yun zgac’i.] [‘Hasmik looked at me, and I felt relief.’]
(Grigoryan 1966: 65)
Besides future, imperfective aspect can also express necessity with obligative future in the past. By using an embedded clause, obligative future in the past usually describes a necessary or an intended event which fails to occur (Połosyan 1959: 212). When the embedded clause is missing, however, obligative future in the past only reveals a necessary action. For many imperfective verbs like patmel “to tell/to narrate” and tesnel “to see,” obligative future in the past enables verbs to express necessity. In the case of imperfective verbs, the difference between obligative future and obligative future in the past is not clear, especially in third person singular. We just discussed the imperfective aspect for piti “must” + verb. Now we will continue with the perfective aspect. The combination of piti “must” and the perfective aspect can have two meanings: it can express necessity as in (13), or it can emphasize the modal future and a speaker’s certainty about the course of events as in (14).12 This is deontic modality with wide scope: (13) [Aranc’ gceri ho č’ek’? gnalu.] [‘After all, you will not move without the rails.’] Piti ver ac’nenk’, t’e č’ē. finish.1pl.fut.obl or be.3sg.pres.ind.neg ‘We have to finish it, no?’
(Šahinyan 1981a: 7)
. (14) [Ayžm orovhetev du ayd gušakec’ir ev xostanum es sar nasrtut’yamb lsel inj, apa . uremn kpatmem k’ez gitc’acners, aranc’ orevē mi ban t’ak’c’nelu: manavand or asum es,]
. Kozinceva (1991: 76) developed a similar model without, though, raising the question of aspect.
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[‘Now because you guessed it and promised to listen to me unexcitedly, I will tell you what I know without hiding anything especially because you say’] t’e im tvac that my give.res.part
tełekut’yunner6 ogut information.n.pl.def profit.acc
piti beren gorcin. bring.3pl.fut.obl case.g./d.def ‘that the information given by me will benefit the case.’
(Murac’an 1970: 36)
In Armenian, the separation between deontic modality with wide scope and epistemic modality is not clear in the obligative mood. Let us consider the following example where epistemic modality occurs with a resultative form: (15) Inč’-or teł es petk’ ē k’ez handipac linem. any place I obl you meet.1sg.res.fut.obl ‘Somewhere I [surely] met you.’
(Šahinyan 1981b: 71)
The subject first person singular already shows that the example does not belong to the typical epistemic environment, where the subject is usually third person singular. Moreover, the speaker is not left guessing as in epistemic modality of possibility. Instead, in the example he is actually convinced that he saw the person already. This conviction can also be expressed in deontic modality with wide scope through perfective aspect as in the following sentence: (16) [– Iharke, iharke:] [‘Of course, of course:’] č’petk’ ē ho mišt tan vel: obl.impers.neg indeed always to crucify oneself.inf ‘one should not always crucify himself/herself.’ . [astvac oč’ ok’i aranc’ c’averi č’ē (sic.) stełcel …] ‘[God created nobody without pains …]’ (Murac’an 1970: 42)
It is also helpful to consider the subject in distinguishing between epistemic modality and deontic modality with wide scope in obligative mood. In deontic modality with wide scope, the speaker reveals his confidence about the course of events concerning himself or ventures a guess about the listener, and, although the above example is a generalized declaration, it is also a personal statement. Similarly, in the case of epistemic modality in (15), the speaker demonstrates his confidence about the course of events, but contrary to deontic modality with wide scope, he also expresses “I think”.
4.2 Aspect in necessity expressions in Russian Although Armenian and Russian share similar aspect-modality interactions in the possibility domain, the aspectual pattern for necessity is different in Armenian and Russian. In Armenian, deontic modality with wide scope is most likely to appear
Epistemic modality and aspect contingency in Armenian, Russian, and German
with the perfective aspect. In contrast to Armenian, one cannot make any sweeping generalizations about the aspect preferences for deontic and epistemic modality in Russian. The impersonal auxiliaries, nado “must” and nužno “must,” interact with aspect differently than dolžen “must”. Nado “must” and nužno “must” often require the imperfective infinitive in deontic modality with wide scope, but dolžen “must” requires the perfective aspect. (17) [Esli daže budet udar v pjat’desjat ballov,] [‘Even if there is a magnitude 50 earthquake,’] stul dolžen byt’ soxranen! chair.n must.1sg.m to be.inf preserved.ppp ‘the chair has to be preserved!’
(Il’f & Petrov 1986b: 233)
Furthermore, epistemic modality in the necessity domain tends to occur with verbs like byt’ “to be”13 and imet’ “to have” in Russian. In Armenian, epistemic modality is especially distinct with resultative forms. Despite research concluding that epistemic modality emerges from imperfective aspect, based on these examples (14–17), the patterns developed in the possibility domain for Russian and Armenian do not apply to the necessity area. As previously illustrated, both deontic modality with wide scope and epistemic modality in necessity area express a speaker’s confidence. Epistemic modality is usually seen to emerge with only imperfective aspect, but the speaker’s expression of confidence actually falls under the function of perfective aspect, allowing for emerging epistemic modality with perfective and imperfective aspect.
5. Conclusion This study focused on interaction between aspect and modality. German served as a launching point due to the extensive research available on modal verbs. The use of the research literature for German helped to uncover the differences between Russian and Armenian in terms of aspect and modality. Aspect plays an important role in building modality. The importance of aspect for modality is often underestimated in modern linguistics because aspect does not always directly influence modality. In order to understand the interaction between aspect and modality in Russian and Armenian, one has to distinguish between possibility and necessity functions within modality. In both languages, possibility and necessity cause aspect to behave differently. While epistemic modality within the possibility function of modality is a rare occurrence in each case, epistemic modality often appears with . Vinogradov (1947: 733, 735) counts možet byt’ to the modal auxiliaries and dolžno byt’ to the modal adjuncts.
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expressions of necessity. Even the aspectual distribution shows different patterns for possibility and necessity. Epistemic modality emerges with the use of the imperfective aspect in the possibility area, albeit with some restrictions, such as negation or a subject in third person singular. In Armenian, karoł em “can.pres” + verb and in Russian, moč’ “can.ipf” + imperfective verb express epistemic modality. Moč’ “can.ipf” + perfective verb and perfective karoł ēi “can.past” + verb express root modality with wide scope. Both imperfective and perfective aspects are in sharp contrast to each other in the possibility area. For necessity in Armenian and Russian, the aspect pattern is complicated due to the involvement of tense. Perfective aspect can be used for epistemic and deontic modality with wide scope. In any case, in possibility and necessity, perfective aspect has strong ties to deontic or root modality with wide scope in Russian and Armenian. The categories of person and tense are significant for understanding aspectmodality interaction. This combination of aspect, person, and tense in modality is a reason why scholars cannot establish a clear-cut pattern between aspect and modality. Interpretations which see epistemic modality emerging with the imperfective aspect and which see the root modality emerging with the perfective aspect do not explain all situations. Examples of epistemic modality and aspect can only be explained with attention to the interaction between tense and person. The epistemic modality within possibility functions usually occurs in Russian and Armenian with impersonal auxiliaries. The necessity area provides us, though, with a contrary tendency: the personal auxiliaries express epistemic modality in Armenian and Russian. The necessity area also shows strong ties with the category of tense, where the best example of interaction with tense is the Armenian obligative mood. Based on the imperfectivity or perfectivity of a verb, the sentences can be interpreted as future or as modal. This study points to the need to rethink epistemic modality and suggests possibilities for further research. In all of the languages examined, the grammaticalization path from root modality towards epistemic modality applies best to the modal verbs. In Armenian and Russian, the modal verbs are infrequent. The few verbs which exist do not possess the full range of German modal verbs but possess only some functions like possibility or volition. This typological phenomenon in Armenian and Russian demands an explanation.
References Primary sources Birmelin, John. 1988. Regina Hartmann. In Earl C. Haag (Ed.), A Pennsylvania German anthology (pp. 231–236). Cranbury: Associated University Presses. Erofeev, Viktor V. 1999. Ėnciklopedija russkoj duši: Roman s ėnciklopediej (The encyclopedia of the Russian soul: A novel with an encyclopedia). Moskva: Podkova. Gor’kij, Maksim. 1980. Detstvo. (Childhood). In Maksim Gor’kij, Detstvo: Rasskazy (pp. 3–73). Moskva: Xudožestvennaja literatura.
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Grigoryan, Vahagn. 1966. Bolor ōreri otnajayner6 (The imprints of all days). Erevan: Hayastan. Il’f, Il’ja & Evgenij Petrov .1986a. Zolotoj telenok (The golden calf). In Il’ja Il’f & Evgenij Petrov, Dvenadcat’ stul’ev. Zolotoj telenok (pp. 243–492). Moskva: Xudožestvennaja literatura. Il’f, Il’ja & Evgenij Petrov. 1986b. Dvenadcat’ stul’ev (Twelve chairs). In Il’ja Il’f & Evgenij Petrov, Dvenadcat’ stul’ev. Zolotoj telenok (pp. 5–240). Moskva: Xudožestvennaja literatura. Limonov, Ėduard. 2000. Kniga mërtvyx (Book of the dead). Sankt-Peterburg: Limbus Press. Murac’an. 1970. Gevorg Marzpetuni. In Murac’an, Erker, Vol. II. Erevan: Hayastan. Sahinyan, Anahit. 1965a. Aknark6 č’grvec’ (The Article has not been written). In Anahit Sahinyan, Ušac’ac žamadrut’yun (pp. 51–59). Erevan: Hayastan. Sahinyan, Anahit. 1956b. Sard6 (Drama erek’ gorcołut’yamb) (Spider (A drama in three acts)). In Anahit Sahinyan, Ušac’ac žamadrut’yun (pp. 176–267). Erevan: Hayastan. . Šahinyan, Azat. 1981a. Tramvay6 park ē gnum (Mardkayin katakergut’yun mi k’ani kangar ov) (The trolley is going to the terminal (Human comedy with some stops)). In Anahit Šahinyan, Tramvay6 park ē gnum (pp. 3–55). Erevan: Sovetakan groł. Šahinyan, Azat. 1981b. Bantarkyal6. Ołbergut’yun 3 gorcołut’yamb. (The prisoner. A drama in three acts). In Anahit Šahinyan, Tramvay6 park ē gnum (pp. 56–110). Erevan: Sovetakan groł.
Secondary references Abełyan, Manuk. 1974. Hayoc’ lezvi tesut’yun (The theory of Armenian language). In Manuk Abełyan, Erker, Vol. 6 (pp. 7–288). Erevan: Haykakan SSH hratarkčut’yun. [Haykakan SSH gitut’yunneri akademia, M. Abełyani anvan grakanut’yan institut]. Abraham, Werner. 1991. Syntaktische und semantische Korrelate zum Lesartwechsel zwischen epistemischen und deontisch/volitiven Modalverben. In Eberhard Klein, Francoise Pouradier-Duteil & Karl-Heinz Wagner (Eds), Betriebslinguistik und Linguistikbetrieb. Akten des 24. Linguistischen Kolloquiums, Universität Bremen, 4. – 6. September 1989. Vol. 2 (pp. 3–13). Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Linguistische Arbeiten 261]. Abraham, Werner. 2001. Modals: toward explaining the ‘epistemic non-finiteness gap’. In Reimar Müller & Marga Reis (Eds), Modalität und Modalverben im Deutschen (pp. 7–36). Hamburg: Buske. [Linguistische Berichte, Sonderheft 9]. Abraham, Werner. 2002. Modal verbs: epistemics in German and English. In Sjef Barbiers, Frits Beukema & Wim van der Wurff (Eds), Modality and its interaction with the verbal system (pp. 19–50). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics today 47]. . Ačar yan, Hračya. 1959. Liakatar k’erakanut’yun hayoc’ lezvi hamematut’yamb 562 lezuneri (The complete grammar of the .Armenian language in comparison with 562 languages). Vol. . IVa. Erevan: Haykakan SSR GA hratarakč’ut’yun. [Haykakan SSR gitut’yunneri akademia, lezvi institut]. Bulygina, Tat’jana V. & Aleksej Šmelev. 1997. Jazykovaja konceptualizacija mira (na materiale russkoj grammatiki): Pragmatika; Semantika; Leksikografija. Vid, vremja, lico, modal’nost’ [Language conceptualization of the world (on the basis of the Russian grammar): Pragmatics, semantics, lexicography. Aspect, tense, person, modality]. Moskva: Škola “Jazyki russkoj kul’tury”. [Jazyk, Semiotika, Kul’tura]. Burkhardt, Doris. 1990. Modale Funktionen des Verbalaspekts im Russischen. München: Sagner. [Slavistische Beiträge 265]. Buscha, Joachim & Irene Zoch. 1981. Modalverben. Leipzig: Enzyklopädie. [Zur Theorie und Praxis des Deutschunterrichts für Ausländer]. Bybee, Joan L., William Pagliuca & Revere D. Perkins. 1991. Back to the future. In Elizabeth Closs Traugott & Bernd Heine (Eds), Approaches to grammaticalization. Vol. 2 (pp. 17–58). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Typological studies in language 19.2].
Stella Gevorgyan-Ninness Choi, Sung-Ho. 1994. Modal predicates in Russian: Semantics and syntax. Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA. Choi, Sung-Ho. 1999. Semantics and syntax of moč’ and smoč’: their “aspectual” relationship. Russian Linguistics, 23, 41–66. Coates, Jennifer. 1983. The semantics of the modal auxiliaries. London: Croom Helm. [Croom Helm linguistics series]. Diewald, Gabriele. 1999. Die Modalverben im Deutschen: Grammatikalisierung und Polyfunktionalität. Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Germanistische Linguistik 208]. Fritz, Thomas A. 2000. Wahr-Sagen: Futur, Modalität und Sprecherbezug im Deutschen. Hamburg: Buske. [Beiträge zur germanistischen Sprachwissenschaft 16]. Gammon, David. 1993. On the development of epistemicity in the German modal verbs mögen and müssen. Folia Linguistica Historica, 14(1–2), 125–176. Gevorgyan-Ninness, Stella. 2005. Die Herausbildung des epistemischen Ausdrucks im Deutschen, Russischen und Armenischen. Frankfurt: Lang. [Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe Linguistik 283]. Haag, Earl C. (Ed.). 1988. A Pennsylvania German anthology. Cranbury: Associated University Presses. Hanowell, Manford. 1991. Aspects of the behavior of English can and German kann: Outlines of a contrastive and historical analysis. In Elisabeth Feldbusch, Reiner Pogarell & Cornelia Weiss (Eds), Neue Fragen der Linguistik. Akten des 25. linguistischen Kolloquiums, Paderborn 1990. Vol. 1: Bestand und Entwicklung (pp. 451–457). Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Linguistische Arbeiten 270]. Hyams, Nina. 2003. Child non-finite clauses and the mood-aspect connection: Evidence from child Greek. In Paula Marie Kempchinsky & Roumyana Slabakova (Eds), Aspectual inquiries (pp. 293–315). Dordrecht: Springer. [Studies in natural language and linguistic theory 62]. ˇJahukyan, B. 1974. Žamanakakic’ hayereni tesutyan himunk’ner6 (The foundations of a theory on modern Armenian]). Erevan: Haykakan SSH gitut’yunneri akademiayi hratarakč’ut’yun. . [Haykakan SSH gitut’yunneri akademia, H. Ačar yani anvan lezvi institut]. Kärkkäinen, Elise. 2003. Epistemic stance in English conversation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Pragmatics & Beyond, New Series 115]. Kozinceva, Nataliia A. 1991. Vremennaja lokalizovannost’ dejstvija i ee svjazi s aspektual’nymi, modal’nymi i taksisnymi značenijami (The temporal localization of an action and its connection with the meaning of aspect, modality, and taxis). Leningrad: Nauka. [Akademija Nauk SSSR, Institut jazykoznanija, Leningradskoe otdelenie]. Krug, Manfred G. 2000. Emerging English modals. A corpus-based study of grammaticalization. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Topics in English linguistics 32]. Langacker, Ronald W. 1991. Foundations of cognitive grammar. Descriptive application. Vol. II. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2000. Verbalaspekt und die Herausbildung epistemischer Modalverben. In Ludwig M. Eichinger & Oddleif Leirbukt (Eds), Aspekte der Verbalgrammatik (pp. 63–83). Hildesheim: G. Olms. [Germanistische Linguistik 154]. Leonard, Laurence, Patricia Deevy, Carol A. Miller, Monique Charest, Robert Kurtz & Leila Rauf. 2003. The use of grammatical morphemes reflecting aspect and modality by children with specific language impairment. Journal of child language, 30(4), 769–795. Lyons, John. 1995. Linguistic Semantics: An Introduction. Cambridge: CUP.
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Mortelmans, Tanja. 2001. An introduction to Langacker’s ‘grounding predications’: Mood and modal verbs in German. In Heinz Vater & Ole Letnes (Eds), Modalität und mehr. Modality and more (pp. 3–26). Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier. [Fokus, LinguistischPhilologische Studien 23]. Narrog, Heiko. 2005. Modality, mood, and change of modal meanings: A new perspective. Cognitive Linguistics, 16 (4), 677–731. Palmer, Frank R. 21990. Modality and the English modals. London: Longman. Perkins, Michael. 1983. Modal expressions in English. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. . Połosyan, P.M. 1959. Bayi ełanakayin jeveri očakan kirar ut’yunner6 ardi hayerenum (Ełanaka . žamanakayin kirar ut’yunner) (The stylistic usage of modal forms of verbs (tense-modal usage)). Erevan: Erevani petakan hamalsaran. Rathmayr, Renate. 1977. Die perfektive Präsensform im Russischen. Eine multilateral-kontrastive Funktionsanalyse der russischen Form anhand ihrer französischen und deutschen Entsprechungen. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. [Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte 310, 1; Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Linguistik und Kommunikationsforschung 4]. Stevens, Christopher M. 1995. On the grammaticalization of German können, dürfen, sollen, mögen, müssen und wollen. American Journal of Germanic Linguistics and Literatures, 7(2), 179–206. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1989. On the rise of epistemic meanings in English: An example of subjectification in semantic change. Language, 65 (1), 31–55. Van der Auwera, Johan & Plungian, Vladimir A. 1998. Modality’s semantic map. Linguistic Typology, 2(1), 79–124. Vaux, Bert. 1995. A problem in diachronic Armenian verbal morphology. In Jos J.S. Weitenberg (Ed.), New approaches to the medieval Armenian language and literature (pp. 135–148). Amsterdam: Rodopi. [Dutch studies in Armenian language and literature 3]. Vinogradov, Viktor V. 1947. Russkij jazyk. Grammatičeskoe učenie o slove [The Russian language. A grammatical theory about word]. Moskva/Leningrad: Učpedgiz. [Moskovskij ordena Lenina gosudarsvennyj universitet imeni M.V. Lomonosova]. Wright, Georg Henrik von. 1951. An essay in modal logic. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Slavic
Indefiniteness and imperfectivity as micro-grammatical contexts of epistemicity in German-Slovene translations Carmen Teržan Kopecky
University of Maribor, Slovenia The paper deals with the frequency and the collocation modalities of the epistemic and root modal verb constructions with marked variants of some grammatical parameters in two German literary texts representing the 19th century German written language. They are compared with their Slovene translations. According to the Slovene model of Natural Syntax, the token-frequency of the observed constructions and their micro-grammatical collocation tendency form the basis for generating the naturalness and grammaticalization status of the observed structures. Special focus is placed on Abraham’s (1990, 1999, 2001) hypothesis of a strong collocation tendency between epistemic modality and imperfectivity, on the one hand, and root modality and perfectivity, on the other, as well as Leiss’ (2000a, b) hypothesis regarding typological links with referential (in)definiteness. Both hypotheses will be confirmed by the statistical data obtained from the investigated corpora in both languages.
1. Introduction The present paper deals with the general problem of grammatical innovation with special focus on a Germanic and a Slavic language: German and Slovene. The main interest of the study lies in the grammaticalization phases of syntactic variants of epistemic modality in these two languages. The theoretical background is provided by the Markedness Theory within the broader framework of the Naturalness Theory (nt). The main postulates are derived
. Thanks are due to Werner Abraham and Elisabeth Leiss, the volume editors, for their painstaking reading and correcting the text untiringly several times both with an eye on form, organization, and content details. . Abbreviations: cs – cognitive structure, dmv – root (deontically) used modal verbs, emv – epistemically used modal verbs, f+ – high token-frequency, ls – language structure, m- – low markedness level, m+ – high markedness level, mgc – micro-grammatical context, n+ – high
Carmen Teržan Kopecky
from the hallmarks of nt (as outlined by Mayerthaler 1985; Dressler, Mayerthaler, Panagl & Wurzel 1987, and Dressler 1990) and from particular digressions thereof, as offered in The Slovene Model of Natural Syntax (SMNS) (Orešnik 1994, 1999, 2002; Teržan Kopecky 1995, 1996, 2001; Petrič 1994, 1996), which claim that less natural linguistic structures are more marked and, consequently, will be developed later in the process of language evolution than more natural and, consequently, less marked linguistic structures. The latter become productive earlier within innovation processes of languages. The present study takes its theoretical background from the hypotheses set up by the SMNS, particularly those relating to the concepts of markedness and token frequency in correlation with the markedness of the micro-grammatical context. Both the nt and the SMNS provide sufficient background for the study of collocation preferences of epistemic modal verbs in certain 19th century German literary texts and their correspondent Slovene translations with their more or less (proto)typical microgrammatical contexts.
2. Th e relevance of micro-grammatical contexts in the sense of the Slovene Model of Natural Syntax (SMNS) The Slovene Model of Natural Syntax (SMNS) presupposes relevant similarities between the two closely related natural systems of language and cognition. The most obvious link between the two domains is the concept of markedness. Complex cognitive processing is considered to have immediate linguistic effect by triggering heavily marked linguistic structures which, consequently, are considered to produce more natural syntactic variants for complex categorical properties than unmarked ones (e.g., a cognitively and functionally complex category is naturally expressed by more highly-marked encodings; however, for less complex structures the opposite should be the case, in accordance with an “Optimality Principle”.) In general, more natural language elements are linked to less complex cognitive strategies and consequently to unmarkedness. If this natural coding principle is not observed, disturbances in the system may be expected. They very often appear as gradual language change and in language innovation. Less marked, i.e., more natural syntactic structures show a tendency to emerge earlier in the process of language innovation or language acquisition (the ontogenetic principle) and to have a higher type- and tokenfrequency than the more marked structures. Less marked (cognitively less complex)
level of naturalness, nt – Naturalness Theory, SMNS – The Slovene Model of Natural Syntax, c-level – cognitive level.
Indefiniteness and imperfectivity as micro-grammatical contexts
language structures tend to trigger special behaviour of their micro-grammatical context (= the grammatical parameters of the structural environment). The micro-grammatical context tends to be less marked itself. More marked (cognitively more complex) language structures tend to trigger the diametrically opposite micro-contextual behaviour. This interdependency, however, is not a static one, but a dynamic one. The dynamic perspective sketched above is manifested by the fact that more marked linguistic elements collocated with relatively marked micro-grammatical contexts are linked to more specialized information and are less prototypical in terms of structure and usage. They have more marked macro-contextual collocations (e.g., they have tokens in more complex types of texts) and they attract more marked microgrammatical environments. However, all these phenomena display dynamic sensibility and dependence in relation to the age (= phase of grammaticalization) of the structure as well as to its type and token frequency: In the course of time, both may increase, with the effect of lowering the markedness level. In such cases, we may say that the observed structure is becoming more natural and may be on its way to becoming the default structure for conveying certain categorical values. Monitoring the movement of specific syntactic structures through their various grammaticalization phases is made possible by comparing the markedness levels of the micro-grammatical contexts of the observed grammatical categories and structures. It shows, as stated above, a systematic sensitivity in correlation with the functional and cognitive complexity of the structure involved or the phase of grammaticalization in terms of the following criteria. A higher functional complexity or an earlier stage of grammaticalization will display a positive correlation with the higher markedness degree of the micro-grammatical environment of the observed constructions. With increasing age and token-frequency, this interrelation may turn out in favour of lowering the markedness degree of the structure and consequently of triggering a less marked micro-grammatical context (MGC →); such language structures become more natural (n+). Box 1. Phases of grammaticalization.
Accordingly, the SMNS provides a model that makes it possible to predict the direction of the innovation process involving syntactic variants, as well as statements about the “age” of the observed constructions. In this respect, we presume a positive correlation between the markedness (m+) of the observed construction and its micro-grammatical environment.
. Macro-contextual = collocation tendency with more or less marked (formal) text types.
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3. Hypotheses related to the observed syntactic constructions The following hypotheses concern the collocation tendency of the cognitively more marked epistemic modality with more marked grammatical parameters, with special focus on the observed structures’ affinity with indefiniteness and imperfective verbs. Hypothesis 1. Epistemic modality is cognitively more marked than root modality. As such, it shows a significant tendency to collocate with complex, i.e., more marked grammatical parameters, in particular with a more highly marked micro-grammatical context (mgc; the SMNS-Hypothesis). The more natural structural variant for expressing epistemicity is expected to make explicit the least marked mgc. Hypothesis 2. Epistemic modality is linked to imperfective aspectuality (i.e., it displays a significant tendency to collocate with imperfective verbs and with indefiniteness – cf. Abraham’s hypothesis about a strong collocation tendency between epistemic modality and imperfectivity, on the one hand, and, inversely, between root modality and perfectivity; see Abraham (1990, 1999, 2001). See also Leiss’ (2000a, b) generalization on Aspect-Reference-Modality compatibilities). Hypothesis 3. Indefiniteness and imperfectivity are the prototypical micro-grammatical contexts of MV-constructions denoting epistemic meanings, which represent complex functional and cognitive entities. SMNS considers functional and cognitive complexity to be a trigger for the appropriate markedness of the surface structure, by which complex, marked grammatical categories are preferably verbalised. Such a constellation, however, represents typical language behaviour only at the grammaticalization stage. In the post-grammaticalization phase, less marked, i.e., less typical grammatical parameters as well as micro-grammatical contexts are also triggered.
4. Epistemic and root modality and their markedness According to Nuyts (2001), the epistemic modals are verbs “denoting an evaluation of the chances that a certain hypothetical state of affairs under consideration will occur, is occurring, or has occurred in a possible world which serves as the universe of interpretation for the evaluation process” (Nuyts 2001: 21). Accordingly, epistemic structures
. The Leiss (2002) thesis is as follows: Aspect languages, which more often than not do not have a paradigm of modal verbs like German, use aspect to encode deontic and epistemic meanings. Languages that have lost aspect develop articles and a class of modals with deontic and epistemic meanings. MV combine with lexically perfective infinitives in order to generate modal root meanings (see Leiss 2002). As pointed out before, German MV combine with lexically imperfective infinitives in order to generate epistemic readings (see Abraham 1990, 1999, 2001).
Indefiniteness and imperfectivity as micro-grammatical contexts
express an estimation of likelihood that (some aspect of) a certain state of affairs is or will be true (or false) in the context of the possible world that is being considered. The present study includes only those MV that express likelihood or estimations of states of affairs and that have a present time reference in the sense that the speakers and the event time coexist within the same time-frame. Epistemic modals are considered to be more marked in comparison to their root syntactic variants, owing to the complexity of their cognitive processing. Epistemic qualifications are considered to be meta-operators over the state of affairs, since they emerge from high-level meta-representational operations over knowledge and contain a possibility operator (Langacker 1999; Nuyts 2001). They make explicit a cognitively more complex subjective domain, and they are also characterized by a more complex transpositional perspective, by speaker orientation (relation to referent), and by their deictic ‘‘origo” (Leiss 1992, 2000a, b). As such, they may be determined as an “abstract” and “complex functional category” with all implications that can be derived from this status. The consequences in the sense of SMNS are the following: In accordance with a complex cognitive structure, epistemic MV are expected to have complex L(anguage)structures, which would be their most natural (N)-encodings. Their grammaticalization should start relatively late as compared to other less marked categories, the root modals in particular. At least in their grammaticalization phase, they should be strong attractors for marked grammatical parameters. These are observed (common) tokens in Germanic and Slavic languages: – In Germanic languages, the epistemic modality is most often (less often with analytical structures in the Slavic languages) expressed by analytical constructions with added lexical encodings (adjectives, adverbs, predicates, etc.) denoting epistemic meaning. They are additionally marked by relatively highly-marked microgrammatical environments (such as triggering complex grammatical parameters) and by low token-frequencies. Common linguistic form types in German and Slovene are the following: – On the lexical level – modal adverbs, predicatively-used modal adjectives, mental state predicates (highest frequency!), for example: German wahrscheinlich ‘‘probably’’, es dünkt mich ‘‘it seems to me’’, schon ‘‘somehow, all right’’, wohl ‘‘somehow, all right’’, Slovene menda ‘‘I believe so, probably’’, misliti si ‘‘believe so, think so’’, vender ‘‘but, however’’, morda ‘‘maybe’’, izvestno ‘‘surely’’, pač ‘‘that’s . For example, in the sense of expressing comfort We will make it somehow, or annoyance I’ll do it, all right etc. This German particle has no direct equivalent of the same formality in English, but it is often conveyed by the context or other non-verbal means. . Similar to German schon.
Carmen Teržan Kopecky
how it is, that’s what it is’’, še ‘‘yet”, pa ‘‘on the contrary, on the other hand’’, že ‘‘somehow, all right’’. – On the grammatical level – modal auxiliaries, other analytical structures (subjunctive I, II, würde + infinitival construction, werden ‘‘become’’ + infinitival construction (the latter being highly preferred in Modern German)). The common expression type of the marked epistemic modals (em) (compared to root ones) is as follows: E-MV = COMPLEX CS → COMPLEX LS (= analytical constructions + lexical expression + complex micro-grammatical contexts (mgc) = default case > f+/m(= possible shift in the course of time as grammaticalizing process goes on) Box 2. Expression type of marked epistemic modals
5. Modal verbs in Slovene According to Toporišič (42000), Slovene modal verbs are used to paraphrase the conditional and the imperative moods. They belong to the category of mood and denote a specific relation between the speaker and the verbal action/state. Slovene has the following modal verbs: morati ‘‘must’’ (e.g., moraš delati ‘‘(you) must work, (you) have to work’’), the predicative smeti ‘‘may’’ (e.g., smeš iti, ne smeš iti’ ‘‘(you) may go, (you) may not go, (you) should (should not) go’’, moči ‘‘can, be able to’’ (e.g., more se uresničiti ‘‘(it) can be done’’, splačati se ‘‘judgement, opinion, estimation’’ (e.g., splača se prisluhniti ‘‘it is worth listening to’’, hoteti ‘‘want to’’ (e.g., hočem/nočem delati ‘‘(I) want/ (I) don’t want to work’’. They all raise the infinitive of the embedded verb. The verb želeti ‘‘wish, would like to’’ (as in želim oditi ‘‘(I) wish to leave, (I) would like to leave’’) can also perform MV-functions, similar behaviour is shown also of the verbs ukazati ‘‘to order, to command’’, sramovati se ‘‘to be ashamed of ’’, bati se ‘‘to be afraid of ’’. The particle naj, naj ne ‘‘should, should not’’ (e.g., Peter naj gre ‘‘Peter should go, may go, is allowed to go’’) and the adverb lahko ‘‘may, can’’ (e.g., Lahko dela. ‘‘(he) can work; (he) is able to work; (he) may work’’) may also function as a root modal in Slovene. Slovene grammar books mention no epistemic use of the modals. In what follows I provide a brief systematized survey of German vs. Slovene modal verbs:
. Similar to German schon or wohl.
Indefiniteness and imperfectivity as micro-grammatical contexts
müssen “must” morati – necessity, urgency (e.g., moraš poslušati “(you) must/have to listen”) (can perform epistemic function) können “can, may” moči – possibility (e.g., moreš poslušati “(you) can/are able to listen”) – (can perform epistemic function) wollen “will” hoteti – “to be willing, to want” (e.g., hočeš poslušati “(you) want to listen”)
(can perform epistemic function – only with added (appropriate) semantems) sollen “should”
smeti – volition, intention (negative and interrogative have the most tokens) (e.g., ne smem poslušati “(I) may not
listen” smem poslušati? “may (I) listen?”) (can perform epistemic function – only with added (appropriate) semantems)
dürfen “may” smeti – “to be allowed to” (e.g., smeš/ne smeš poslušati “I may/may not listen”) (can perform epistemic function – only
with added (appropriate) semantems) mögen “like to” marati (e.g., maram poslušati/ne maram poslušati
‘‘(I) like to listen/(I) don’t like to listen”) (can perform epistemic function – only with added (appropriate) semantems) All German root modals can be expressed in Slovene additionally by some other verbal phrases which can cause modal functions, like biti zmožen ‘‘to be able to’’, dovoljeno je ‘‘it is allowed to’’, imeti voljo ‘‘to be in the mood of ’’, sramovati se ‘‘to be
. Arrows mark the semantic and categorial relation of the Slovene modal verb with the German one. . The verb marati is slowly disappearing out of the general use.
Carmen Teržan Kopecky
ashamed of ’’, biti prisiljen ‘‘have to do, to be forced to do’’, imeti rad ‘‘to like’’ etc., as well as by particles and adverbs, as mentioned before.10
6. Samples and methodology As concrete samples of the above-mentioned theoretical postulates in the present corpus-based pilot study, we present the syntactic variants of epistemic and root modality in German (expressed by epistemic (emv) and root modal verbs (dmv)) as well as epistemic and root modals in Slovene translations. Each of the observed syntactic variants forms a separate sample for each of the corpora under study (German and Slovene). All sample comparisons are based on analyses of the microgrammatical context with which the observed constructions collocate (such as person, number, tense, voice, transitivity, etc.). Common expressions of epistemicity in the German and Slovene analysed texts include the following: –
werden + infinitive (German):
(1)
–
Du wirst Dir doch nit einbilden, dass der g’stohlene you will yourself surely not imagine that the stolen Goasbock Dein g’hör? goat to you belongs ‘Surely you don’t imagine that the stolen goat belongs to you?’
('S Nullerl)11
bo + l-participle (Slovene):
(2)
Menda si vendar ne boš domneval, da je suppose (yourself) probably not will imagine that is ukradeni kozel tvoj? the stolen goat yours ‘I suppose you don’t imagine that the stolen goat is yours?’
(Revček Andrejček)
(3) Drugo kozo dobiti bode menda uže še moči. another goat to get (it) will probably still be possible ‘I suppose it will be possible to get another goat.’ (Repoštev duh v Kerkonoških gorah)
. See also Toporišč (42000); Bolta (1986); Žele (2001). . There is formal equivalence between the source and the target text sentence.
–
Indefiniteness and imperfectivity as micro-grammatical contexts
modal verb + infinitive (modal verb/particle + infinitive in Slovene):
(4) Unser Bader muß auch krank sein. our physician must too ill be ‘Our physician must be ill, too.’
('S Nullerl)
(5) Naš zdravnik mora pač sam bolan biti. our physician must probably himself ill be ‘Our physician must probably be ill himself.’12
(Revček Andrejček)
All structures are analytical (consisting of at least two structural elements: e.g., aux + infinitive. For Slovene it has been observed by the author’s analyses of the present Slovene translation texts and in other previous studies of Slovene texts (Teržan Kopecky 2005) that additional marking by appropriate adverbs or other semantemes is very frequent. This is in line with the markedness-hypothesis (the NT-postulate of constructional iconicity: complex communicative functions are most naturally expressed by complex (marked) language elements; see Mayerthaler (1985) and Dressler, Mayerthaler, Panagl & Wurzel (1987)).
7. Statistical data analysis The pilot study comprises the following German language corpora (literary works) representing the Austrian literary production of the 19th century and their Slovene translations: 'S Nullerl (folk play) (1885) The token-frequency is as follows: epistemic modals/EMV – 7; root modals/ DMV – 400. ‘S Nullerl – token-frequency 400 300
1 = 2 =
200 100 0
1
Figure 1. ‘S Nullerl – token-frequency.
. See note 11.
2
Carmen Teržan Kopecky
The above graph shows an extremely low token-frequency compared to the modal root tokens in the same corpus. Examples of epistemic modals: (6) Unser Bader muß auch krank sein. our physician must too ill be ‘Our physician must be ill, too.’ (7) Der arme Pertl muß jetzt viel aushalten. The poor Pertl must now a lot suffer ‘The poor Pertl must be suffering a lot.’ (8)
Wann ihn die Gabi nit darweil versteckt hat – muß if him Gabi not in the meantime hidden has must er no oben sein. he still upstairs be ‘If Gabi hasn’t hidden him in the meantime, he must still be upstairs.’
Revček Andrejček (1891) – Slovene Translation Token-frequency: epistemic modals/emv – 8; root modals/dmv – 70. Revček Andrejček – token-frequency 80 60
1 = 2 =
40 20 0
1
2
Figure 2. Revček Andrejček – token-frequency.
The above graph shows an extremely low token-frequency compared to the root modal tokens of the same corpus. Compared to the German source text, the token-frequency of modal verbs in general is relatively lower in Revček Andrejček. Examples of epistemic modals: (9) Naš zdravnik mora pač sam bolan biti. our physician must probably himself ill be ‘Our physician must probably be ill himself.’13
. There is formal equivalence between the source and the target text sentence.
Indefiniteness and imperfectivity as micro-grammatical contexts
(10) Ubogi Pavel jih mora sedaj pač veliko požreti. poor Paul them must now a lot take in ‘Poor Pavel must be taking in a lot.’ (11) Strašno mora zaljubljena biti. very much must (she) in love be ‘She must be very much in love.’
Legenden vom Rübezahl (legend) (1842) Token-frequency: epistemic modals – 5; root modals – 220. Rübezahl – token-frequency
250 200
1 = 2 =
150 100 50 0
1
2
Figure 3. Rübezahl – token-frequency.
The above graph shows an extremely low token-frequency compared to the root modal tokens of the same corpus. Examples of epistemic modals: (12) Mann und Weib mag wohl in die Länge, eine man and woman may quite possibly in the long run a tote Gesellschaft sein, wem soll sich Madame mitteilen? dead society be, to whom can (herself) the lady confide ‘Quite possibly that man and woman are a lost cause in the long run, to whom can the lady confide?’ (13) Lieber Herr, wenn Ihr mein nicht spottet, […] dear Sir, if you my not mock, so müsst Ihr ein Seher oder der gute Engel meines then must you a prophet or a guardian angel of my Buhlen sein […] wooer be ‘Dear Sir, if you do not mock me, […] then you must be a prophet or even a guardian angel of my wooer […]’
Carmen Teržan Kopecky
Repoštev, duh v Kerkonoških gorah (1881) – Slovene translation Token-frequency: epistemic modals – 2; root modals/dmv – 104. Repoštev – token-frequency 140 120 100
1 = 2 =
80 60 40 20 0
1
2
Figure 4. Repoštev – token-frequency.
The above graph shows an extremely low token-frequency compared to the root modal tokens of the same corpus. (This sample claims no statistical significance.) Compared to the German source text, the token-frequency of modal verbs in general is slightly lower in Revček Andrejček. Examples of epistemic modals: (14) Mislil je, da je mogel kak drug duh v to reč zapleten biti. (he) thought that must some other ghost in this matter involved be ‘He thought that some other ghost must have been involved in this matter.’ (15) Ljubi gospod, če se ne šalite in resnico govorite, dear sir, if yourself are not joking and the truth tell, biti morate prerok, da vse to tako dobro veste. be must (you) a prophet to everything this so well know ‘Dear Sir, if you are not joking but telling the truth, you must be a prophet to know everything so well.’
The token-frequencies and collocation tendencies are as follows: • All the isolated mv-constructions with an epistemic meaning (German/Slovenian) were analysed in separate samples and compared to the root constructions from both literary works and their Slovene translations. • The statistical analyses comprise the collocation data of the constructions screened under 11 grammatical parameters: verbal person (non-third person = m+);14
. m+ = the relatively more marked parameter variant.
Indefiniteness and imperfectivity as micro-grammatical contexts
number (plural/dual = m+); sentence form (negative = m+), expression mode (interrogative/imperative = m+); aspect (perfective = m+); tense (non-present tenses = m+); voice (passive = m+); transitivity (complex transitive forms (by clause or by non-accusative objects) = m+); clause type (subordinate clauses = m+); mood (non-indicative moods = m+); and definiteness/indefiniteness (indefinite = m+). The collocation of an epistemic MV with a more highly marked variant from among the grammatical parameters is considered to be a hypothesis-friendly occurrence in the sense of the NT-postulate, which says that more complex structures tend to collocate more frequently with m+ parameters than their less marked syntactic variants. In all the sample texts analysed, the epistemic MV-constructions (E-constr.) show a drastically lower token-frequency than the root MV-constructions. Thus, our frequency-hypotheses are confirmed.
8. C ollocation tendencies of epistemic and root structures with marked parameter variants The table below shows the collocation-frequencies of the observed epistemic and root modal verbs with more highly marked parameter variants in the folk play ‘S Nullerl and its translation Revček Andrejček.
Table 1. ‘S Nullerl (19th century) vs. Revček Andrejček (19th century, translation)
Root modals (19th century) Epistemic modals (19th century) Nullerl
Revček
Non-third persons 59 44 Plural 4 9 Non-affirmative sentences 27 32 Interrogative/ imperative sentences 15 11 Perfective aspect 56 59 Non-present tenses 13 6 Passive voice 3 0 Subordinate clause 24 15 Complex forms of transitivity 54 67 Non-indicative mood 15 0 Indefiniteness 15 7 Total m+ 63,6% 63,6%
Nullerl
Revček
14 0 29
17 0 0
0 0 14 0 0 71 0 14 18,2%
0 17 0 0 0 67 0 0 0%
Carmen Teržan Kopecky ‘S Nullerl – root / DMV and epistemic MV 80
Markedness level
70 60 50 40
30
20 10 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Collocation with grammatical parameters
Figure 5. ‘S Nullerl – root and epistemic mv.
The above table and graph show the collocation tendency of root and epistemic modal verbs with marked variants of eleven analysed grammatical parameters. The M+values in favour of e-mv are realised only in two of the 11 parameters: the non-affirmative sentences and the complex forms of transitivity.
Markedness level
‘S Nullerl – M+ relation: root-MV, E-MV 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
1 = non- 2 = 1
2
Figure 6. ‘S Nullerl – m+ relation: root-mv, emv.
The above graph shows that root modal verbs make explicit a significantly higher collocation tendency with marked parameter values than do epistemically used modal verbs in the ‘S Nullerl folk play. Thus, the markedness hypothesis of the SMNS is not confirmed.
Indefiniteness and imperfectivity as micro-grammatical contexts Revček Andrejček – root/ and epistemic Markedness level
70 60 50 40
30
20 10 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 collocation with grammatical parameters
Figure 7. Revček Andrejček – root and epistemic mv.
The above graph shows the collocation tendency of root and epistemic modal verbs with marked variants of eleven analysed grammatical parameters. M+ values in favour of E-MV are not realised in any of the parameters, the only exception being again the complex forms of transitivity which demonstrate the same markedness level as the root MV-tokens. Revček Andrejček Markedness level
80 60
1 = 2 =
40 20 0 1
2
Figure 8. Revček Andrejček – root/dmv – m+ collocation tendency.
The above graph shows that root modal verbs explicate a significantly higher collocation tendency with marked parameter values than do epistemically used modal verbs in the Revček Andrejček folk play. The markedness hypothesis of the SMNS is not confirmed. The table below shows the collocation-frequencies of the observed epistemic modal verbs with the parameters of imperfectivity and indefiniteness in the folk play ‘S Nullerl and its translation Revček Andrejček.
Carmen Teržan Kopecky
Table 2a. Collocation tendency of E-MV with imperfectivity in 'S Nullerl and Revček Andrejček ‘S Nullerl (19th century)
IMPERFECTIVITY Modal verbs Root Epistemic
Revček Andrejček (19th century, translation)
100%
83%
44% 100%
41% 83%
Table 2b. Collocation tendency of E-MV with indefiniteness in ‘S Nullerl and Revček Andrejček INDEFINITENESS Modal verbs Root Epistemic
‘S Nullerl (19th century)
Revček Andrejček (19th century, translation)
14%
0%
15% 14%
7% 0%
Imperfectivity - 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
. .
1 2 1 = ‘S Nullerl 2 = Revček Andrejček
Figure 9a. ‘S Nullerl and Revček Andrejček – imperfectivity collocations.
Indefiniteness and imperfectivity as micro-grammatical contexts Imperfectivity – , 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
1 2 1 = ‘S Nullerl 2 = Revček Andrejček
Figure 9b. ‘S Nullerl and Revček Andrejček – imperfectivity collocations (dmv:emv).
The above graphs show that epistemicity is a strong attractor for imperfectivity in ‘S Nullerl and its translation, Revček Andrejček. Root MV/DMVs preferably trigger perfectivity. The Abraham-Hypothesis is confirmed. Indefiniteness − 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
1 2 1 = ‘S Nullerl 2 = Revček Andrejček
Figure 10a. ‘S Nullerl and Revček Andrejček – Indefiniteness collocations.
The above graphs shows that, against all other general results on the modalitydefiniteness links, epistemicity is not an attractor for indefiniteness in ‘S Nullerl as well as in its translation, Revček Andrejček. Likewise and against the odds, root MVs preferably trigger indefiniteness, although the collocation frequencies are not convincingly significant in favour of indefiniteness, especially in ‘S Nullerl. Thus,
Carmen Teržan Kopecky Indefiniteness – , 16 14 12 10 8
6 4 2 0
1 2 1 = ‘S Nullerl 2 = Revček Andrejček
Figure 10b. ‘S Nullerl and Revček Andrejček – Indefiniteness collocations (dmv:emv).
the Abraham/Leiss Hypotheses (‘‘Interdependence between aspect and modality’’ as well as ‘‘Interdependence between aspectual languages and the existence of modal verbs’’) have not been confirmed. On the other hand, one cannot say that they have been significantly rejected in one of the two analysed texts (‘S Nullerl). Legenden vom Rübezahl (19th century) Repoštev, duh v Kerkonoških gorah (19th century translation) The table below shows the collocation-frequencies of the observed epistemic and root modal verbs with more marked parameter variants in the folk play Rübezahl and its translation Repoštev. (All figures are in percentages.) Table 3. Collocation tendencies of root and epistemic modals with the observed grammatical parameters (Repoštev and Rübezahl – 19th century)
Root modals (19th century) Ruebezahl
Repoštev
Non-third persons 35 28 Plural 9 15 Non-affirmative sentences 36 40 Interrogative/ imperative sentences 9 7 Perfective aspect 58 63 Non-present tenses 48 44 Passive voice 0 0 Subordinate clause 26 37 Complex forms of transitivity 65 68 Non-indicative mood 6 0 Indefiniteness 16 7 Total m+ 45,5% 36,4%
Epistemic modals (19th century) Ruebezahl��������� Repoštev 20 80 0
50 50 0
0 20 0 0 40 100 20 60 45,5%
0 0 0 0 50 100 50 50 54,6%
Indefiniteness and imperfectivity as micro-grammatical contexts
Markedness level
Legenden vom Rübezahl – non-epist. and epist. 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Collocation with grammatical parameters
non-- -
Figure 11. Markedness of root and epistemic MV in Rübezahl.
The tables and figures above show the collocation tendency of root and epistemic modal verbs with marked variants of eleven analysed grammatical parameters. m+ values in favour of E-MV are realised in five of the 11 parameters: plural, subordinate clauses, complex forms of transitivity, non-indicative mood and non-finiteness.
Markedness level
Rübezahl – M+ relation: root- / 50 40 30 20 10 0
1 = 2 = 1
2
Figure 12. Markedness of root and epistemic MV in Rübezahl generally.
Markedness level
The above graph shows that epistemic modal verbs explicit the same collocation tendency with marked parameter values than root-/dmv-used modal verbs in the Rübezahl legend. 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
Repoštev – root/ and epistemic
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Collocation with grammatical parameters
Figure 13. Markedness of root and epistemic MV in Repoštev.
Carmen Teržan Kopecky
The figures above show the collocation tendency of root and epistemic modal verbs with marked variants of eleven analysed grammatical parameters. M+ values in favour of E-MV are realised in six of the 11 parameters: non-third persons, plural, subordinate clauses, complex forms of transitivity, non-indicative mood and nonfiniteness. The SMNS-markedness hypothesis is confirmed.
Markedness level
Repoštev – M+ relation: , 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
1 = 2 = 1
2
Figure 14. Markedness of root and epistemic MV in Repoštev in general.
The above graph shows that epistemic modal verbs explicit a significantly higher collocation tendency with marked parameter values than root-used modal verbs in the Repoštev legend. The markedness hypothesis of the SMNS is confirmed. The table below shows the collocation-frequencies of the observed epistemic modal verbs with the parameters of imperfectivity and indefiniteness in the folk play Legenden vom Rübezahl and its translation Repoštev, duh v Kerkonoških gorah. Table 4a. Collocation tendency of E-MV with imperfectivity in Legenden vom Rübezahl and Repoštev, duh v Kerkonoških gorah IMPERFECTIVITY Modal verbs Root Epistemic
Legenden vom Rübezahl (mv)
Repoštev, duh v Kerkonoških gorah (mv)
80%
100%
42% 37% 80% 100%
Table 4b. Collocation tendency of E-MV with indefiniteness in Legenden vom Rübezahl and Repoštev, duh v Kerkonoških gorah INDEFINITENESS Modal verbs Root Epistemic
Legenden vom Rübezahl
Repoštev, duh v Kerkonoških gorah
60%
50%
16% 60%
7% 50%
Indefiniteness and imperfectivity as micro-grammatical contexts Imperfectivity – 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
perf. imperf.
1
1 = Rübezahl
2 2 = Repoštev
Figure 15a. Rübezahl and Repoštev – imperfectivity collocations.
Imperfectivity – , 100 90 80 70 60 50
40
30 20 10 0
1
2 1 = Rübezahl 2 = Repoštev
Figure 15b. Rübezahl and Repoštev – imperfectivity (dmv:emv).
The above graphs show that epistemicity is a strong attractor for imperfectivity in Rübezahl and its translation, Repoštev. Root, i.e., dmv readings are more inclined to trigger perfectivity.
Carmen Teržan Kopecky
Indefiniteness – 60 50 40 30
20 10 0
1
2 1 = Rübezahl 2 = Repoštev
Figure 16a. Rübezahl and Repoštev – indefiniteness collocations. Indefiniteness – , 60 50 40 30
20 10 0
1
2 1 = Rübezahl 2 = Repoštev
Figure 16b. Rübezahl and Repoštev – indefiniteness collocations (dmv:emv).
The above graphs show that epistemicity is an attractor for indefiniteness in Rübezahl, but it is a less strong one in its translation; accordingly the Abraham-Leiss Hypothesis is confirmed by the collocation preferences of EMV and indefiniteness. The latter is in both corpora relevantly higher than that of the DMV.
Summary of the statistical results: 1. The epistemic structures are generally marked by low-token frequencies and are M-neutral in general. 2. Between the German source texts and the Slovene target texts, no relevant differences have been found. The most evident exception is the fact that the werden
Indefiniteness and imperfectivity as micro-grammatical contexts
+ infinitive and würden + infinitive structures frequently replace the non-typical epistemic modals in Slovene, probably influenced by the German source texts. 3. In Slovene, the epistemic modals and modal verbs in general are less frequent and less natural than those in German. 4. 'S Nullerl/Revček Andrejček: In both corpora, the epistemic MV-readings show a strong tendency for collocation with imperfective verbs and definiteness. The latter, however, is not statistically relevant in 'S Nullerl. 5. Rübezahl/Repoštev: In both corpora, the epistemic MV-readings show a strong tendency for collocation with imperfective verbs. The Rübezahl MV-tokens, however, make explicit a higher tendency for collocation with definiteness. By contrast, there is no explicit tendency in its Slovene translation Revček Andrejček in either direction, as long as we check the tendencies inside epistemicity. If we compare the collocation of root MV with definiteness and epistemic MV with indefiniteness, we observe a significantly stronger collocation of EMV with indefiniteness in Rübezahl as well as in its translation Repoštev. In this respect the Abraham-Leiss Hypotheses are confirmed.
9. Findings and reflections According to the statistical data, the Slovene Model of Natural Syntax (SMNS) may be considered functional regarding the fact that the micro-grammatical context has relevance in shaping grammatical patterns. In all samples but one, epistemic variants make explicit lower markedness (m–) values of the micro-grammatical context (the only exception is Repoštev, duh v Kerkonoških gorah (Musäus 1881), which has no statistical significance because of the extremely low token-frequency (only two tokens)). Grammatical categories with low m+ values are considered to be more natural than the structures with which they are compared. According to the results of our statistical analysis, the epistemic MV are – in all samples but one – the less marked tokens. One of the reasons for such a result might be the fact that they do not make explicit enough tokens to provide statistical significance. The other reason for the markedness-thesis of the SMNS being confirmed in only one sample (Repoštev with 6 m+ from among 11 m+ parameters) could be explained by the fact that epistemic modals were just emerging as a grammatical category in the 19th century, while their root counterparts have already manifested themselves as a lexical category.15 See Nuyts 2001 who argues that “epistemic modality is not a specifically
. Werden + infinive structures show in the same corpuses higher token-frequenies (but still lower than their root counterparts) and higher markedness values (m+) measured by their collocating grammatical parameters.
Carmen Teržan Kopecky
linguistic category. Estimations of the degree to which states of affairs are true of the world are no doubt an essential ingredient of any kind of human perception and action. Thus, epistemic evaluations are probably a basic category of human conceptualization in general” (Nuyts 2001: 22). Accordingly, at least in the 19th century, epistemic modals might have lacked clear morphosyntactic boundaries and are, at least in Slovene slowly becoming a grammatical category. Another explanation for the fact that only one of the Slovene corpuses confirms the markedness-thesis of the SMNS (Repoštev with 6 m+ of 11 m+ parameters) derives from the fact that the modal verb category in Slovene is vague: Modal verbs do not display explicit cluster values, and their epistemic function is not mentioned in grammars. Yet, two of them, moči ‘‘can’’ and morati ‘‘must’’, are used in both Slovene translations for conveying epistemic meaning. The statistical data obtained confirm the Abraham-Hypothesis of the collocation tendency between epistemic modality and imperfectivity in both German texts and their translations, but Leiss’ (2002) hypothesis with respect to the link between epistemic modality and indefiniteness was confirmed in the second set of corpora, clearly in Rübezahl and to a lesser extent, but still confirmed in the Slovene translation Repoštev. The other analysed set of literary works 'S Nullerl and Revček Andrejček do not confirm a clearly outlined affinity between epistemic modality and indefiniteness. An exception is the German 'S Nullerl, where the collocation tendencies of root modals and epistemic modals do not explicate statistically relevant differences. The Leiss’ (2002) indefiniteness hypothesis is in this case neither confirmed nor rejected. If rejected, it can be considered only in one of four analysed literary works, in Revček Andrejček, which uses a very colloquial style and may not be the best macro-grammatical context for the grammaticalization of grammatical expressions of epistemic modality. One of the observed consequences is the frequent use of additional semantemes which help to create epistemicity. However, there is no confirmation by the statistical analysis of collocation tendencies that there should be a clearly outlined collocation-affinity difference between German, a language with highly-developed modal verb and article systems, on the one hand, and Slovene, which has no articles and is a relatively poor modal verb language. In relation to the topic discussed in section 8, the statistical findings confirm that the affinity between aspect, modality and indefiniteness has a universal, crosslinguistic status with prototypically slightly shifted perspectives. The Slovene texts in general show slightly less explicit collocation tendencies between EMV and imperfectivity and indefiniteness (Revček Andrejček being the only non-confirming text demonstrating the collocation tendency between epistemicity and indefiniteness). The reason might be in the fact the Slovene has, at least in the 19th century, not yet developed epistemic models on the level of a grammatical category.
Indefiniteness and imperfectivity as micro-grammatical contexts
10. Conclusion and outlook According to the frequency results presented, the Abraham-Hypothesis involving the interdependence of the imperfective aspect and epistemic modality has been confirmed. But the Leiss-Hypothesis of the affinity between indefiniteness and epistemicity has been confirmed by the data analyses in one set of corpora (the German Rübezahl and its translation Repoštev). However it was rejected by the Slovene translation, Revček Andrejček, and its source text, 'S Nullerl, where the results were neutral. The statistical results have made explicit a strong affinity of epistemic modals to imperfectivity, and, generally to a lesser extent (with a more neutral collocation affinity in 'S Nullerl and negative collocation affinity in Revček Andrejček) to indefiniteness. These findings allow the following statements: Epistemic modality is strongly linked to imperfective aspectuality, and there is an outlined affinity between indefiniteness and epistemic meaning. Slovene is a paradigmatic aspect language. As such, it has developed deontic and – at lower levels – epistemic meanings with MV.16 Along with Czech and partially Polish, Slovene has apparently developed a stronger modal verb-system than Russian. Accordingly, Slovene uses modal verbs, the biti + infinitive constructions, and very often lexical (adverbial) encodings to express epistemicity which shows that the grammaticalization process of the epistemicity of the Slovene modals is at a very early grammaticalization stage, especially in the 19th century. Statistical analyses of the isolated linguistic data confirm the proposed claim, according to which there is a clearly outlined interdependence between functional complexity, age of the constructions, and the markedness of their micro-grammatical environments. However, since the token frequency of the epistemic modals is very low in all of the observed texts, only collocation tendencies can be outlined. Nevertheless, it can be shown that the epistemic modals do not exhibit the character of a clearly outlined morphosyntactic category in the written texts of the 19th century, especially not in Slovene. Epistemic modals might not yet have been a well established structural variant in the grammatical systems of both languages. More than German, though, Slovene is reluctant to use modal verbs with an epistemic meaning (except for the verb morati ‘‘must’’). It prefers lexical expressions involving propositional truth verification. Interstructural relations and the direction of further innovative development in a certain categorical spectrum can be derived from the obtained data in the sense that the low markedness levels of the observed parameters allow two possible explanations.
. According to Leiss (2002) modal verbs are those verbs that have root readings as well as E-readings.
Carmen Teržan Kopecky
In the course of further innovative processes, the modal verbs in typical epistemic environments will develop clearly outlined features denoting epistemic meaning, and they will slowly become less marked and more natural in performing this semantic function (though this might be more likely for German than for Slovene), or they will be cut completely by another structure performing the same function (in German most probably by werden + infinitive constructions, and the same tendencies can be observed in Slovene). Further studies of similar and different text sorts, representing different innovation phases of the observed and competing constructions with the expressive force of epistemic meaning, should be undertaken in order to confirm the above hypotheses in a statistically relevant fashion.
References Primary sources Morre, Karol. 1885. ‘S Nullerl. Graz: Verlag Friedrich Goll. Morre, Karol. 1891. Revček Andrejček. Ljubljana: Narodna tiskarna. Musäus, Johann Karl. 1842. Legenden vom Rübezahl. München: Winkler Verlag. Musäus, Johann Karl. 1881. Repoštev, duh v Kerkonoških gorah. Ljubljana: Janez Giontini.
Secondary references Abraham, Werner. 1990. A note on the aspect-syntax interface. In Joan Mascaró & Marina Nespor (Eds), Grammar in progress. GLOW essays for Henk van Riemsdijk (pp. 1–12). Dordrecht: Foris. [Studies in generative grammar 36]. Abraham, Werner. 1999. How descending is ascending German? On the deep interrelations between tense, aspect, pronominality, and ergativity. In Werner Abraham & Leonid Kulikov (Eds), Tense-aspect, transitivity, and causativity (pp. 253–292). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Studies in language companion series 50]. Abraham, Werner. 2001. Modals: Toward explaining the ‘epistemic non-finiteness gap’. In Reimar Müller & Marga Reis (Eds), Modalität und Modalverben im Deutschen (pp. 7–36). Hamburg: Buske. [Linguistische Berichte Sonderheft 9]. Bolta, Marija. 1986. Slovenski glagoli z nedoločniškim dopolnilom v tvorbeno-pretvorbenem pristopu (The Slovene verbs with the infinitival complement from a generative approach). Slavistična revija, 34/4, 419–431. Dressler, Wolfgang Ulrich, Willi Mayerthaler, Oswald Panagl & Ullrich Wurzel. 1987. Leitmotifs in Natural Morphology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Studies in language: Companion series 10]. Dressler, Wolfgang Ulrich. 1990. The cognitive perspective of “naturalist” linguistic models. Cognitive Linguistics, 1(1), 75–78. Langacker, W. Ronald. 1999. Grammar and conceptualization. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Cognitive linguistics research 14].
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Leiss, Elisabeth. 1992. Die Verbalkategorien des Deutschen. Ein Beitrag zur Theorie der sprachlichen Kategorisierung. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Studia linguistica Germanica 31]. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2000a. Artikel und Aspekt. Die grammatischen Muster von Definitheit. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Studia linguistica Germanica 55]. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2000b. Verbalaspekt und Herausbildung epistemischer Modalverben. Germanistische Linguistik, 154, 63–83. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2002. Explizite und implizite Kodierung von Deontizität und Epistemizität: über die grammatische Musterbildung vor der Entstehung von Modalverben. Jezikoslovlije, 3, 69–98. Mayerthaler, Willi. 1985. Morphological naturalness. Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma. [Linguistica extranea 17]. Nuyts, Jan. 2001. Epistemic modality, language, and conceptualization. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Human cognitive processing 5]. Orešnik, Janez. 1994. Slovenski glagolski vid in univerzalna slovnica (Slovene verbal aspect and Universal Grammar). Ljubljana: Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti/Academia Scientiarum et Artium Slovenica. Orešnik, Janez. 1999. Krepke in šibke dvojnice v skladnji (Strong and weak variants in syntax). Ljubljana: Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti/Academia Scientiarum et Artium Slovenica. Orešnik, Janez. 2002. Naturalness in English: Some (morpho)syntactic examples. Linguistica, XLII, 143–160. Petrič, Teodor. 1994. Bibliographie zur Hypothese über die Eigenschaften verstärkter und geschwächter Konstruktionen – syntaktischer Wandel und Natürlichkeit in der Forschung slowenischer Linguisten. Papiere zur Linguistik, 51/2, 203–220. Petrič, Teodor. 1996. On some (non-)parallelisms in natural text linguistics: Comments on Dressler’s model of natural text linguistics. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung, 49/3, 312–317. Teržan-Kopecky, Karmen. 1995. Zu den Entfaltungseigenschaften der Verbalkategorien. Papiere zur Linguistik, 2, 99–109. Teržan-Kopecky, Karmen. 1996. Die Typologie der Abfolge von Spracherwerbsprozessen. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung Berlin, 50(4), 348–357. Teržan-Kopecky, Karmen. 2001. Psihološke dimenzije jezikovnih ravnanj (Psychological dimensions of language behaviour). Maribor: Pedagoška fakulteta. Teržan-Kopecky, Karmen. 2005. Komplexe grammatische Kategorien im Innovationsprozess. Gertraud Fenk-Oczlon & Christian Winkler (Eds), Sprache und Natürlichkeit: Gedenkband für Willi Mayerthaler (pp. 225–242). Tübingen: Narr. [Tübinger Beiträge zur Linguistik 483]. Toporišič, Jože. 1992. Enciklopedija slovenskega jezika (The Encyclopedia of the Slovene Language). Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba. Toporišič, Jože. 42000. Slovenska slovnica. Četrta prenovljena in razširjena izdaja (The Slovene Grammar. Fourth revised & enriched edition). Maribor: Obzorja. Žele, Andreja. 2001. Vezljivost v slovenskem jeziku (The Valency in the Slovene Language). Ljubljana: Založba ZRC. [Zbirka Linguistica et philologica].
The connections between modality, aspectuality, and temporality in Modern Russian1 Vladimir D. Klimonov & Gerda Klimonov Humboldt-University and Berlin
Verb aspect in Russian does not just express inherent aspectual meanings, it also plays a crucial role in the composition of temporal and modal meanings. The modal meanings of the aspectual-temporal forms (ATF) in the indicative are treated in the context of a model with six ATFs (as opposed to the five ATFs of the tradition). The newly introduced form of the perfective present tense does not just convey the meaning of the non-immediate event, but also that of the immediate event; the latter has hitherto been denied in the tradition. Moreover, the new ATF is the form with the richest modal implications. The temporal forms of the imperfective and the perfective aspect (ipf.a., pf.a.) each feature roughly the same proportion of the individual modal meanings from the stock of units making up basic modality and epistemic modality. Upon opposing those cases that pertain to the distribution of the modal meanings most, ipf.a. expresses desiderative modality and pf.a., dispositional possibility.
1. Introduction The category of verb aspect is not just concerned with the expression of genuine aspectual conditions of the discourse, it also partakes in shaping the category of tense and the modal meanings. The category of tense in Russian is amalgamated with the category of aspect; tense does not exist as something that would be independent of aspect. It therefore makes sense to speak of aspectual-temporal forms in Russian and other Slavic languages. Within Russian philology we have reached a sufficient level of understanding of the interaction between verb aspect and modality. Concerning the interaction between
. We would like to express our gratitude to Werner Abraham (Vienna) for his helpful comments. Thanks are due to Daniel Hole (Munich) as well as Werner Abraham and Debbie Ziegeler for the translation into English. Furthermore, we owe Elisabeth Leiss (Munich) and an anonymous reviewer thanks for their constructive critical remarks, which have helped shape our ideas in a novel and original way.
Vladimir D. Klimonov & Gerda Klimonov
the categories of aspectuality and modality, the level of understanding is a completely different one. Verb aspect triggers modal readings, i.e., it is an indicator of modality in those Russian verb forms that bear no tense, as is the case in the oblique moods (imperative and subjunctive) and with the infinitive, the latter being classified as a special kind of indeterminate mood by some linguists. Together with the tense marking, aspect marking on verbs carries the modal information of utterances. Karavanov (1997: 119) notices that studies of the interconnections between aspect forms and modal meanings are a desideratum. This research gap has not changed significantly since 1997 (we will return to this fact towards the end of the present section). In the grammars and handbooks of the Russian language, the modal meanings of the aspect categories in the domain of the oblique moods and the infinitive are treated in some detail. The modal meanings of the aspectual-temporal forms of the indicative are, however, only assigned a marginal position in the description of the aspectual and temporal functions of these forms – if they are mentioned at all. Aspectology is thus characterized by an obvious deficit in the domain of research on the modal functions of aspectual categories. The research situation concerning the analysis of the role of the aspects for modality is even less satisfactory. The traditional view in this area is that the category of aspect constitutes just a marginal means in the manifestation of modality (Schlegel 1992: 108). Aspect is ignored in descriptions of modality, and only in a few cases (cf., for instance, Deth 1998: 115–116) are aspect forms adduced as illustrations of modal meanings. As opposed to the situation in Russian studies, the interaction of modality with aspectuality and temporality has been investigated in quite some detail for the Germanic languages. Leiss (1992: 15–23) considers aspectuality to be basic within the architecture of verbal categories, which means that aspectuality does not just permeate all verbal categories in the narrower sense, but also the complete verbal domain (cf., for instance, the “Funktionsverbgefüge” of German, i.e., a certain class of light verbs with their complements). Aspectuality influences the selection of specific passive and perfect constructions, and it determines tense readings. Thieroff (1994: 3–6, 12–15) analyzes the German system of tenses as a product of the interplay of four inherent verbal categories, i.e., tense, aspect, mood, and distance. Abraham (e.g., Abraham 22005: 469–501), in his study on the interrelations between modal functions and aspectuality in constructions of German modal verbs with terminative and non-terminative infinitives, respectively, reaches the conclusion that base modality (in the present authors’ terminology: deontic or volitional modality) is coupled with terminativity (or perfectivity), and epistemic modality with non-terminativity (or imperfectivity). Šmelev & Zaliznjak (2006: 81), just like Wiemer (2006: 142–144), take a different stance. According to their view the standard modal interpretation of Russian and other Slavic verbs in the ipf.a is deontic, and non-deontic
The connections between modality, aspectuality, and temporality in modern Russian
(alethic or epistemic) for verbs in the pf.a. We will return to the issue in the summary (section 6). It is the aim of this study to discuss the tie-up between the meanings of the pf.a. and the ipf.a. on the one side with modal meanings of aspectual-temporal forms on the other. Modality is a constitutive ingredient of the oblique moods (subjunctive and imperative); they denote the fictionality/non-reality of the action (as an action not existing yet in the case of the imperative, or as an action not assumed to exist in the case of the subjunctive). The situation is altogether different with the indicative. It is the norm for the aspectual-temporal forms of the indicative to express non-fictitious, i.e., real actions. The expression of fictitious, i.e., non-real actions is a contextual effect of the indicative with a marginal status. Modal meanings are added to the verb meanings as a result of the effect of context types and cause a reinterpretation of real actions as non-real ones. In the present article, we make use of basic modal meanings which have been labeled differently in linguistics (see, e.g., Kiefer 1997; Deth 1998; Plungian 2000), i.e., dispositional, deontic and desiderative modality: • D ispositional modality (DisM) (= alethic-inherent modality) relates to the capability or the physical and mental (innate or acquired) abilities of the subject as a participant of the action which enable him to perform the actions that are related to by the relevant verb. • Circumstantial modality (CirM) (= alethic-potential modality) relates to an action that has been imposed on the subject as a result of exterior circumstances that are independent of the subject. • Deontic modality (DeoM) relates to an action that the subject performs in obedience to social or moral norms. • Desiderative (= bouletic) modality (DesM) expresses the wish of the subject (his expression of volition, the intention, the attempt) to perform the action named by the verb. The first three types of modality intersect with the classification of modality known to logic as the possibility (Poss) or necessity (Nec) of performing an action. The types of modality which result from the intersection of the two parameters mentioned may either belong in the domain of base modality, or in the domain of epistemic modality. So far, not all combinations of modal meanings that are theoretically possible have been matched successfully with attested evidence in practice. Base modality (BMod) expresses the attitude of the utterance’s subject towards the verbal action. Epistemic (or inferential/subjective) modality (EMod) expresses an evaluation of the speaker (= the epistemic subject) by which he evaluates the realization (chances of realization) of the action mentioned in the utterance as more or less probable. The subject of BMod is an internal participant of the utterance, whereas the subject of EMod stands
Vladimir D. Klimonov & Gerda Klimonov
in a relation to the action which is characterized by external participation. The kinds of modality BMod and EMod are labeled differently in linguistics. See Table 1 below. Table 1. Terminological divergencies on modalities
Kinds of modality
Author
base modality (BMod)
epistemic modality (EMod)
deontic (volitional) modality agentive (agent-oriented) modality non-real modality modifiying modality
epistemic (inferential or subjective) modality locutive (speaker-oriented) modality evaluational modality modality of certainty
Abraham (2005) Bybee et al. (1994) Plungian (2000) Deth (1998)
Desiderative modality, which – alongside possibility and necessity – constitutes a special type of modality, belongs in the domain of base modality. The characterization of modality with the help of three parameters (1. classification of four major types, 2. logic-based differentiation of possibility and necessity, 3. bifurcation into the linguistically motivated kinds of modality BMod and EMod) is demonstrated with the examples (1) and (2): (1) Boris igraet (= umeet igrat’) v šachmaty. nom play.ipf.3sg (can.ipf.3sg play.ipf.inf) prep chess.acc.pl ‘Boris can play chess (= knows how to play chess).’2 (2) Boris vyigraet (= dolžen nom win.pf.3sg (must.mod.aux.sg
vyigrat’) win.inf)
(3) ėtu partiyu (v šachmaty). this.acc.sg game.acc.sg (prep chess.acc.pl) ‘Boris is winning/is about to win this game of chess (= ought to win).’
Example (1) expresses Boris’ capability to play chess, i.e., we are dealing with a case of DisM from the domain of BMod. Example (2) expresses the conviction of the speaker that (due to his superior position of chessmen) Boris cannot easily lose this game anymore (unless he makes an unexpected mistake); here we are dealing with a DisM from the domain of EMod (we interpret the conviction of the speaker as epistemic necessity).
. Abbreviations in the glosses: acc – accusative, aux – auxiliary verb, dat – dative, gen – genitive, imp – imperative, inf – infinitive, instr – instrumental, ipf – imperfective aspect, mod.aux – modal predicate (not differentiated for person), mod.aux.imps – impersonal modal predicate, neg – negation, neg.pred – negation predicate, nom – nominative, nom. gen – subject in the genitive, p – P-case, pf – perfective aspect, pl – plural, prep – preposition, sg – singular.
The connections between modality, aspectuality, and temporality in modern Russian
2. The system of aspectual-temporal forms in Modern Russian Traditionally, five aspectual-temporal verb forms are distinguished in Russian. They are distributed over tenses as follows: • • • • •
imperfective preterit (on pisal “he was writing”) perfective preterit (on napisal “he wrote”) imperfective future ((on) budet pisat’ “he’ll be writing”) perfective future ((on) napišet “he’ll write”) imperfective present ((on) pišet “he’s writing”) (cf., e.g., the Academy Grammar of Russian RG 1980: 626–628).
There is a gap in the parallelism of tense and aspect distribution across verb forms; the present tense lacks a perfective form. Such a form is not treated in the grammars of Russian. The reason for this is that, according to the traditional view of things, the meaning of the ipf.a. is incompatible with the meaning of the immediate present tense. Isačenko (1960: 466–469) developed an original conception. He introduces a temporal feature to arrive at a subclassification of the aspectual-temporal forms, viz. the separation of the time of the action and the time of utterance ([sep]). He makes a distinction between an imperfective preterit form like on pisal “he was writing” within the preterit subsystem with a positive value for this feature ([+ sep]) and a perfective preterit form like on napisal “he wrote” which does not signal this feature ([αsep]). Within the subsystem of the non-preterit forms he makes a distinction between an imperfective future tense as in on budet pisat’ “he will write” which does not signal this feature ([αsep]). The latter forms, which are interpreted as present tense forms, comprise the perfective present forms like (on) napišet “he writes”, which refer to a nonimmediate action ([+ nonact]), and the imperfective present tense forms like (on) pišet, which do not signal the feature of non-immediacy of the action ([α nonact]). Along these lines, Isačenko (1960) also considers the future meaning as a special kind of non-immediate action. Like this, the meanings of the non-immediate present and future are subsumed under a single label, viz. as subtypes of the perfective present. The meaning of the immediate perfective present is not taken care of in terms of any narrow category in Isačenko’s (1960) system. A quite similar policy is pursued by Rathmayr (1976) to the extent that the author introduces a wide spectrum of grammatical, modal and stylistic meanings of the perfective present in Russian as compared to semantic and functional equivalents in German and French. In contradistinction to Isačenko (1960) and Rathmayr (1976), the authors of the Czech Academy Grammar of Russian (Barnetová et al. 1979: 165–168) distinguish two homophonous or syncretistic forms of the perfective non-immediate present tense: the perfective future (napišu1 “(I) will write”) and the perfective present tense (napišu2 “(I) write”). The authors deny that the form napišu2 “(I) write” has an immediate present meaning (Barnetová et al. 1979: 173–176). They thereby subscribe to the traditional
Vladimir D. Klimonov & Gerda Klimonov
generalization that the meaning of the perfective aspect and the meaning of the immediate present tense are incompatible – just as Isačenko (1960) does. This position is not just typical of Slavic grammarians, but also of typologists and theoretical linguists. Bybee & Dahl (1989: 87), for instance, state a restriction of a universal character for the temporal potential of the pf.a., i.e., the reference to all tenses, with the exception of the immediate present tense (non-present reference only). The studies of the past decade attest to certain doubts that linguists have concerning the justification of the view of present tense forms of the pf.a. just described. Some of these studies adduce empirical evidence which proves the compatibility of the meaning of the pf.a. with the immediate present tense (cf. Karavanov 1997: 105–112; Klimonov 2002: 72–76). Karavanov (1997) distinguishes ten major use types of the immediate present tense as in (on) napišet “he writes”. The meaning of the immediate present tense is investigated with constant recourse to the semantics of mood. It may be possible to call into question some of Karavanov’s (1997) examples, or even entire types and their relation to the immediate present tense, but the existence of the immediate present tense meaning with perfective non-preterit verb forms itself cannot be denied. Karavanov (1997: 102f., 113) classifies the pertinent cases as a metaphorical (figurative) use of the perfective future tense with the meaning of the immediate present tense. One and the same form of the perfective future tense expresses the nonimmediate present tense, too. Many linguists (cf., e.g., Bondarko 1971: 102–112) thus classify this form as a present-future form. The form of the future tense in the pf.a. thus combines the meaning of the future tense proper, which is not context-dependent, and the context-sensitive meaning of the immediate and the non-immediate present tense. It is striking that the form of the imperfective present tense has the same structure of meaning as the present tense as a component of the future form, i.e., it combines the meanings of the immediate and the non-immediate present tense. The difference between the perfective present tense as a component of the future form and the separate form of the imperfective present tense lies in the distribution of values of the immediacy feature. The meaning of the immediate action is assumed to be the main or standard meaning of the imperfective present tense forms, whereas the meaning of non-immediate action is assumed to be the peripheral or non-standard meaning. As components of the perfective future forms and in comparison with the genuine present tense forms, the immediate and the non-immediate present tenses have a reverse distribution of immediate and non-immediate actions. In its standard use, the form of the perfective present tense conveys the meaning of non-immediate actions, whereas in its non-standard use, it conveys the meaning of immediate actions. The immediacy of actions is thus a constitutive or essential property of the present tense in general. This allows us to split up the traditional future forms into two separate syncretistic forms, viz. the perfective future of type (on) napišet1 “he will write” as opposed to the perfective present
The connections between modality, aspectuality, and temporality in modern Russian
of type (on) napišet2 “he writes”. This step is furthermore justified by the fact that the form of the perfective present tense ((on) napišet2 “he writes”) encompasses a whole range of non-immediate meanings which may be interpreted as neutralizations of the temporal opposition. Neutralization is characteristic of the unmarked member of an opposition – the form of the present tense in this case. It would be unnatural to locate all these meanings within the larger domain of marked forms of the perfective future tense, as is traditionally done. It seems therefore reasonable to dissolve the cumulation of meaning which is tied to the perfective future form by severing the future meaning from the present tense meanings. Along these lines, the perfective future forms retain their basic future meanings alongside the cases of context-sensitive reinterpretations of these meanings which are immediately connected with the future. The contextdependence of the immediate and non-immediate meanings of perfective present tense forms does not pose an obstacle to the positing of these forms as independent forms. We find a fully analogous situation in the domain of the imperfective present tense where both meanings – the immediate and the non-immediate action – are always context-dependent (cf. sect. 5.2 for more details). It is the specific property of present tense forms in the pf.a. or in the ipf.a. to be highly context-dependent. These verb forms are subject to contextual influence to a much higher degree than the nonpresent tense aspectual-temporal forms (i.e., the preterit and the future tenses). It is our conviction that it is impossible to analyze the aspectual-temporal forms of Russian without recourse to the context. In the present study, six aspectual-temporal forms of the Russian verb are analyzed against the background of a mapping of two aspectual forms (the ipf.a. and the pf.a.) to three tense paradigms (preterit – future – present).
3. The preterit forms of the imperfective and perfective aspects 3.1 Markedness relations The system of aspectual-temporal forms of the Russian verb places in opposition the paradigm of the preterit – the marked member of the temporal opposition with a positive specification of the feature of anteriority of action ([+ ant(erior)]) and the paradigms of the non-preterit tenses with unspecified values of the feature of anteriority ([α ant]). The opposition between the imperfective and the perfective preterit tense is restricted to the past. The imperfective preterit of type uletal “he flew off ” with the feature of separation ([+sep]) denotes a past action which is fully detached from the present, i.e., the time of utterance U, see (3 below). As opposed to that, the perfective preterit of type uletel “he has flown off ” is unspecified for the feature of separation ([αsep]). Therefore, the unmarked perfective preterit may provide two different things: first, the feature [−sep], i.e., the meaning of the perfect (cf. (4)); and, second, the feature [+sep], i.e., the aorist meaning (5).
Vladimir D. Klimonov & Gerda Klimonov
(3) Boris uletal (togda) v Ispaniyu. nom fly.ipf.3sg (at that time) prep Spain.acc.sg ‘Boris was flying to Spain (at that time).’ (4) Borisa net nom.gen not be.neg.pred
sejčas v Berline: at the moment prep Berlin.p.sg
on uletel v Ispaniyu. he.nom fly.pf.3sg prep Spain.acc.sg ‘Boris is not in Berlin at the moment: he has gone to Spain.’ (5) Boris sdal na prošloy nedele ėkzameny i uletel v nom pass.pf.3sg last week exam.acc.pl and fly.pf.3sg prep Ispaniyu. Spain.acc.sg ‘Boris passed his exam last week and went to Spain.’
Figure 1. displays the markedness relations between the preterit forms of the pf.a. and the ipf.a. [α ]
[+ ]
[α ]
pret.(m)
[+ ]
[α ]
. pret. (m) uletal
. pret. (u) uletel
“flew away”
“has flown away”
Figure 1. Markedness relations for the preterit aspectual-temporal forms.3
3.2 Modal meanings of the preterit forms The modality of possibility in its two variants, dispositional (DisP, e.g., (6)), and circumstantial possibility (CirP, e.g., (7)) is the most widespread modal function of the ipf. preterit.
. Abbreviations: The feature ant – anterior, the feature sep – separation of action and time of utterance. The symbol “α” represents the non-specified value of the pertinent feature. Analogously, the symbols “m” and “u” represent “marked” and “unmarked”, respectively.
The connections between modality, aspectuality, and temporality in modern Russian
(6)
Nina byla solistkoy baleta i tancevala nom was.3sg solo ballerina.instr.sg and dance.ipf.3sg (= umela tancevat’) argentinskoe tango. (can.ipf.3sg dance.inf) Argentine.acc.sg tango.acc.sg ‘Nina was a solo ballerina and danced (= had the capability of dancing) Argentine tango.’
(7) [Na prazdnike bylo tak veselo,] [‘The party turned out so lively’] čto Nina tancevala (= ee podbivalo tancevat’) that nom dance.ipf.3sg (was encouraged to dance) ‘Nina felt the urge/motivated to dance.’ daže argentinskoe tango. even Argentine.acc.sg tango.acc.sg ‘that Nina even felt the urge to dance an Argentinian tango.’
The meanings of deontic or circumstantial necessity surface in special contexts only. (8) illustrates deontic necessity (DeoN). (8) [Nina mnogo rabotala, potomu čto] [‘Nina worked hard because’] ona sdavala (= dolžna byla sdavat’) she.nom pass.ipf.3sg (must.mod.aux.sg aux.sg pass.ipf.inf) ėkzameny. exam.acc.pl ‘she had to pass exams.’
We are dealing with a “praeteritum propheticum” here (“praeteritum pro futuro”); the imminent action is regulated by social norms. The negation of an action in the present yields an ironic contrasting statement in the past tense. See (9). (9) Boyalsya (= ya ego ne boyus’) ya ego, kak že! fear.ipf.sg (I.nom he.acc neg fear.pres.ipf.1sg) I.nom he.acc ‘Should I be afraid of him or what? Why so?’
This context implies the negation of a circumstantial necessity (CirN). The perfective preterit, too, may have the meaning of DisP as in (10) or CirP as in (11). (10) Boris podnyal (= smog podnyat’) ėtot tyaželyy nom lift.pf.3sg (can.pf.3sg lift.inf) this.acc.sg heavy.acc.sg yaščik. box.acc.sg ‘Boris lifted this heavy box (= managed to lift it).’
Vladimir D. Klimonov & Gerda Klimonov
(11)
Boris ne dozvonilsya (= ne smog nom neg reach on the phone.pf.3sg (neg can.pf.3sg dozvonit’sya) do Niny. reach on the phone.pf.inf) prep Nina.gen ‘Boris didn’t reach Nina by phone (= could not reach her).’
In the context of explicit (cf. (12)) or implicit (cf. (13)) conditional sentences, it is possible to use the form of the pf. preterit instead of the pf. future tense with the meaning of an anticipated action (an action that, according to the speaker’s opinion, will necessarily happen). These are instances of epistemic necessity (EpiN). (12) [Esli teper’ u nego kozyrnaya karta,] [‘If he has a trump-card now,’] to on vyigral (= dolžen then he.nom win.pf.3sg (must.mod.aux.sg ‘he has won (= he should win).’
vyigrat’). win.pf.inf)
(13) Bez našey pomošči ona propala (= propadet). prep our help she.nom be lost.pf.3sg (be lost.pf.3sg) ‘She is (= would be) lost without our help.’
The use of the perfective preterit manifests the firm intention of the speaker to perform some action immediately after announcing it in (14). The modality conveyed is desiderative (DesM). (14) Nu, ya pošel (= ya choču poyti). well I.nom leave.pf.1sg (I.nom want.ipf.1sg leave.pf.inf) ‘OK, I’m off then.’
In the case of a direct confrontation of the preterit forms of either aspect (ex. (15)), the form of the ipf. preterit has the meaning of desiderative modality (it expresses the attempts of the acting person to attain a certain result), whereas the form of the pf. preterit has the meaning of the successful or failed realization of a preceding attempt (CirM). (15) Boris dolgo ugovarival (= pytalsya ugovorit’) nom long try to talk into.ipf.3sg (try.ipf.3sg persuade.pf.inf) Ninu poyti s nim v teatr, Nina.acc go.pf.inf prep he.instr prep theater.acc.sg no tak i ne ugovoril (= ne smog but neg manage to persuade.pf.3sg (neg can.pf.3sg ugovorit’) ee. persuade.pf.inf) she.acc ‘Boris tried for a long time to persuade Nina to go to the theater with him, but he couldn’t convince/persuade her.’
The connections between modality, aspectuality, and temporality in modern Russian
4. The future tense forms of the imperfective and perfective aspects 4.1 Markedness relations There is an opposition for the posteriority feature ([post(erior)]) among the nonpreterit tenses that are not specified for the anteriority feature of actions ([α ant]). The future tense signals the positive value of this feature ([+ post]), while the non-future or present tense does not signal this feature ([α post]), cf. Figure 2. non-pret. (u)
[+ ]
[α ]
future (m)
[+ ] . fut. (m) budet odevat'sja “will get dressed”
[α ] . fut. (u) odenetsja “will get dressed”
Abbreviation: The feature = posterior Figure 2. Markedness relations for the aspectual-temporal forms in the future tense.
The ipf. future form of budet odevat’sya “will get dressed/will put on clothes” (cf. (16a)) is characterized by the complete detachment of the action from the speech act, i.e., it signals a relatedness of the action to the real future (cf. (16b)). (16) a.
Nina budet odevat’sya na banket. nom will.aux.ipf.3sg get dressed.ipf.inf prep banquet.acc.sg ‘Nina will get dressed for the banquet.’
b.
Nina budet posle raboty odevat’sya na nom will.aux.ipf.3sg after work get dressed.ipf.inf prep banket. banquet.acc.sg ‘Nina will get dressed for the banquet after work.’
The ipf. future form may not be used in a context of non-detachment of the action from the time of utterance (cf. (16c)).
Vladimir D. Klimonov & Gerda Klimonov
(16) c. *Nina sejčas odevaetsya i skoro uže budet nom now get dressed.ipf.3sg and soon will.aux.ipf.3sg
odevat’sya na banket. get dressed.ipf.inf prep banquet.acc.sg *‘Nina is putting on her clothes now and will get dressed for the banquet soon.’
In the pf. future form of type odenetsya “will get dressed”, this feature remains unexpressed (cf. (17a)). This pf. verb form may occur both in a context of detachment (cf. (17b)) and in a context of non-detachment (cf. (17c)). (17) a.
Nina odenetsya na banket. nom get dressed.pf.3sg prep banquet.acc.sg ‘Nina will get dressed for the banquet.’
b. Nina odenetsya posle raboty na banket. nom get dressed.pf.3sg prep work prep banquet.acc.sg ‘Nina will get dressed for the banquet after work.’ c.
Nina sejčas odevaetsya i skoro uže odenetsya nom now get dressed.ipf.3sg and soon get dressed.pf.3sg
na banket. prep banquet.acc.sg ‘Nina is getting dressed at the moment and will soon be ready for the banquet.’
4.2 Modal meanings The imp. future form expresses desiderative modality (DesM). DesM subsumes the expression of intentions (cf. (18)), wishes (cf. 19)), and communications of volition (cf. (20)). (18) Vy budete (= namereny) vychodit‘? you.nom.2pl will.aux.ipf.2pl (intend.mod.aux.pl) get off.ipf.inf ‘Are you getting off (now)?’ (= ‘Do you intend to get off now?’) (19)
Čto vy budete (= želaete) zakazyvat‘ what.acc you.nom.2pl will.aux.ipf.2pl (like.ipf.2pl) order.ipf.inf k obedu? prep lunch.dat.sg ‘What will you order for lunch?’ (= ‘What do you want to order for lunch?’)
(20) Ne budu (= ne choču) neg will.ipf.1sg (neg want.ipf.1sg) ‘I will not eat!’ (= ‘I don’t want to eat!’)
est’! eat.ipf.inf
The connections between modality, aspectuality, and temporality in modern Russian
Ex. (21) expresses deontic necessity (DeoN). (21)
Deti segodnya budut pisat’ child.nom.pl today will.ipf.3pl write.ipf.inf (= dolžny pisat’) sočinenie. (must.mod.aux.pl write.inf) essay.acc.sg ‘The kids will write (= must write) an essay today.’
The necessity is deontic since the children are obliged to comply with the curricular requirements. Exs. (18) through (21) illustrate base modality (BMod). The forms of the pf.a may either express BMod (exs. (22) and (23)), or EMod (exs. (24) and (25)). (22) Direktor instituta doložit (= obyazan doložit‘) institute director.nom.sg report.pf.3sg (be obliged.mod.aux.sg report.pf.inf) [na obščem sobranii o rabote instituta za istekšij god.]
“At the general meeting, the director of the insitute will report on last year’s activities of the institute.” (= “is obliged to report”) (23) Ty s’’eš’, (= možeš’ s’’est’) yabloko, you.nom eat (up).pf.2sg (can.pf.2sg eat (up).pf.inf) apple.acc.sg esli chočeš’. if want.ipf.2sg ‘Eat the apple (up), if you want.’ (= ‘you can eat it (up), if you want’)
Ex. (22) features DeoN, since the annual report forms part of the director’s responsibilities. Ex. (23) expresses a case of permission, i.e., of DeoP. Ex. (24) expresses the conviction of the speaker that Nina will, since this is her moral obligation, pass the exam with success. (24) Nina sdast (= uspešno zaveršit) svoy posledniy nom pass.pf.3sg (successfully finish.pf.3sg) her.acc.sg last.acc.sg ėkzamen k Roždestvu. exam.acc.sg prep Christmas.dat ‘Nina will have her last exam before Christmas.’ (= the speaker is optimistic that she will pass the exam successfully)
The pf. verb form in (25) expresses DisP (Nina has mastered English to the degree that she can understand the talk). (25) Nina poymet (= smožet ponyat’) ėtot nom understand.pf.3sg (can.pf.3sg understand.pf.inf) this.acc.sg doklad na angliyskom yazyke. talk.acc.sg in English ‘Nina will (= can) understand this English talk.’ (= she is sure to understand it)
Vladimir D. Klimonov & Gerda Klimonov
With immediate contrasts within a sentence, the future forms in different aspects (cf. (26)) convey differing modal evaluations of chances of success for two actions on the part of the speaker. The ipf. form expresses DesM, whereas the pf. form expresses DisP. (26) [as a reply to the question: Vy napišete stat’yu k načalu semestra? ‘Will you have the paper ready at the beginning of the semester?’] Budu aux.1sg
pisat’ (= popytayus’ pisat‘), write.ipf.inf (try.pf.1sg write.ipf.inf)
nadeyus, čto napišu (= smogu napisat). hope.ipf.1sg that write.pf.1sg (can.pf.1sg write.pf.inf) ‘I will write (= I try to), I hope to finish it (= to be able to finish it).’
The speaker expresses his conviction that he is tackling the realization of his plan (ipf.a.) (therefore, DesM); at the same time he leaves room for doubt concerning the completion of the project (pf.a.) (therefore, DisP). The reasons of doubt play no role in the expressions used.
5. The present tense forms of the imperfective and perfective aspects The feature of separation of actions from the speech time is relevant for the present tense forms, too. It is a crucial difference between the present tense forms and the non-present tense forms that the present tense relates to immediate actions, i.e., the present tense is tied to the time of utterance. For this reason, the non-separation of actions from the time of utterance – [–sep] or, in a different notation, [+nonsep] – constitutes the distinctive, i.e., marked, feature. Both aspect forms of the present tense bear the feature [+nonsep], with the sole difference that it constitutes the main or standard feature of the ipf. present tense, while it is peripheral for the pf. present tense. The forms of the ipf. and pf. present tense are thus distinguished by the different distribution of the feature of non-separation feature of actions from times of utterance. Along the same lines, we can distinguish standard contexts, and non-standard contexts. It is the characteristic of the present tense that the feature ([+nonsep]) is invariably context-dependent.
5.1 S tandard contexts for the forms of the imperfective and the perfective present tense In typical, or standard, uses the present tense forms of the ipf.a. signal the positive value of the feature [+nonsep], thus conveying the meaning of immediate action.
The connections between modality, aspectuality, and temporality in modern Russian
As opposed to that, the present tense form of the pf.a., in its standard use, does not signal this value ([αnonsep]), i.e., it conveys the meaning of non-immediate action. See Figure 3 below. [α ] non-fut. (u)
[+ ] . . present pishet “writes”
[α ] non-. . present napishet “must write”
Figure 3. Markedness relations for imperfective and perfective present tense in standard contexts.4
5.1.1 The present tense forms of the ipf. aspect The meaning of the immediate action is constitutive for the present tense of the ipf.a. Immediate actions are those actions that happen at the time of utterance, i.e., they happen during a subinterval of the utterance time, or even evolve simultaneously. In direct speech, reference to immediate actions occur in two major types: in live broadcasts, and in dialogues (e.g., in (27)). (27) [as a reply to the question: Čto delaet Boris? ‘What’s Boris doing?’] Boris rabotaet v biblioteke. nom work.ipf.3sg prep library.p.sg ‘Boris works / is working in the library.’
In contexts other than direct speech, context markers such as sejčas “now”, kak raz “in that moment”, or vse ešče “still” are necessary to point to the immediacy of actions; cf. (28). (28) Boris v ėtot moment rabotaet v biblioteke. nom prep this.p.sg moment.p.sg work.ipf.3sg prep library.p.sg ‘Boris is working in the library in this very moment.’ . Abbreviation: nonsep = non-separation of actions from the time of utterance.
Vladimir D. Klimonov & Gerda Klimonov
Without indicators of this kind an utterance as in (27) may be understood as describing the professional occupation of the subject, i.e., it may be interpreted as a non-immediate action (cf. 29). (29)
Boris rabotaet v biblioteke. nom work.ipf.3sg prep library.p.sg (= Boris yavlyaetsya bibliotekarem.) (nom be.ipf.3sg librarian.instr.sg ‘Boris works in the library.’ (= ‘Boris is a librarian.’)
5.1.2 The present tense forms of the perfective aspect The present tense forms of the pf.a. are characterized by the neutralization of the positive and the negative values of the feature of nonseparation of the action from the utterance time ([±nonsep]), i.e., they have an atemporal meaning. The present tense forms of the ipf.a. have the following modal meanings of base modality (BMod): – – – – –
the meaning of circumstantial possibility the meaning of deontic possibility the meaning of circumstantial necessity the meaning of deontic necessity the meaning of desiderative modality
(CirP) (DeoP) (CirN) (DeoN) (DesM)
(cf. (30)) (cf. (31)) (cf. (32)) (cf. (33)) (cf. (34))
(30) Do ėtogo poselka zimoy dobereš’sya prep this settlement.g.sg in winter reach.pf.2sg (= smožeš’ dobrat’sya) tol’ko na lyžach. (can.pf.2sg reach.pf.inf) only prep ski.p.pl ‘In winter, this settlement may only be reached on skis./In winter, this settlement is only reachable on skis.’
It is clear in this case that the objective circumstances are responsible for the type of modality. (31) Nina zavtra kupit (= smožet kupit’) nom tomorrow buy.pf.3sg (can.pf.3sg buy.pf.inf)
ėtu this.acc.sg
doroguyu knigu – ey mat’ razrešila ėto. expensive.acc.sg book.acc.sg ‘Nina will buy (= can / is allowed to buy) the expensive book, her mother gave her the permission.’
In this example, the modality arises from the permission. (32) Naš poezd
otpravitsya
(= dolžen
otpravit’sya)
v
our train.nom.sg leave.pf.3sg (mod.aux.sg leave.pf.inf) prep 10 časov. 10 o’clock ‘Our train leaves (= will have to leave) at 10 o’clock.’
The connections between modality, aspectuality, and temporality in modern Russian
The example demonstrates that the external circumstances (the railway timetable in the case at hand) determine the action. (33) Studenty
pridut
(= obyazany
prijti)
student.nom.pl come.pf.3pl (be obliged.mod.aux.pl zavtra na ėkzamen. tomorrow prep exam.acc.sg ‘The students will have their exams tomorrow.’
come.pf.inf)
In this case, the students’ moral obligation to be present for the exam is expressed. (34) Ya napišu (= choču napisat’) stat’yu I.nom write.pf.1sg (want.ipf.1sg write.pf.inf) paper.acc.sg [na ėtu temu – ob ėtom ya uže davno dumayu.] ‘I will write a paper on this topic (= I’m planning to write), I’ve been thinking about it for a long time already.’
The speaker expresses his firm intention to realize his plan for a publication. In the domain of epistemic modality, we have likewise been able to distinguish some modal subtypes of meaning: – – – – –
the meaning of dispositional possibility the meaning of circumstantial possibility the meaning of deontic possibility the meaning of dispositional necessity the meaning of circumstantial necessity
(DisP) (CirP) (DeoP) (DisN) (CirN)
(cf. (35)), (cf. (36)), (cf. (37)), (cf. (38)), (cf. (39)):
(35) Boris otkroet (= smožet otkryt’) ėtot nom open.pf.3sg (can.pf.3sg open.pf.inf) this.acc.sg ‘Boris will (manage to) open this lock.’
zamok. lock.acc.sg
In this example the speaker expresses his conviction that Boris is capable of opening the lock. (36)
Ot takoj žary zabolit prep such heat.gen begin to hurt.pf.3sg (= možet zabolet’) golova. (can.ipf.3sg begin to hurt.inf) head.nom.sg ‘With such heat one (easily) gets (= one can get) a headache.’
The speakers assumes in this case that a headache may result from the great heat (he worries about the headache, and he anticipates it). (37) Nina poydet posle školy k svoey podruge. nom go.pf.3sg prep school.gen.sg prep her friend.dat.sg ‘Nina is supposed to go to her friend’s home after school.’
The speaker expresses his assumption that Nina will visit her friend after school.
Vladimir D. Klimonov & Gerda Klimonov
(38) Ty plocho sebya čuvstvueš’ i potomu seyčas srazu že you.nom bad ou.acc feel.ipf.2sg and therefore right now primeš’ (= dolžen prinyat’) lekarstvo. take.pf.2sg (must.mod.aux.sg take.inf) medicine.acc.sg ‘You don’t feel well, therefore you’ll immediately take your medicine (= you should take your medicine immediately).’
According to the opinion of the speaker it is time for the sick person in (38) to take his medicine because he is in a bad condition. (39) Boris ne opozdaet (= ne nom neg be late.pf.3sg (neg
dolžen must.mod.aux.sg
opozdat’ be late.inf)
na samolet – u nego daže ostanetsya nemnogo vremeni v zapase. prep plane.acc.sg ‘Boris will not be late for his plane (= he should arrive in time), he will even have some time left.’
The speaker is quite sure that Boris will reach his plane because he knows about Boris’s plans. So far, our topic has been modality as a property of the perfective present tense if we are dealing with singular, concrete actions. Modality of this kind is typical of the forms of the perfective present tense. Iterative contexts, by contrast, are marginal or peripheral for these forms, if they contain sporadic, habitual or generic actions. In such contexts the forms of the ipf.a. are favored (cf. section 5.2). In iterative contexts, perfective present tense forms have the meaning of dispositional possibility (DisP) if frequentative determiners such as inogda “sometimes” cooccur with them as explicit markers of iterativity (cf. (40)), but also if they do not (cf. (41)): (40) On inogda skažet (= možet skazat’) čto-nibud’ he.nom sometimes say.pf.3sg (can.ipf.3sg say.pf.inf) something nevpopad. inappropriate ‘He can say very inappropriate things at times.’ (41) Pešiy pedestrian.nom.sg
konnogo rider.acc.sg
ne dogonit neg catch up with.pf.3sg
(= ne smožet dognat’). (neg can.pf.3sg catch up with.pf.inf) ‘The pedestrian will not/never catch up with the rider (= cannot catch up with him).’
If both aspect forms of the present tense occur side by side in a sentence as in (42), the imperfective form has a conative, i.e., desiderative-modal meaning (DesM), whereas the imperfective form means, together with negation, that the dispositional possibility (DisP) is negated:
The connections between modality, aspectuality, and temporality in modern Russian
(42) Nina vse ešče rešaet (= pytaetsya rešit‘) ėtu nom still solve.ipf.3sg (try.ipf.3sg solve.pf.inf) this.acc.sg trudnuyu zadaču, no ee nikak ne rešit difficult.acc.sg task.acc.sg but it.acc.sg neg solve.pf.3sg (= ne možet rešit‘). (neg can.ipf.3sg solve.pf.inf) ‘Nina still wants to solve this difficult task, but she can’t solve it (= she doesn’t manage to).’
5.2 N on-standard contexts for present tense forms of the perfective and imperfective aspects In its non-standard use, the present tense form of the perfective aspect has the meaning of non-separation of the action from the speech act ([+nonsep]), i.e., it has the meaning of an action happening at the time of utterance. The present tense form of the ipf.a., by contrast, signals the non-existence of this feature ([αnonsep]), cf. Figure 4. [α post] non-fut. (u)
[+ ] . . present tense napishet “wants to write”
[α ] non-. . present tense pishet “is writing”
Figure 4. Markedness relations between the imperfective and the perfective present tense in non-standard contexts.
5.2.1 The present tense forms of the perfective aspect With performative verbs, which denote the coincidence of action and speech act (cf. (43)), the pf. present tense form expresses an intention of the speaker, i.e., it has the meaning of DesM. The corresponding form of the ipf. present tense does not have this meaning: (43) Na ėtom ya hereby I.nom
zakonču (= choču zakončit)/ finish.pf.1sg (want.ipf.1sg finish.pf.inf)
zakančivayu svoy doklad. finish.ipf.1sg my.acc.sg talk.acc.sg ‘I hereby want to conclude/I hereby conclude (= immediate present tense) my talk.’
Vladimir D. Klimonov & Gerda Klimonov
In explicitly modal contexts (cf. (44)), the particle požaluj expresses that the speaker prefers to finish his talk at the given time. The form of the ipf. present tense may not be used here: (44) Na ėtom ya, požaluy, hereby I.nom
zakonču finish.pf.1sg
/*zakančivayu *finish.ipf.1sg
svoy doklad. my.acc.sg talk.acc.sg ‘I hereby would like to conclude my talk.’
The aspectual-temporal form of the imperfective present tense which, by default, expresses the immediate present tense, is backgrounded in contexts such as (44) and is automatically replaced by the form of the perfective present tense. The Russian modalizer požaluj is not explicitly translated into English, but it contributes to the meaning which is expressed as would like to in the translation. In (45), an example with identity between speaker and subject of the utterance, it is expressed that the subject is not capable of performing the intended action. The meaning of negation of a DisP is missing with a corresponding verb in the ipf.a.: (45) Nikak ne naydu (= ne mogu nayti) / ne neg find.pf.1sg (neg can.ipf.1sg find.pf.inf) neg nachožu svoego dnevnika. find.ipf.1sg (= immed. pres. tense) my.gen.sg diary.gen.sg ‘I don’t find my diary.’ (= ‘I cannot find it.’) / ‘I don’t find my diary.’ (= immediate present tense)
(46) below renders the speaker’s conviction that Boris will win the chess match. There is no epistemic necessity expressed. By contrast, the ipf. form does not have this reading: All it renders is that Boris is in winning position. (46) Boris vyigraet (= dolžen vyigrat’) / nom win.pf.3sg (must.mod.aux.sg win.pf.inf) vyigryvaet ėtu partiyu u win.ipf.3sg (= immediate present tense) this.acc.sg game.acc.sg prep nego. he.gen ‘Boris is winning (= must/ought to win) this game against him.’ / ‘Boris may no longer lose this game against him (= is about to win).’
5.2.2 The present tense forms of the imperfective aspect In non-standard contexts, the imperfective present tense forms have the meaning of non-immediate actions. This meaning is just as context-sensitive as the meaning of immediate actions of these very forms in their standard uses. On the one hand, we get an opposition of the concrete process meaning of the imperfective present tense
The connections between modality, aspectuality, and temporality in modern Russian
form (cf. (47)) with the definite noun phrase ėtot zamok “this lock” as a marker of the immediate action. On the other, we find the abstract-contrasting meaning of the same form (cf. (48)) with the indefinite noun phrase lyuboy zamok / lyubye zamki “whatever lock / locks (there is / are)” and with the universal quantifier as an indicator of the non-immediate action. (47) Boris otkryvaet ėtot zamok. nom open.ipf.3sg this.acc.sg lock.acc.sg ‘Boris opens the/this lock’ (48) Boris otkryvaet (= možet otkryvat’) lyuboy nom open.ipf.3sg (can.ipf.3sg open.ipf.inf) whatever.acc.sg zamok / lyubye lock.acc.sg / whatever.acc.pl ‘Boris opens just any lock(s).’
zamki. lock.acc.pl
Such a context is characterized by the neutralizations of the numerical relationships in the noun phrase and the aspectual meanings of the verb. The temporal localization of the action, i.e., its relation to the speech time, is lost, the utterance becomes atemporal (timeless / temporally universal). Non-immediate actions are expressed by verbs with a semantic of long-time duration: (49) U nego v sadu cvetut rozy. prep he.gen prep garden.p.sg blossom.ipf.3pl rose.nom.pl ‘Roses blossom in his garden.’
The relation to the speech time is backgrounded here. In a context with markers of actual present, utterances of this type are interpreted as immediate present tense: (50) Smotri, u nego look.imp.sg prep he.gen.sg
v sadu uže prep garden.p.sg already
cvetut rozy. blossom.ipf.3pl rose.nom.pl ‘Look, the roses in his garden are already in blossom.’
The difference between (49) and (50) is rendered by the difference in article use in German. The most typical use of imperfective present tense forms is, however, found in iterative contexts in which the relation to the speech time is backgrounded. We distinguish three kinds of iterative contexts: • with sporadic, i.e., irregularly repeated actions (cf. (51)), • with habitual actions, i.e., actions that are repeated on a regular basis (52), and • with generic actions, i.e., actions that are universally valid and are repeated on a regular basis (53).
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(51) Poroy mne vspominaetsya / vspomnitsya molodost’. at times I.dat remember.ipf.3sg / remember.pf.3sg youth.nom.sg ‘I remember my youth at times.’
Adverbials of the type of poroy “sometimes / at times” vremya ot vremeni “from time to time”, inogda “sometimes” are explicit indicators of sporadic iterativity. (52) Nina vsegda akkuratno gotovit / prigotovit domašnie zadaniya. Nina.nom always accurately do.ipf.3sg / do.pf.3sg homework.acc.pl ‘Nina always does her homework accurately.’
Adverbials such as po subbotam “on Saturdays”, obyčno “usually”, vsegda “always” are characteristic of habitual iterativity. Russian has iterative verbs such as byvat’ “be (habitual)”, govarivat’ “say (habitually)”, siživat’ “sit (habitually)”, but they are relatively few in number (roughly 40; cf. Martinovskiy 1998: 81). (53) Luna dvižetsya vokrug Zemli po složnoy nezamknutoy orbite. moon.nom.sg move.ipf.3sg prep earth.gen.sg ‘The moon revolves around the earth in a complex and open orbit.’
Sporadic and habitual actions allow the use of either aspect, as is demonstrated by (51) and (52). In generic contexts, the ipf.a. form is typically used. The corresponding perfective forms express non-generic actions (cf. (54) and (55)): (54) Sachar rastvoryaetsya v vode. sugar.nom.sg dissolve.ipf.3sg prep water.p.sg ‘Sugar dissolves / is dissoluble in water.’ (55)
Podoždite, poka sachar ne rastvoritsya wait.imp.pl until sugar.nom.sg (poka ne = ‘until’) dissolve.pf.3sg v čae. prep tea.p.sg ‘Wait until the sugar has dissolved in the tea.’
Sometimes the perfective present tense form cooccurs with negation; the form of the ipf.a. may not be used here. In generic contexts, the use of ipf.a. as in (54) presents the unmarked case. Using pf.a. as in (55) shifts the generic reading to an ungeneric one. However, with negation, an occasional generic pf.a. is marked. This marked occurrence is always linked to a modal shading as in (56): (56)
Vsem ne ugodiš’ / *ne ugoždaeš’ all.dat.pl neg please.pf.2sg *neg please.ipf (= nevozmožno ugodit’). (mod.aux.imps please.pf.inf) ‘It is impossible to please everybody.’
The connections between modality, aspectuality, and temporality in modern Russian
(57) illustrates the DisP meaning in the domain of base modality which is typical of the imperfective present tense: (57) Nina govorit (= možet govorit’) na angliyskom yazyke. nom speak.ipf.3sg can.ipf.3sg speak.ipf.inf in English ‘Nina speaks English.’
The imperfective present tense form may, in some rare cases, express necessive epistemic modality: (58) Letom Nina končaet (= dolžna in summer Nina.nom graduate.ipf.3sg (must.mod.aux.sg
končat’) graduate.ipf.inf)
universitet i edet za granicu. university.acc.sg ‘Nina will graduate from university in summer and go abroad.’
The speaker is firmly convinced that the action, which is to happen in the future, will come true. This has come to be expressed as a praesens propheticum in the Russian linguistic literature. The epistemic force is due to the highly marked use of imperfective aspect.
6. Summary Apart from contributing its genuine meaning, the aspect category of Russian crucially partakes in the constitution of temporal and modal meanings. The form of the pf.a., which signals the holism or totality of verbal actions ([+tot]), is the marked member of the aspectual opposition, whereas the form of the ipf.a., which does not signal this feature ([αtot]), is considered the unmarked member. The form of the ipf.a. is, though, marked as a member of the set of aspectual-temporal forms; it expresses the separation of the action from the speech time ([+sep]). This temporal feature is carried by the “pure” tenses, viz. the form of the imperfective preterit (this is the classical “imperfectum”), and the analytic future of the ipf.a. In the majority of cases, these tense forms express non-fictional, or real, actions which lack any modal components of meaning. The forms of the imperfective preterit and the imperfective future tense may, though, assume modal meanings in certain contexts. The imperfective form of the preterit has the meaning from the domain of base modalities of dispositional possibility (DisP, cf. (6)), which is to be considered the preferred meaning of this form; moreover, it has the meaning of desiderative modality (DesM, cf. (15)) if both aspects are in contrast. The imperfective form of the future tense has the meaning from the domain of base modalities of Dispositional Modality, DispM (cf. (18), (19), (20) as well as (26)) with a contrastive use of both aspects).
Vladimir D. Klimonov & Gerda Klimonov
In opposition to the forms of the imperfective preterit and the imperfective future tenses, the forms of the perfective preterit and the perfective future tenses are not specified for the feature of separation of the action from the speech time ([αsep]). They do not display a clear temporal profile. The preterit forms of the pf.a. may either have the feature [–sep] (as is the case with the Old Russian perfect; cf. (4)), or the feature [+sep] (as is the case with the Old Russian aorist; cf. (5)). The perfective future tense occurs as non-separated from the present tense at times, which means it can have the feature [–sep] (cf. (17c)). The forms of the perfective preterit and the perfective future tenses are charged with modal meanings to a considerably higher degree than the forms of the imperfective preterit and the imperfective future tenses. While the forms of the imperfective preterit have only basic meanings in our exemplifying material, the forms of the perfective preterit convey epistemic meanings alongside basic modal meanings (cf. (12) and (13). Just as the forms of the perfective preterit, the forms of the perfective future tense carry different kinds of BMod meanings as well as different kinds of epistemic modal meanings. If used aspect-contrastively, the perfective forms of the preterit have the meaning of DisP from the domain of base modality (cf. (15)), and the perfective forms of the future tense have the meaning of DisP from the domain of epistemic modality (cf. (26)). The preterit and future tenses make use of the differentiating feature of separation of the action from the speech time ([+sep]), which distinguishes the forms of the pf.a. and the ipf.a. from one another. By contrast, the feature of non-separation of the action from the speech time ([–sep]), or, in a different notation: [+nonsep]) is constitutive for the immediate present tense. The latter feature does not have a differentiating function for the present tense forms of the ipf.a. and the pf.a., though, as either form may have this feature. Contexts with the immediate present tense ([+nonsep]) constitute the unmarked use of the imperfective present tense forms. For the forms of the perfective present tense, contexts with the non-immediate present tense constitute the standard, or unmarked, case ([αnonsep]) (cf. Fig. 3). Contexts with the meaning of the immediate present tense (with the feature [+nonsep] are marked for the perfective present tense forms; contexts with the meaning of the non-immediate present tense (with the feature [αnonsep]) are marked for the forms of the imperfective present tense (cf. Fig. 3). There is a crucial difference between the feature [+sep] with the forms of the preterit and future tenses on the one side, and the feature [+nonsep] with the forms of the present tense on the other, inasmuch as the former is not context-dependent while the latter is context-sensitive. In most cases, the forms of the imperfective preterit and the imperfective future tense have a purely temporal semantics. We get exceptions from this generalization with modal contexts in which neutralization of temporal relations occurs.
The connections between modality, aspectuality, and temporality in modern Russian
The immediate present tense forms of the ipf.a. and of the pf.a. have an altogether different status: they are context-bound in each case and only occur in a limited number of context types. On the whole, the immediate present tense of the ipf.a. only occurs in the context of direct speech, and it requires additional linguistic support for its manifestation outside of these typical contexts (cf. (28)). The immediate present tense of the pf.a. occurs exclusively in modalizing contexts (cf. (43) and (44)). This means that a “pure” present tense does not exist and that one has to distinguish between unmarked and marked uses of the present tense. The present tense forms of the ipf.a. and the pf.a. are those verb forms that are richest in modal meanings. In the present tense form of the ipf.a., DisP occurs in both major kinds of modality: as BMod (cf. (56)) and as EMod (48). The DisP meaning is very frequent with the imperfective present tense. Traditional aspectology classifies this meaning under the rubric “potential modality” as a standard meaning of the ipf.a. (e.g., Schlegel 2002: 117). Among all six aspectual-temporal forms, the form of the perfective present tense is richest in modal shades of meaning. Almost all possible combinations of kinds of modality, which were further differentiated by three parameters, have been illustrated in the present study. The combinations of modal meanings were presented in the context of the unmarked meaning of the perfective present tense (i.e., non-immediate action, cf. 5.1.2) and in the context of the marked meaning of the perfective present tense (i.e., immediate action, cf. 5.2.1). It is a striking phenomenon that the meaning of DisP in the perfective present tense (cf. (35)) is by far less frequent than with the forms of the imperfective present tense. This meaning – labeled as “potential meaning” – is traditionally regarded as peripheral (Schlegel 2002: 119). Maslov (1984: 80f.) views the potential meaning of the pf.a. as an optional variant of the very same meaning in the if.a. which has a specific stylistic value arising from the meaning of particularization of a repeated action. In the contrastive uses of the present tense forms of the ipf.a. and the pf.a., the former has the meaning of DesM, and the latter contains a DisP from the domain of BMod. In the domain of the present tense, which is very rich in modal meanings, we observe a roughly even distribution of the modal basic meanings and the epistemic meanings across the forms of the ipf.a. and the pf.a., which encourages us to draw the conclusion that the ipf.a. and the pf.a. are not tied to specific kinds of modality. In our material, the marked tenses of the ipf.a. (preterit and future tense) belong in the domain of BMod, whereas the perfective forms may belong either in the domain of BMod or in the domain of EMod. Such a distribution demonstrates once more that the pf.a. is subject to the influence of modal meanings to a higher degree than the ipf.a. The mapping of kinds of modalities (BMod and EMod) to aspectual forms is most telling for those cases in which both aspects occur contrastively in a single utterance. In the present tense (cf. (42)) and in the preterit (cf. (15)), both aspects express a BMod,
Vladimir D. Klimonov & Gerda Klimonov
whereas an epistemic meaning is tied to the future tense (cf. (26)). In a situation of contrast, concrete modal meanings are in opposition, but not their mapping to BMod or EMod. Such a situation may be interpreted as an indifference to aspect choice with regard to the major kinds of modality (BMod and EMod). Since, within the complete system of verb forms, the specific proportion of aspectual-temporal forms of the indicative is very high (roughly 70% in spoken Russian and roughly 85% in the literary language according to Josselson 1953: 21), the distribution of modal meanings across aspect forms as we have demonstrated it in the present study is representative of all uses of the Russian language altogether. It must be added, though, that the aspectual-temporal forms of the indicative have modal components to a much lower degree than the oblique moods (imperative and subjunctive). Further data are needed to elucidate the mapping between aspectual forms and the kinds of modality. Such work will have to await the treatment of future research efforts.
References Abraham, Werner. 1995. Deutsche Syntax im Sprachenvergleich: Grundlegung einer typologischen Syntax des Deutschen. Tübingen: Narr. Abraham, Werner. 22005. Deutsche Syntax im Sprachenvergleich: Grundlegung einer typologischen Syntax des Deutschen. Tübingen: Stauffenburg. (substantially expanded version of 1995). [Studien zur deutschen Grammatik 41]. Barnetová, Vilma et al. 1979. Russkaya grammatika 1 (Grammar of Russian 1). Praha: Academia. Bondarko, Aleksandr V. 1971. Vid i vremya russkogo glagola (Aspect and tense of the Russian verb). Moskva: Prosveščenie. Bybee, Joan L. & Östen Dahl. 1989. The creation of tense and aspect systems in the languages of the world. Studies in Language, 13(1), 51–103. Bybee, Joan L., William Pagliuca & Revere Perkins (1994). The evolution of grammar: Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Deth, Rüdiger. 1998. Modalität. In Wolfgang Gladrow (Ed.), Russisch im Spiegel des Deutschen: Eine Einführung in den russisch-deutschen und deutsch-russischen Sprachvergleich (pp. 91– 125). Frankfurt: Lang. [Berliner Slawistische Arbeiten 6]. Isačenko, Aleksandr V. 1960. Grammatičeskiy stroy russkogo yazyka v sopostavlenii s slovackim. Morfologiya. Čast’ vtoraya (The grammatical structure of Russian compared with Slovak. Morphology). Part II. Vol. 2. Bratislava: Izdatel’stvo Slovackoy Akademii Nauk. Josselson, Harry H. 1953. The Russian word count and frequency analysis of grammatical categories of standard literary Russian. Detroit, MI: Wayne University Press. Karavanov, Aleksej A. 1997. Upotreblenie formy buduščego vremeni glagolov soveršennogo vida v značenii nastoyaščego vremeni (The use of future tense forms of perfective verbs with a present tense meaning). In Trudy aspektologičeskogo seminara filologičeskogo fakul’teta MGU Im. M.V. Lomonosova. Vol. 1 (pp. 102–114). Moskva: Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo universiteta.
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Kiefer, Ferenc. 1997. Modality and pragmatics. Folia Linguistica, 31/3–4, 241–253. Klimonov, Vladimir D. 2002. Vzaimodeystvie semantiki vida i semantiki vremeni v sisteme vido-vremennych form russkogo glagola (The interplay of the semantics of aspect and tense in Russian verb forms). In Osnovnye problemy russkoy aspektologii (pp. 68–79). SanktPeterburg: Nauka. Leiss, Elisabeth. 1992. Die Verbalkategorien des Deutschen. Ein Beitrag zur Theorie der sprachlichen Kategorisierung. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Studia Linguistica Germanica 31]. Martinovskiy, Yuriy A. 1998. Glagol’naya pristavka i vid v russkom yazyke (Verbal prefixes and aspect in Russian). Revue des Études slaves, 71/1, 79–84. Maslov, Yurij S. 1984. Sistema častnych vidovych značeniy i tipy protivopostavleniy soveršennogo i nesoveršennogo vida (The system of aspectual meanings and the types of aspectual [verb] pairs). In Yurij S. Maslov (Ed.), Očerki po aspektologii (pp. 70–84). Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Leningradskogo universiteta. Plungian, Vladimir A. 2000. Modal’nost’ i naklonenie (Modality and mood). In Vladimir A. Plungian (Ed.), Obščaya morfologiya. Vvedenie v problematiku (pp. 308–329). Moskva: Editorial URSS. Rathmayr, Renate. 1976. Das perfektive Präsens im Russischen. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Russkaya grammatika (RG) (Grammar of Russian) (1980). Vol. I: Fonetika, fonologiya, udarenie, intonaciya, slovoobrazovanye, morfologiya (Vol. I: Phoetics, phonology, intonation, word formation and morphology). Moskva: Izdatel’stvo Nauka. Schlegel, Hans (Ed.). 1992. Kompendium lingvističeskich znaniy dlya praktičeskich zanyatiy po russkomu yazyku (A compendium of linguistic knowledge for practical teaching of Russian). Berlin: Volk und Wissen. Schlegel, Hans. 2002. Bildung, Bedeutung und Gebrauch des russischen Verbalaspekts (The formation, meaning, and use of the verbal aspect in Russian). Teil 1: Theoretische Grundlagen (Lehrbuch) (Part 1: Theoretical foundations (textbook)). München: Otto Sagner. Šmelev, Alexej & Anna Zaliznjak (2006). Aspect, modality, and closely-related categories: The case of Russian. In 39th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea: Abstracts (p. 81). Bremen: University of Bremen. Thieroff, Rolf. 1994. Inherent verb categories and categorizations in European languages. In Rolf Thieroff & Joachim Ballweg (Eds), Tense systems in European languages I (pp. 3–45). Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Linguistische Arbeiten 308]. Wiemer, Björn. 2006. Aspect choice in modal contexts: Russian and other Slavic languages. In 39th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea: Abstracts (pp. 142–144). Bremen: University of Bremen.
Aspectual coercion in Bulgarian negative imperatives Milena Kuehnast ZAS Berlin
Slavic languages feature negative imperative constructions (NI) with a genuine verbal imperative inflection. Bulgarian constitutes a partial exception, prohibiting NIs with perfective verbs, even in preventive NIs, for which Slavic languages utilise perfective verbs. In this article we argue that Bulgarian NIs present a case of aspectual coercion (Moens & Steedman 1988). The overt coercion is due to the morpho-syntactic properties of the Bulgarian aspectual system, promoting secondary imperfectivization. The reasoning follows the cognitive approach of time categorisation (Klein 1994) and shows that the aspectual construal in NIs yields the temporal configuration of imperfective present in prohibitives, but a future interpretation in preventives. The aspectual restriction in Bulgarian arises from the inability of bare perfective verbs to express tense in the main clause, in contrast to other Slavic languages. The TAM system in Bulgarian converges towards analytic markings of distinct aspectual-temporal configurations minimising the functional load of perfective verbs.
1. Introduction According to traditional definitions (Jespersen 1924: 313; Lyons 1977: 792), modality expresses the attitude of a speaker towards the validity of the proposition given in an utterance. Modality is thus omnipresent and becomes reflected in the grammaticalisation of mood as an inflectional category. Bybee & Fleischman (1995: 5) differentiate between agent-oriented and speaker-oriented modalities. Indicative mood reflects an agent-oriented modality, as it directs the spotlight towards the propositional content. Imperative mood is an instantiation of deontic modality as a speaker-oriented type of modality. Deontic modality represents a specific relation between speaker and addressee in which the speaker is in a position of authority and thus able to impose requirements on the addressee and to expect that these are fulfilled by the addressee.
Milena Kuehnast
Slavic languages express deontic modality synthetically by means of verbal imperative inflection (1), or analytically in constructions containing modal elements, be they modal verbs (2), adverbs, or particles (3).1 (1) Nale-j vino v čašite! pour.pf-2sg.imp wine.n.sg.indef into glass.f.pl.def ‘Pour some wine into the glasses!’ (2)
(Bulgarian)
Trjabva da naleeš vino v must.modal verb to.comp pour.2sg.pres.pf wine.n.sg.indef into čašite! glass.f.pl.def ‘You must pour some wine into the glasses!’
(3) Neka (tja) nalee vino v čašite! let.particle (she) pour.3sg.pres.pf wine.n.sg.indef into glass.f.pl.def ‘Let her pour some wine into the glasses!’
The synthetic expression of imperative mood follows a general pattern which holds for all Slavic languages. The verbal stem consisting of the verbal root and aspectual affixes carries the imperative morpheme (often a thematic vowel) and may receive a plural marker (4). Imperatives are immanently oriented towards an addressee and therefore not compatible with flexives marking person agreement with grammatical subjects. The following examples from Bulgarian and Russian illustrate the derivation of imperative verb forms by means of the main Slavic imperative morphemes i/j combining with consonantal (5) and vocalic stems (4) respectively. (4) na-le-ja vs. pf-pour.impf-1sg.pres (5) govor-it’ vs. speak.impf-inf
na-le-j-te pf-pour.impf-imp-pl
govor-i speak.impf-imp
(Bulgarian) (Russian)
Based on the peculiarities of the speaker-oriented mood, the temporal interpretation of an eventuality verbalised in an imperative expression oscillates between present and future readings, being maintained in the tension between two possible perspectives on the expressed content. On the one hand, imperatives are immanently prospective (cf. Palmer 1986: 112) because they establish a directive concerning a future activity
. Glossary: acc – accusative case, comp – complementiser, def – definite noun (with a definite article), f – feminine gender, imp – imperative mood, impf – imperfective aspect, indef – indefinite/bare noun, m – masculine gender, n – neuter gender, ni – negative imperative, nom – nominative case, ot – obligation time, reference time of imperative clauses, pf – perfective aspect, pl – plural, pres – present tense, s – time of speaking, sg – singular, tt – topic time.
Aspectual coercion in Bulgarian negative imperatives
or a state of affairs to be set up by the addressee (addressee’s perspective). On the other hand, imperatives obtain a present meaning if we take into account that the obligation they express is valid at the moment of speaking (speaker’s perspective). In this respect, synthetic imperatives are not compatible with tense markers and are defined as tenseless verbal forms (for further discussion of synthetic imperatives as verbal forms which are primitive with respect to the set of morphological categories they express, see Donhauser 1987). Imperative forms carry aspectual information, but abstract from a clear-cut temporal assignment of the event. In sum, synthetic imperatives constitute a suitable testing ground for a study targeting the effects of verbal aspect and its interactions with aspectually sensitive sentential operators on the modal interpretation and on its formal expression. In this paper we concentrate on negative imperatives as constructions which show specific effects of verbal aspect on the overall meaning construal of imperative utterances as interpersonal communication acts. Slavic languages feature genuine negative imperatives. In this regard, Slavic languages do not exhibit the incompatibility between imperative mood and negation known from other languages (for overview and analyses of the phenomenon, e.g. in the Romance languages, see Wratil 2005; Zanuttini 1997). Bulgarian constitutes a partial exception from this picture because negative imperatives are built only with imperfective verbs. Negative imperatives with perfective verbs are equally ungrammatical in both the prohibitive and the preventive type of synthetic imperative constructions. The restriction of the prohibitive type to imperfective verbs is a phenomenon Bulgarian shares with other East Slavic languages, which, however, exhibit different degrees of compliance to that general pattern. The ungrammaticality of preventive negative imperatives with perfective verbs is a structural peculiarity which sets Bulgarian apart from all other Slavic languages. In the field of Slavic studies we find a general consensus that the perfective aspect of the verb is one of the main defining characteristics of preventive constructions. As a result, the following questions arise: Which properties of Bulgarian are responsible for the loss of synthetic preventives with perfective verbs? Is there a common source of the aspectual incompatibilities observed in both types on negative imperative constructions? The aim of the present study is to present a unified account of the aspectual restrictions in prohibitive and preventive negative imperatives. We want to argue that Bulgarian negative imperatives present contexts of aspectual coercion in the sense of Moens & Steedman (1988). The coercive process produces an overt morphological reflex in accordance with the morphological means Bulgarian has at its disposal in order to express the obtained aspectual meaning. The phenomenon of aspectual coercion observable in Bulgarian negative imperatives is due to the inability of bare perfective verbs to express tense as predicates in the main clause, in contrast to the perfective verbs in other Slavic languages. This major typological difference is to be evaluated
Milena Kuehnast
from the perspective that Bulgarian exhibits the most complex TAM system promoting explicit markers of fine grained aspectual-temporal configurations.
2. Aspect in negative imperatives – function and interpretation The impact of verbal aspect on the modal interpretation concerning deontic necessity implied by perfective and imperfective verbs has been discussed controversially in the field of Slavic studies. Gerganov & Nikolov (1983) conducted a psycholinguistic study targeting a theoretical statement of Andrejčin (1978), which claimed that in Bulgarian, imperfective imperatives convey the sense of a more urgent and thus stronger command. They found out that Bulgarian speakers perceived perfective imperative forms as the ones expressing stronger obligation. The outcome of the study allows only a weak generalisation if we consider two details. Firstly, the materials included only bare imperative forms from aspectual pairs of the type simplex perfective – suffixed imperfective. An examination of verbs which are members of aspectual triplets (23) might have produced a different result. Secondly, the authors equalled strong command with rude command, thus translating the grammatically coded meaning of action completion to the level of socially regulated norms such as politeness. As such culturally defined notions are strongly driven by context and intonation patterns, the pros and cons for specific politeness functions of perfective and imperfective verbs in imperatives are quite balanced and ultimately language-specific (Benacchio 1997; see Mileva 1980 for a comparison between Polish and Bulgarian imperatives in terms of politeness). Diverging from its interpretation in positive imperatives, verbal aspect plays a decisive role in negative imperative constructions. Negative imperatives may be roughly divided into prohibitives and preventives according to the aspectual value of their predicates (see definitions and their motivations in Chrakovskij & Volodin 1986: 147–154). Both main types exist in the Slavic family, although with varying functions and degrees of applicability of the respective verbal aspect. The imperative marker itself doesn’t provide a cue for distinguishing between prohibitive and preventive negative imperatives, which nevertheless represent quite different constructions. By using a prohibitive, the speaker utters a demand for the addressee to stop an ongoing activity or to refrain from an activity bringing about an unwanted situation. The speaker wants the realisation of the demanded situation and believes that the addressee is willing and able to comply with the demand. In contrast to the functions and the felicity conditions of the prohibitive imperative type, the preventive type is linked with a warning that the current activities of the addressee are likely to bring about a state of affairs to the detriment of a participant in the situation. The speaker aims at preventing the situation which is verbally expressed, while the current activities of the addressee are not mentioned explicitly. Moreover,
Aspectual coercion in Bulgarian negative imperatives
the speaker believes that the addressee is not aware of the disadvantageous consequence of his/her activities and cannot control it. In most Slavic languages, prohibitive and preventive negative imperatives are formally differentiated by the aspect and the semantic class of the verb. While prohibitives are built with agentive imperfective verbs, preventives are the domain of ergative, de-causative perfective verbs. Traditionally, the main distinction between prohibitive and preventive meanings has been based on the combination of verbal aspect with specific verb classes, taking into account the impact of the entire syntactic context on the meaning construal (cf. Chrakovskij 1990 on the interpretation of negative imperatives in Russian). Taking a different approach, Bulygina & Šmelev (1997, 1999) argue that the semantic feature of (un)controllability dominates the contribution of the perfective aspect and determines the interpretation of the negative imperative. Discussing examples like (6) versus (7), they conclude that deontic modality instantiated by a prohibitive interpretation is expressed by (6) because it refers to a controlled action, while (7) is a warning against an uncontrollable accident. (6) Ne budite otza! not wake up.2pl.imp.impf father.m.sg.acc ‘Don’t wake up the father (intentionally)!’ (7) Ne razbudite otza! not wake up.2pl.imp.pf father.m.sg.acc ‘Don’t wake up the father (unintentionally)!’ (8) Razbudite otza! wake up.2pl.imp.pf father.m.sg.acc ‘Wake up the father (intentionally)!’ (9) Šum razbudit otza. noise.m.sg.nom wake up.3sg.pres.pf father.m.sg.acc ‘The noise will wake up the father.’
However, Bulygina & Šmelev (1997, 1999) rely heavily on the non-linguistic context when interpreting the meaning of the verb. It is the eventuality of “waking up somebody” which may be caused unintentionally by the addressee, but which also may be carried out on purpose as in (8). Contrasting the readings of (7) with (9) it turns out that the perceived uncontrollability in the negative imperative is not due to the semantics of the verb razbudit’ as such, but that it is induced by the syntactic environment: by the presence of the negative operator in (7). The non-agentive noun in subject position produces a similar effect in (9). Certainly, the modal interpretation of utterances is sensitive to pragmatic influences ranging from discourse type to world knowledge applicable in specific situations.
Milena Kuehnast
Discussing the properties of preventive constructions in Russian, Birjulin (1994) points out that preventives are not restricted to non-agentive verb classes. He argues that perfective verbs like ispackat’ “soil”, razbit’ “break” appropriately denote actions which are purposeful and controlled. The verb razbudit’ fits perfectly in a class of verbs which are not specified for controllability because the action of waking up somebody may be conducted intentionally and in a controlled manner, but it may also happen as an unwanted accident. Such verbs seem not to impose restrictions on the thematic role of the external argument, allowing either an agent or a cause. Having these considerations in mind it turns out that the interpretation of the utterances in the minimal pair as prohibitive in (6) and preventive in (7) becomes determined by the verbal aspect. The verbs budit’.impf – razbudit’.pf (“wake up”) enter into an opposition comparable to the one of pisat’.impf – napisat’.pf (“write”), the classic example of an aspectual pair built from a primary imperfective verb and its prefixed perfective counterpart. In both cases the perfective verb is blocked for secondary imperfectivization.2 Additional support for the decisive role of verbal aspect is provided by Birjulin’s comment (1994: 101) that verbs expressing states like bojat’sja “to fear” cannot be used in preventive constructions because such verbs are imperfectiva tantum, not featuring perfective counterparts. The majority of Slavic languages uses verbal aspect for the differentiation of prohibitive and preventive readings of negative imperatives, albeit in different ways. While Czech and Slovenian regularly use perfective verbs in preventives, Serbian restricts the range of synthetic preventives to verbs expressing psychological states (10) (Ivić 1958). In all other cases, periphrastic da-construction must be used (11). (10) Ne zaboravi! not forget.2sg.imp.pf ‘Don’t forget!’
(Serbian)
(11) Pazi, da ne prospiš! take care.2sg.imp.impf to.comp not oversleep.2sg.pres.pf ‘Be careful not to oversleep!’
Bulgarian disallows negative imperatives with perfective verbs in both cases. Prohibitive imperatives with perfective verbs are ungrammatical (12), and the same is true for preventive negative imperatives (13), in contrast to other Slavic languages.
. According to a very strict definition of aspectual pair, only verbs yielded by secondary imperfectivization are considered true aspectual pairs, the perfective and imperfective verb being forms of the same lexeme. As a consequence, a huge number of verbs has to be regarded as imperfective tantum and falls out of the morphological aspect category. The notion of (purely) perfectivizing affixes and the functions of perfective verbs in the tense systems provide the basis for a broader understanding of aspectual pairs, even if their members are not taken to constitute parts of the same lexeme (cf. Lindstedt 1985; Forsyth 1970).
Aspectual coercion in Bulgarian negative imperatives
(12) *Ne nalej vino v čašite za kafe! not pour.2sg.imp.pf wine into the cups for coffee ‘Don’t pour wine into the coffee cups!’ (prohibitive)
(Bulgarian)
(13) *Ne razlej vinoto! not spill.2sg.imp.pf wine.n.sg.def ‘Don’t spill the wine!’ (preventive) (14) Ne nalivaj vino v čašite za kafe! not pour.2sg.imp.impf wine into the cups for coffee ‘Don’t pour wine into the coffee cups!’ (prohibitive)
Bulgarian speakers must use imperfective verbs when deciding on a synthetic imperative form in order to express a negative request (14). From a synchronic point of view, the comprehensive aspectual restriction on perfective verbs developed steadily from an original tendency visible already in the Old Slavic period. Georgiev (1934) shows that in Bulgarian, synthetic negative imperatives with perfective verbs were gradually replaced by synthetic, and more importantly by analytic constructions with imperfective verbs. He argues that this development is due to euphemistic strategy, because perfective verbs express a stronger command. The plausibility of Georgiev’s explanation in terms of euphemistic usage of imperfective verbs is weakened by the fact that this strategy circumvented the positive imperatives. In our view, the aspectual restriction resulted from changes in the system of verbal categories, both in terms of their organisation and morphological manifestation. The infinitive was lost in the Middle Bulgarian period (13th–15th century) under the influence of language contact. It is one of the main characteristics of the languages in the Balkansprachbund that the functions of the infinitive are transferred to subordinated clauses introduced by a complementizer, instantiated by the particle da in Bulgarian and Macedonian. A second relevant change is the development of an analytic future construction and the gradual integration of the perfective verbs in it. At the same time, Bulgarian preserved the Old Slavic tripartite structure of past tenses: aorist, imperfect, and perfect. These are just some exemplifications of the manifold transformations in the TAM categories, which, taken together, effected in the present system the necessity for an exact and multi-layered temporal location and for its overt marking. In effect, the synthetic imperative became the only verb form which is not tensed in Bulgarian.
3. Aspectual coercion in prohibitive negative imperatives In this paper, we will argue that Bulgarian synthetic negative imperatives constitute an example of aspectual coercion with an overt morphological reflex. The term aspectual coercion is used in the sense of Moens & Steedman (1988). The authors
Milena Kuehnast
define aspectual coercion as an aspectual type-shift operation induced by a sentential modifier. Depending on the morpho-syntactic properties of a given language, the coercion takes place covertly or overtly by prompting specific morphological markers (Moens & Steedman 1988: 20). (15) The favourite won the race. (16) The favourite won the race for several years. (17) *The favourite won the race for the first minutes. (18) The favourite was winning the race for the first minutes.
The phenomenon of covert type shifting exemplified in (16) has received more attention in the literature as it represents a case of enriched semantic composition. The interpretation process can be seen as an integrative inference from the properties of all aspectually sensitive elements in the sentence. A conspicuous example of covert aspectual coercion is the iterative interpretation of a core sentence containing a punctual verb and a singular object in the presence of a durational adverb as in (16). In the absence of sentential operators the core sentence (15) receives a single instance reading, but the aspectual features of the durational adverb invoke a repetitive reading – iteration of the action within the time span given by the adverbial. From a processing point of view, the semantic mismatches between the aspectual properties of the verbal phrase and the adverbial modifier involve a process of reinterpretation reflected in an increased processing load (Piñango, Zurif & Jackendoff 1999). In English, the proposition in (15) denotes a culminated process. The actor has achieved a change from a preparatory state in which the race is still going on, and the favourite is only a potential winner to a resulting state in which the favourite is the winner de facto. The presence of an adverbial phrase referring to a time span situated in the preparatory state before the culmination has been reached, as in (17), hardly makes any sense, because of the aspectual clash between the terminative meaning of the verbal phrase and the durational meaning of the for-phrase. The syntactic environment induces a reinterpretation of the proposition as referring to a process (be winning a race), but it becomes felicitous only in the presence of a progressive auxiliary and the ing-infinitive. English handles propositions expressing processes and progressive states by marking them overtly by means of progressive auxiliaries (18). In the case of Bulgarian negative imperatives, we encounter aspectual coercion reflected overtly by the obligatory use of imperfective verb forms, be they simplex imperfective or secondary imperfectivized forms. In the following, the aspectual construal of imperative utterances will be depicted within the cognitive approach of time categorisation in language by Klein (1994) which is principally compatible with the approach of Moens & Steedman (1988), both theories adopting Reichenbach’s (1947) notion of point of reference (Reichenbach 1947: 288ff.).
Aspectual coercion in Bulgarian negative imperatives
The notion of finiteness is crucial for Klein’s (1994) approach to temporality, which is, as he maintains, one of the main semantic features human language is bound to express. Finiteness or the expression of tense (both terms are taken as synonymous) signals that a speaker makes a truth assertion restricted to a time span which is located with respect to the time of speaking (Klein 1994: 3f.). This combination of a truth claim and a time stretch, called “topic time” (TT), is also essential for the definition of aspect. Depending on the relations of inclusion or exclusion between topic time and the duration of a situation, different aspectual values are yielded. Perfectivity means a full or partial inclusion of the situation stretch in topic time, which is perceived as an external perspective on the eventuality. The typical internal perspective conveyed by imperfective verbs results from the inclusion of topic time in the time span of the situation. Topic time as the main reference frame is the pivot mediating between the other two temporal parameters, the time of utterance and the time of the situation. Imperatives do not feature a genuine topic time because an unrestricted truth claim cannot be made about a situation whose realisation depends on the abilities of the addressee. Imperatives contain a reference time span constraining an obligation. Obligation time (OT) includes the time of speaking because the demand is valid at the moment the imperative is uttered. According to this criterion, imperatives may be perceived as present forms. In contrast to this temporal interpretation, the prototypical imperative utterance exhibits an inherently prospective meaning because it refers to states of affairs to be obtained upon activities subsequently carried out by the addressee.3 Consider the aspectual configuration obtained in (19), which is a Bulgarian positive imperative containing a perfective verb. (19) Nalej vino v čašite! pour.2sg.imp.pf wine.n.sg.indef into glass.f. pl. def ‘Pour some wine into the glasses!’4
Perfective verbs express a qualitative change of state, a transitional process from a preparatory state to a resultant state. Perfective verbs focus the reference time on the resultant state. From the perspective of aspectual construal, the use of a perfective verb in an imperative utterance emphasises the completeness of the requested situation because the resultant state is included in the time stretch of obligation (OT).
. Birjulin (1994: 48–60) classifies the imperative utterances according the feature [+/–required change of the existing situation]. In this paper we concentrate on the prototypical type of positive imperatives reflecting the case in which the denoted eventuality has to be brought about by the addressee in the future [+change]. . Note that Bulgarian encodes nominal definiteness by means of enclitic definite articles. In the given example the bare noun vino acquires a type reading; the use of the definite article vinoto “the wine” would mark a specific quantity of wine.
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The necessity for a current situation to be altered by the addressee appears to be a basic element of deontic meaning. This notion of change becomes endorsed through the change of state expressed by perfective verbs. Additionally, the inherent prospectivity of the imperative aligns with the inherent prospectivity of perfective verbs which results from the sequencing of the preparatory and the resulting state on the time axis, thus strengthening the perception of distance between the time of speaking and the resultant state. This categorical affinity explains the fact that imperatives with perfective verbs are the most neutral means to express a polite request in all Slavic languages with the exception of Russian.5
S
empty glasses
Requested Situation: become
full glasses OT
Figure 1. Aspectual construal of positive imperatives with perfective verbs.
In imperatives, negation usually operates on the proposition, directly influencing the aspectual interpretation. In the case of Slavic synthetic imperatives, negation affects a predicate featuring at most two verbal categories – aspect and number. Negation affects the perfectivity of the predicate by discarding the change of state expressed by perfective verbs. The spotlight of the verbal reference time span moves from the resultant state back to the source state. (20) Ne *nalej vino v čašite. not pour.2sg.imp.pf wine.n.sg.indef into glass.f.pl.def ‘Don’t pour vine into the glasses!’
Uttering (20) the speaker wants the addressee to preserve the initial state of affairs, namely to leave the glasses empty. The reference time of the imperative (OT) becomes included in the situation time, yielding an imperfective interpretation. Under negation, we obtain a combination of temporal values known as imperfective present – both, the time of speaking and the source state of the situation denoted by the verb, are included in the reference time of the obligation.
. See Benacchio (2002) for a discussion of Russian polite requests containing imperfective verbs.
Aspectual coercion in Bulgarian negative imperatives
S
empty glasses
Requested Situation: become
full glasses
OT Figure 2. Aspectual construal in prohibitive negative imperatives.
As a general rule, the Slavic languages reflect the aspectual configuration resulting from the type shifting process by the use of imperfective verbs. The application of this rule seems to depend on the properties of the aspectual systems found in the different branches of the language family. In Czech and Polish perfective verbs are not completely banned from expressing prohibitive meanings. The Polish example (20) containing a primary perfective verb is well-formed and expresses prohibitive meaning. (21) Nie kupui vina! not buy.2sg.imp.pf wine ‘Don’t buy wine!’
(Polish)
In Bulgarian, the type shifting process proliferates as morphologically overt aspectual coercion instantiated by the obligatory use of imperfective verbs (14). A negative imperative utterance containing a perfective verb violates the morpho-syntactic requirement of an overt marking in the case that the reference time is included in the time stretch of the situation. In a neutral context example (20) is barred from expressing a prohibitive meaning, it is simply ill-formed.6 Bulgarian speakers adhere strictly to the morphological requirements imposed by the coercion process in negative requests. Kuehnast (2003) conducted a series of online, self-paced reading experiments in order to test sensitivity to this type of morpho-syntactic violation using pure aspectual pairs (simplex perfective verbs and their imperfectivised counterparts). In positive imperatives, the simplex perfectives were read faster than their imperfective partners not only because the suffixed
. If the speaker does not respect the formal requirement (imperfective verb) imposed by the aspectual configuration of a prohibitive imperative, a completely different type of modal interpretation is yielded. The aspectual value of the perfective predicate is preserved because the negative modifier takes scope over the imperative force. The resulting double negation yields a positive interpretation to the effect that the formally expressed request to restrain from the verbalised activity is perceived as a strong threat to the addressee to carry out immediately the change of the current state of affairs denoted by the perfective verb.
Milena Kuehnast
imperfectives are one syllable longer, but because in positive contexts the imperfectivised verbs endorse a repetitive interpretation. Under negation, the morphologically shorter perfective verbs elicited longer reaction times, as the subjects hesitated after encountering the ungrammaticality of the given aspectual form. Importantly, the reaction times for the imperfectivised forms were clearly facilitated compared to reading times of the same verbs in positive imperative utterances. To sum up, the test participants demonstrated significant priming for the morphologically more complex imperfectivised verbs in negative imperatives, aptly exploiting the syntactic and semantic information of the negative modifier. In other words, the speakers acknowledged the aspectual construal in negative imperatives and opted for the morphologically appropriate imperfective form according to the well-formedness constraints in Bulgarian. To what extend Slavic languages endorse the use of imperfectives in prohibitive utterances depends on two basic premises. The first one relates to the morphological organisation of the aspectual system – the presence and quantity of perfectiva and imperfectiva tantum, biaspectuality, derivational patterns of aspectual pairs. The second one concerns the functions of perfective and imperfective verbs in the domain of temporality and in the domain of quantificational phenomena (see Filip 1997 for a discussion of the orthogonal relation between the theta-grid of perfective verbs and the expression of nominal definiteness). The aspectual system of Bulgarian provides sufficient morphological means to satisfy the requirements posited by a coercive process yielding an imperfective interpretation. Almost all perfective verbs have imperfective partners principally obtained through secondary imperfectivization,7 thus rendering Bulgarian a language without perfectiva tantum. The maximal extend of secondary imperfectivization is the main feature of verbal aspectual system in Bulgarian, distinguishing it from other Slavic languages (Ivančev 1978). Almost all simple and derived perfective verbs may be imperfectivised by means of imperfectivizing suffixes. Derived perfective verbs are obtained from simple imperfectives by means of perfectivizing prefixes and suffixes (Bojadžiev, Kucarov & Penčev 1999: 487ff.). The derivational circle yields aspectual triplets in which the perfective and the secondary imperfective verb do not differ in lexical meaning. According to the traditional view (Maslov 1981; Zaliznjak 1977) only such verbs are considered to be forms of the same lexeme and thus to constitute an aspectual pair. Secondary imperfectivization operates only on the grammatical level and satisfies fully the requirements of the strict definition.
. A few perfective verbs feature suppletive imperfective partners.
Aspectual coercion in Bulgarian negative imperatives
(22) pija – izpija. – izpivam drink.primary impf drink.prefixed pf drink.suffixed secondary impf ‘drink’ ‘drink up’ ‘be drinking up’
The most productive pattern of secondary imperfectivization is the derivation by means of the suffix –va and its allomorphs. Note that in Bulgarian secondary imperfectivization operates also on perfectives which are semantically very close to the primary imperfective verbs they are derived from. Even in closely related languages such as Serbian or Russian, secondary imperfectivization is blocked in aspectual pairs built by purely aspectual perfective prefixes. (23) piša – napiša – napisvam write.simple impf write.prefixed pf write.secondary impf
(Bulgarian)
(24) pisat’ – napisat’ – *napisyvat’ write.simple impf write.prefixed pf
(Russian)
(25) pisati – napisati – *napisivati write.simple impf write.prefixed pf
(Serbian)
The regular and widespread application of secondary imperfectivization even to loan words (most of them biaspectual) mirrors the transition in the status of suffix –va from a derivational to an inflectional pattern. Although traditional grammar-books still describe aspect as a hybrid lexical-grammatical category and thus the process of secondary imperfectivization as a derivational process, more recent research (Manova 2005; Jetchev & Bertinetto 2002) has provided evidence that imperfectivizing suffixes are better understood as inflectional devices. Manova (2005) considers several criteria discussed in the field of morphology research as relevant for the distinction between derivation and inflection. Evaluated against such decisive factors as preservation of word class, productivity, and consistent assignment of inflexional class, the main imperfectivization device in Bulgarian, the suffix –va, ought to be situated on the inflection side of the continuum between derivation and inflection. The author concludes that “in order to underline the inflectional status of imperfectivization, Bulgarian has developed a full set of aspectual forms“ (Manova 2005: 249). Manova’s view is corroborated by the findings of a psycholinguistic study on the processing of Bulgarian verbs conducted by Jetchev & Bertinetto (2002). The study aims at clarifying possible differences in the representation of derivational and inflectional morphology in the mental lexicon. The authors conducted two experimental series using a lexical priming design. In order to minimise semantic effects, the authors targeted processing differences between inflectional suffixes (person and number endings) and derivational suffixes (imperfectivizing morphemes) by using two types of true aspectual pairs (no change of lexical meaning). The first aspectual type represents
Milena Kuehnast
the regular imperfectivization pattern by means of suffix -va. The second type of aspectual pairs represents the non-productive pattern of imperfectivization by means of thematic vowel change. The experimental results do not show any significant differences between the priming effects of the inflectional person–number endings and the allegedly derivational suffix -va. Although very reluctant to re-interpret the derivation versus inflection status of the imperfectivizing suffix, an option they discuss in the beginning of their paper, Jetchev & Bertinetto (2002) conclude that the processing differences between derivational and inflectional morphemes found in Serbian aspectual pairs by Feldman (1994) could not be confirmed for the productive imperfectivization pattern in Bulgarian. In other words, person-number inflections and the imperfective suffix are accessed through the same rule-based route. The aspectual system in Bulgarian emphasises the imperfective side of the aspectual opposition. Imperfectivity as the focal property of the Bulgarian aspect opposition becomes transgressed to the temporal system. East and West Slavic languages are differentiated by the way they express habituality and historical present. East Slavic languages like Russian and Bulgarian restrain from using perfective verbs in such contexts. By contrast, Slovak and Czech (Isačenko 1960; Stunova 1993) but also Croatian and Slovenian, representing the South-West Slavic branch, freely employ perfectives to express iterativity, habituality, and historical present. In Bulgarian, the expression of historical present and related notions such as habituality and iterativity is the domain of secondary imperfective verbs. Secondary imperfectives are optimal candidates because they oscillate between perfectivity and imperfectivity, being able to actualise the appropriate meaning depending on the syntactic environment. The process of secondary imperfectivization does not strip the boundedness meaning contributed by the perfective affix. Secondary imperfectivization positions the topic time on the transition between the initial and the resultant state of the situation and yields a configuration in which parts of both states are included in topic time. The aspectual value obtained is imperfective and allows a temporal relation of coincidence with the time of speaking. On the one hand, these aspectual characteristics determine the possibility to use those verbs in actual present for the expression of process aimed at a concrete goal, especially if they are supported by present temporal adverbials, like those with the meanings of “now”, “just”, or “immediately”. Being sentential modifiers, such adverbials induce a process of aspectual coercion similar to that in prohibitive negative imperatives. On the other hand, secondary imperfectives preserve the meaning of complexity (two-state structure) expressed in the perfective stem, a feature which determines the use of perfective verbs in historical present in most of the Slavic languages. The imperfective suffix provides an overt marking of an aspectual construal in which the reference time coincides with the time of the situation, mainly when the reference time and the time of speaking are not identical. The main functional load of expressing
Aspectual coercion in Bulgarian negative imperatives
non-actual present which the secondary imperfectives have taken over from the perfective verbs determines the functional restriction of about 200 secondary imperfective verbs in Bulgarian. As a rule, they cannot be used for the reference to an eventuality which is ongoing at the moment of speaking, this function being the domain of the primary imperfectives (compare the aspectual triplet in (23)). Bulgarian is the only Slavic language which preserves and reinforces the opposition between aorist and imperfect, both tenses accepting perfective and imperfective verbs. Imperfect tense signals the inclusion of topic time in the time span of the situation, both temporal values being anterior to the time of speaking. Imperfect is a non-resultative past tense which instantiates the multiplication of the original viewpoint, the time of speaking, by its distinct inflection.8 In Bulgarian, the imperfect tense formed with imperfective verbs expresses in the plane of the past the same aspectual configuration as imperfective present tense.
4. Coercive processes in preventive negative imperatives The type of aspectual coercion operative in the prohibitive negative imperative still does not explain the loss of the synthetic preventive in Bulgarian. In the following, we want to present arguments supporting the hypothesis that Bulgarian perfective verbs cannot satisfy the interpretation requirements imposed by the semantic composition of preventives. As the acquired aspectual-temporal configuration cannot be satisfied by a perfective imperative verb form, the whole derivation crashes. Preventives warn the addressee of undesirable consequences which are predictable from his/her current activities. Slavic languages use negative imperatives with perfective verbs to express preventive meaning (26)–(28). (26) Ne zaboravi! not forget.2sg.imp.pf ‘Don’t forget!’
(Serbian)
(27) Ne upadi! not fall.2sg.imp.pf ‘Don’t fall down!’
(Russian)
(28) Nie zbij szyby! not break.2sg.imp.pf window glass.f.sg.acc ‘Don’t break the window pane!’
(Polish)
. The organisation of the tense system in Bulgarian substantiates Leiss’ (1992: 24; 208ff. et passim) theory of verbal categorisation as an incremental hierarchical structure of categories: Aspect < Tense < Mood/Modality (as opposed to TAM) – if the latter should imply any such hierarchical order in the first place.
Milena Kuehnast
Preventives comprise several meaning elements. Some of them are represented formally – the request by means of a synthetic imperative maker, negation in the form of the sentential negative operator and the event formulated in the verbal phrase. The task of the addressee is to infer from the combination of these elements that the utterance is a hint to change the current behaviour, which is not mentioned explicitly. Consider a situation in which there is a cup on a table and a child is pulling the table cloth. Under such circumstances, the mother may produce a preventive utterance: (29) Ne razbej čašku! not break.2sg.imp.pf cup.f.sg.acc ‘Don’t break the cup!’
(Russian)
World knowledge and experience allow the mother to evaluate the situation with respect to possible consequences from an activity like pulling the table cloth and with respect to the probability that the ultimate effect of the pulling will be a broken cup. S
Activity pulling the table cloth
Subsequent event cup falling down
Consequence cup broken in pieces
Figure 3. Aspectual and temporal configuration of preventive imperatives.
Preventives depict a complex situation representing a cause-effect chain, from which only the last link is addressed. The proposition in (29) actually expresses a prediction about a future event. The context in which the preventive may be uttered felicitously provides also for the appropriateness of an affirmative indicative utterance of the type given in example (30). (30) Ty razbjoš čašku! you break.2sg.pres.pf cup.f.sg.acc ‘You are going to break the cup!’
Considering the English translation of (30) it turns out that the Russian perfective verb has to be glossed with the going to future marker. The periphrastic construction ‘to be going to + infinitive’ is used in cases in which the speaker has enough evidence that the expected future situation will obtain. Under such circumstances the majority of Slavic languages employ perfective verbs as synthetic future tense markers. In Bulgarian, bare perfective verbs cannot express future tense as predicates in the main clause. Future tense is obligatorily marked by the auxiliary verb šte “will” combined with both imperfective and perfective verbs. Slavic languages (with the exception of those being members of the Balkansprachbund, or gravitating to it) express future tense preferably by perfective verbs or by analytic constructions containing the present form of the auxiliary be with the respective subject agreement markers and the imperfective infinitive.
Aspectual coercion in Bulgarian negative imperatives
The future interpretation of the present forms of perfective verbs is due to their feature of event sequencing sekventnaja svjaz discussed in Barentsen (1998). The reference time of perfective verbs is focused on the resultant state. The aspectual configuration amounts to a full inclusion of the resultant state in the reference time. Consider that the situation time of a perfective verb includes two states. Ordering the speaking event and the complex event containing a change from a preparatory to a resultant state on the time axis, we obtain a sequence of time spans. The main property of this concatenation of events is the creation of a distance relation between the speaking event and the time stretch in which the resultant state obtains. The distance relation between the time of utterance and the resultant state produces a prospective meaning, which then receives a future temporal interpretation. In Bulgarian, the prospectivity of perfective verbs is not a sufficient condition for the expression of future tense and therefore, perfective verbs are not employed as future predicates in main clauses. The literal translation of the Russian assertion about the expected future event (30) into Bulgarian is ungrammatical with a bare (formally present) perfective verb (31). (31) *Sčupiš čašata.9 break.2sg.pres.pf cup.f.sg.def ‘You break the cup.’ (32) Šte sčupiš čašata. will.aux.fut break.2sg.pres.pf cup.f.sg.def ‘You will/are going to break the cup.’
If the topic time is posterior with respect to the time of utterance, this exclusion relation has to be signalled overtly by the future auxiliary (32). In other words, finiteness in general and future tense of perfective verbs in particular have to be obligatorily marked overtly in Bulgarian. If negation applies to the proposition of (32), the process of aspectual coercion becomes operative again. The aspectual construal renders topic time and the time of utterance simultaneous with the preparatory state of the verb. In Bulgarian, this configuration is expressed by an analytic form containing a present negative auxiliary and a subordinated clause (as an infinitive substitute). (33) Njama da sčupiš čašata. not obtaining.neg.aux.pres that.comp break.2sg.pres.pf cup.f.sg.def ‘You will not break the cup.’
Given that the temporal configuration is already synthetically or analytically expressed in the main clause, nothing prevents perfective verbs from signalling future as a
. Note that Bulgarian is a strong subject-drop language. Although the use of the personal pronoun is possible, pronoun-drop is the preferred option.
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relative tense in the subordinated clause, using the Slavic mechanism of event extension through state sequences as described above. Bulgarian speakers have a different construction at their disposal if they want to utter a warning. (34) Da ne sčupiš čašata! that not break.2sg.pres.pf cup.f.sg.def ‘Don’t break the cup.’
The analytic form reflects in a direct way negation of the proposition, denoting a disadvantageous state of affairs expected to obtain in the future. According to the system-induced explicit mapping between temporal values and their morpho-syntactic expression, the speakers of Bulgarian use an appropriate analytic construction. The meaning of (34) is best understood as an ellipsis of a sentence containing a modal verb (35) or a positive imperfective attention call (36). (35) Iskam da ne sčupiš čašata! want.1sg.pres.impf that not break.2sg.pres.pf cup.f.sg.def ‘I want you not to break the cup.’ (36) Vnimavaj da ne sčupiš čašata! take care.2sg.imp.impf that not break.2sg.pres.pf cup.f.sg.def ‘Take care not to break the cup!’
In the Slavic type of preventive construction (29), the speaker produces a warning in order to avoid a predicted situation, formally expressed in the negated proposition. It is important to keep in mind that the features of uncontrollability and unintentionality often carried by the perfective verb do not refer to the ongoing concrete activities, the change of which is requested from the addressee. If this were the case, the speaker would violate the principle of cooperative behaviour, and in particular the maxim “Be relevant.” (Grice 1975: 26–30), by demanding something impossible. The imperative force is directed to an activity or a state of affairs which the addressee is indeed able to control. As the speaker does not address the current activities of the addressee by uttering a direct command, the preventive construction expresses only a weak prohibition. Slavic preventives contain an imperative form, but gravitate to the domain of epistemic expressions because the elements of knowledge (justified prediction of an annoying event) dominate the elements of obligation (cf. von Wright 1951: 1f.). The relevance of the temporal-aspectual construal and its impact on the overall interpretation of the preventive as expressing a wish are respected in Bulgarian to the extent of rendering the synthetic imperative inflection inappropriate. Additional support for the evaluation of preventive expressions as exhibiting strong inclination towards epistemic readings is provided by the fact that Bulgarian analytic preventives are not restricted to perfective verbs.
Aspectual coercion in Bulgarian negative imperatives
5. Summary Approaching the interpretation of Slavic negative imperatives from the perspective of aspectual composition, we targeted the variation of compatibilities and incompatibilities of imperative mood and verbal aspect displayed in different Slavic languages. Against this background, we presented a unified account of the obviation of perfective verbs in Bulgarian negative imperatives. Discussing the distinct aspectual configurations acquired in the prohibitive and preventive negative constructions, we argue that sentential negation induces aspectual coercion, which in Bulgarian must be reflected overtly. In the prohibitive, the negative operator affects the perfective meaning by cancelling the change of state denoted by perfective verbs. The reference time of the imperative, which is a time stretch constraining an obligation, becomes included in the situation time, or more precisely in the preparatory state of the perfective verb, yielding an imperfective interpretation. Under negation we obtain a combination of temporal values known as imperfective present: both, the time of speaking and the source state of the situation are included in the obligation time span. This causes a mismatch between the overall aspectual construal of the negative imperative and the aspectual value of the perfective verb. In Bulgarian, prohibitive imperatives present a context of aspectual coercion which is reflected overtly by the compulsory use of imperfective verbs, prompting secondary imperfectivization. Only secondary imperfective verbs allow an inclusion of the time of speaking into the reference time, while indicating the boundedness of the situation. The productivity and transparency of the imperfectivizing process in Bulgarian enhanced the spread of secondary imperfective verbs within the temporal domain. In contrast to the West Slavic languages, the secondary imperfective verbs have taken over the expression of historical present, habituality, and iterativity from the perfective verbs. The analysis of Slavic preventives shows that a perfective predicate is an essential precondition for the construction of synthetic preventive imperatives. This is the case because the main constitutive element in the aspectual construal of preventive constructions is a statement about a highly probable state of affairs. The aspectual and temporal construal yields a future interpretation, and most Slavic languages use the present tense forms of perfective verbs for the synthetic expression of future tense. For Bulgarian, this option does not apply. Perfective verbs cannot express future as tensed predicates in the main clause because they are fully integrated in the analytic construction containing a future auxiliary. To sum up, the phenomenon of aspectual coercion in Bulgarian negative imperatives results from the properties of the system of verbal categories, and especially from the strong analytic tendencies in its morphological organisation. Bulgarian emphasises the imperfective side of the aspectual opposition which, channelled through
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the cline of ATM categories,10 ultimately restrains the perfective verbs from expressing finiteness. Given these typological peculiarities, the motivation for the aspectual coercion in Bulgarian negative imperatives is straightforward.
6. Acknowledgements The present paper is an extended and revised version of a talk held at the 39th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE) on August 31st, 2006 in Bremen, Germany. I thank the conference participants and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful questions and comments. Special thanks to Elisabeth Leiss and Werner Abraham for inviting me to write this paper.
References Andrejčin, Ljubomir Dimitrov. 1978. Osnovna bălgarska gramatika (Basic Bulgarian Grammar). Sofija: Nauka i izkustvo. Barentsen, Adrian. 1998. Priznak “sekventnaja svjaz'” i vidovoe protivopostavlenie v russkom jazyke (The property of event sequencing and the aspect opposition in Russian). In Marina J. Čertkova (Ed.), Tipologija vida: Problemy, poiski, rešenija (materialy meždunarodnoj naučnoj konferencii, 16–19 sentjabrja 1997 g.) (The typology of aspect: Problems, approaches, solutions, Kongress Moskau 1997) (pp. 43–58). Moskva: Škola “Jazyki Russkoj Kultury”. Benacchio, Rosanna. 1997. Upotreblenie glagol’nogo vida v imperative v slavjanskich jazykax (The use of verbal aspect in the Slavic languages). In Lili Laškova (Ed.), Obštnost i mnogoobrazie na slavjanskite ezici (Unity and diversity of the Slavic languages) (pp. 62–66). Sofija: Academično slavistično družestvo. Benacchio, Rosanna. 2002. Konkurencija vidov, vežlivost’ i etiket v russkom imperative (Aspectual competition, politeness and etiquette in the Russian imperative). Russian Linguistics, 26, 149–178. Birjulin, Leonid. 1994. Semantika i pragmatika russkogo imperativa (Semantics and pragmatics of the Russian Imperative). Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. [Slavica Helsingiensia 13]. Bojadžiev, Todor, Ivan Kucarov & Jordan Penčev. 1999. Săvremenen bălgarski ezik. (Contemporary Bulgarian Language). Sofija: Petăr Beron. Bulygina, Tatjana V. & Aleksej D. Šmelev. 1997. Jazykovaja konceptualizacija mira (na materiale russkoj grammatiki) (The linguistic conceptualisation of the world) (pp. 181–189). Moskva: Škola “Jazyki Russkoj Kul’tury”. [Jazyk, semiotika, kultura]. Bulygina, Tatjana V. & Aleksej D. Šmelev. 1999. On the semantics of some Russian causative constructions: Aspect, control, and types of causation. In Werner Abraham & Leonid Kulikov (Eds), Tense-aspect, transitivity and causativity: Essays in honour of Vladimir Nedjalkov (pp. 97–116). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Studies in language/companion series 50].
. A comprehensive account of Leiss’ ATM-Generalisation and related theoretical notions is given in the introduction to the present volume by W. Abraham and E. Leiss.
Aspectual coercion in Bulgarian negative imperatives
Bybee, Joan & Suzanne Fleischman. 1995. An introductory essay. In Joan Bybee & Suzanne Fleischman (Eds), Modality in grammar and discourse (pp. 1–14). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Typological studies in language 32]. Chrakovskij, Viktor S. & Aleksandr P. Volodin. 1986. Semantika i tipologija imperativa: russkij imperativ (Semantics and typology of imperative constructions: The Russian imperative). Leningrad: Nauka. Chrakovskij, Viktor S. 1990. Preventivnye predloženija [Preventive clauses]. In Aleksandr V. Bondarko (Ed.), Teorija funkcional’noj grammatiki: Temporal’nost’. Modal’nost’ (Theory of functional grammar: Temporality and modality) (pp. 212–216). Leningrad: Nauka. Donhauser, Karin. 1987. Mood and morphology. An alternative approach to the syntax and semantics of German moods. Lingua, 73, 53–77. Feldman, Laurie B. 1994. Beyond orthography and phonology: Differences between inflections and derivations. Journal of Memory and Language, 33, 442–470. Filip, Hana. 1997. Integrating telicity, aspect and NP semantics: The role of thematic structure. In Jindřich Toman (Ed.), Formal approaches to Slavic linguistics, 3. The College Park Meeting 1994 (pp. 61–96). Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Slavic Publications. [Michigan Slavic materials 38]. Forsyth, James. 1970. A grammar of aspect: Usage and meaning in the Russian verb. Cambridge: CUP. [Studies in the modern Russian language/Extra Volume]. Georgiev, Vladimir. 1934. Otricatelnata zapoved v gradski, latinski, balgarski, staroindijski i injuktivat (The negative imperative in Greek, Latin, Bulgarian, Old-Indian and the injuctive). Godišnik na Sofijskija universitet, 31(4), 1–88. Gerganov, Enco & Vladimir Nikolov. 1983. Sila na zapovedta pri povelitelnoto naklonenie na glagolite ot svarshen i nessvarshen vid v sabremennija balgarski ezik (The strength of command expressed by the imperative forms of perfective and imperfective verbs in contemporary Bulgarian). In Vladimir Georgiev (Ed.), Istoričeski razvoj na bălgarskija ezik: dokladi na paˇrvija meždunaroden kongres po baˇlgaristika. Sofija 23 maj – 3 juni 1981. (Historical development of the Bulgarian language: Talks) (pp. 149–170). Sofija: Bălgarska akademija na naukite. [Internationaler Bulgaristikkongress: Dokladi 1981]. Grice, Herbert P. 1975. Logic and conversation. In Peter Cole & Jerry Morgan (Eds), Syntax and semantics, 3: Speech Acts. New York, NY: Academic Press. Isačenko, Aleksandr V. 1960. Grammatičeskij stroj russkogo jazyka v sopostavlenii s slovackim. Morphologija (The grammar structure of the Russian language in contrast to the Slovac language). Bratislava: Izdat. Slovackoj Akad. Nauk. Ivančev, Svetomir. 1978. Prinosi v bălgarskoto i slavjanskoto ezikoznanie (Contributions to the Slavic and Bulgarian studies) (pp. 48–80). Sofija: Nauka i izkustvo. Ivić, Milka. 1958. Upotreba vida u slovenskom imperativu c negaciom (The use of aspect in the Slovenian imperative with negation). Slavjanskaja filologija, II, 96–111. Jespersen, Otto. 1924. The philosophy of grammar. London: Allen & Unwin. Jetchev, Georgi & Pier M. Bertinetto. 2002. Lexical access in Bulgarian perfective vs. imperfective verbs. In Sabrina Bendjaballah et al. (Eds), Morphology 2000: Selected papers from the 9th morphology meeting, Vienna, 24–28 February 2000 (pp. 161–175). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Klein, Wolfgang. 1994. Time in language. London: Routledge. [Germanic Linguistics]. Kühnast, Milena. 2003. Processing negation and aspect in Bulgarian. Evidence from normal and agrammatic sentence comprehension. In Peter Kosta et al. (Eds), Investigations into formal slavic linguistics. Contributions of the Fourth European Conference on Formal Description of Slavic Languages FDSL IV, held at Potsdam University, November 28–30, 2001, Part II (pp. 419–440). Frankfurt: Lang. [Linguistik International 10].
Milena Kuehnast Leiss, Elisabeth. 1992. Die Verbalkategorien des Deutschen. Ein Beitrag zur sprachlichen Kategorisierung. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Studia Linguistica Germanica 31]. Lindstedt, Jouko. 1985. On the semantics of tense and aspect in Bulgarian. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics. Vol. II. Cambridge: CUP. Manova, Stela. 2005. Derivation versus inflection in three inflecting languages. In Wolfgang U. Dressler et al. (Eds), Morphology and its demarcations. Selected papers from the 11th morphology meeting, Vienna, February 2004 (pp. 233–253). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science 264]. Maslov, Jurij. 1981. Grammatika bolgarskogo jazyka [Grammar of the Bulgarian language]. Moskva: Vysšaja Škola. Mileva, Violeta. 1980. Xarakternata modalna expresivnost na imperative ot svarshen vid s otricanie v polskija ezik v sapostavka s bălgarskija knizhoven ezik (The characteristic modal expressivity of the negative imperatives with perfective verbs in Polish in contrast to the Bulgarian standard language). Sapostavitelno ezikoznanie, 5(5), 49–51. Moens, Marc & Steedman, Mark. 1988. Temporal ontology and temporal reference. Computational linguistics, 1, 15–28. Palmer, Frank R. 1986. Mood and modality. Cambridge: CUP. [Cambridge textbooks in linguistics]. Piñango, Maria, Edgar Zurif & Ray Jackendoff. 1999. Real-time processing implications of enriched composition at the syntax-semantics interface. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 28(4), 395–414. Reichenbach, Hans. 1947. Elements of symbolic logic. New York, NY: Macmillan. Stunova, Anna. 1993. A contrastive study of Russian and Czech aspect: Invariance vs. discourse. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Amsterdam [Diss.]. von Wright, Georg H. 1951. An essay in modal logic. Amsterdam: North-Holland. [Studies in logic and the foundations of mathematics]. Wratil, Melani. 2005. Die Syntax des Imperativs. Eine strukturelle Analyse zum Westgermanischen und Romanischen. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. [Studia grammatica 62]. Zaliznjak, Andrej A. 1977. Grammatičeskij slovar’ russkogo jazyka: Slovoizmenenie (The grammar structure of the Russian language). Moskva: Russkij jazyk. Zanuttini, Raffaella. 1997. Negation and clausal structure: A comparative study of romance languages. Oxford: OUP. [Oxford studies in comparative syntax].
Russian modals možet ‘‘can’’ and dolžen ‘‘must’’ selecting the imperfective in negative contexts Elena Padučeva
Russian Academy of Science at Moscow As is well known, there is a strong tendency in the Slavic languages to use the imperfective in negative contexts. However, linguistic mechanisms that lead to a correlation between negation and imperfective are still poorly understood and need further investigation. This paper deals with negation and the imperfective in modal contexts. For example, with the impersonal modal nado ‘‘it is necessary’’, occurring in its primary meaning exclusively with verbs denoting actions (and activities), negation drastically influences the choice of aspect in its dependent infinitive. While in non-negated contexts both aspects are possible, imperfective (ipfv) as well as perfective (pfv), with the ipfv version putting the activity at the center of attention, while with the pfv the focus is transferred to the resulting state. However, in the context of negated nado the only possibility is imperfective. This will be discussed in great detail in the ensuing sections with varying modalities. Section 1 concerns possibility, Section 2 is devoted to necessity. Section 3 deals with disputable examples.
1. Possibility 1.1 Internal possibility (≈ ‘‘ability’’) The term modality is used here to refer to contrasts in the domain of possibility and necessity. Following Van der Auwera & Plungian (1998), I distinguish four types of contexts in each of these domains: there are participant-internal, participantexternal, deontic and epistemic possibility, and the corresponding four types of necessity. It turns out that these distinctions are highly sensitive to aspectual choice. In Russian, the verb možet ‘‘can’’ can be treated as a prototypical expression for possibility, and dolžen ‘‘must’’ plays the same role for necessity. Both možet and dolžen have synonyms – different for different types of use. Below I consider all the eight classes of modal meanings. Only those negative-modal constructions are taken into consideration in which the negated modal governs an infinitive, and the aspect of this infinitive in the presupposed underlying non-negated modal construction is the perfective. In fact, what I am interested in is whether under negation this perfective
Elena Padučeva
infinitive remains perfective or is replaced by the imperfective form. By definition, an “imperfective of negation” is that imperfective that corresponds to perfective in the non-negative context. My second concern is whether correlations between aspect and modality (which are expected to be distinguished) are semantically motivated. In the case of internal possibility the aspectual form of the infinitive does not change under negation (pfv meaning ‘‘perfective’’ as opposed to ipfv): (1) a.
Ivan možet pereplyt' Volgu.1 John can.ipfv.3sg swim across.pfv.inf Volga.acc2 ‘John can swim across the Volga.’
b. Ivan ne možet pereplyt' Volgu. John neg can.ipfv.3sg swim across.pfv.inf Volga.acc ‘John can’t swim across the Volga.’
If možet is in the present tense then the action denoted by the infinitive refers to the future. The internal-possibility meaning is the clearest in the context of action verbs. According to Wierzbicka (1987): X can do V = ‘‘X will do V if X wants to’’. However, in the context of an imperfective verb as, e.g., the stative verb ponjat’ ‘‘understand’’, the meaning of the modal changes: (2) does not mean ‘‘I shall understand if I want to’’ according to Wierzbicka’s (1987) generalization above, but, rather, it means simply ‘‘I understand’’. (2) mogu ponjat' can.ipfv.1sg understand.pfv.inf ‘I understand’
The same is true for poverit’ ‘‘believe’’, predstavit’ sebe ‘‘imagine’’, dopustit’ ‘‘assume’’, and others. Still, this is internal possibility. In connection with ne mogu ponjat’ one can be reminded of the famous dialogue between Alice and the Queen from Lewis Carroll’s “Through the looking glass”, where the Queen says that one would believe what one can’t believe if one tries it every morning (see this example discussed in Padučeva 1982).
. Throughout this paper, the German transliteration of Russian fonts has been maintained. This pertains, in no doubt a conspicuous way for the English reader, above all to the Russian vowels [ю, я, ё, е] and the consonants [ж, з, х, ц, ж]. Particularly, the Russian contributors were adamant as to this solution. . The following abbreviations in the glosses have been used: acc – accusative, aux – auxiliary verb, dat – dative, f – feminine, gen – genitive, imp – imperative, imps – impersonal modal predicate, inf – infinitive, ipfv – verb with imperfective aspect, m – masculine, neg – negation, nom – nominative, past – past tense, pfv – verb with perfective aspect, pres – present tense, sg – singular.
Russian modals možet ‘‘can’’ and dolžen ‘‘must’’ selecting the imperfective
The verb moč’ has the form of the past tense (mog) and has the form of the future tense (smožet). In the context of internal possibility, not only ipfv možet, but also pfv future smožet is at place (in the context of deontic or epistemic possibility smožet is excluded). (3) a.
Ivan smog/ smožet pereplyt' Volgu. John could/ will manage.pfv.3sg swim across.pfv.inf Volga.acc ‘John managed/will manage to swim across the Volga.’
b.
Ivan ne smog/ ne smožet pereplyt' John neg could/ neg will manage.pfv.3sg swim across.pfv.inf Volgu. Volga.acc ‘John couldn’t/won’t be able to swim across the Volga.’
Note that an infinitive in the ipfv is used after ne možet in (4); but it corresponds to ipfv in the initial non-negative context and, thus, is of no interest for our problem: (4) Ivan možet/ ne možet prinosit' vam xleb. John can/ neg can.ipfv.3sg bring.ipfv.inf you.dat bread.acc ‘John can/can’t (regularly) bring you bread.’
1.2 External possibility Here again, the aspectual form of the infinitive does not change under negation – pfv remains pfv. (5) a.
Ty možeš' doexat' do vokzala na ėtom avtobuse. you can.ipfv.2sg get.pfv.inf to the station with this bus ‘You can get to the station with this bus.’
b. Ty ne možeš' doexat' do vokzala na ėtom avtobuse. you neg can.ipfv.2sg get.pfv.inf to the station with this bus ‘You can’t get to the station with this bus.’
External possibility, in contrast to internal one as considered above, occurs in the context of a situation which is not under control of its subject. This is why impersonal možno – nel’zja ‘‘one can/may’’ – ‘‘one must’’ are used as synonyms for možet – ne možet in the context of external possibility: (6) a.
Do vokzala možno doexat' na ètom avtobuse. to station can.imps get.pfv.inf with this bus ‘It is possible to get to the station with this bus.’
b. Do vokzala nel’zja doexat' na ètom avtobuse. to station neg-can.imps get.pfv.inf with this bus ‘It is impossible to get to the station with this bus.’
Elena Padučeva
1.3 Deontic possibility (≈ ‘‘permission’’) In the context of deontic possibility negation requires replacement of the pfv by the ipfv. (7) a.
Ty možeš' postroit' zdes' garaž. you can.ipfv.2sg build.pfv.inf here garage.acc ‘You can build a garage here.’
b. Ty ne možeš' stroit' zdes' garaž you neg can.ipfv.2sg build.ipfv.inf here garage.acc ‘You can’t build a garage here.’ (8) a. Razrešaju tebe postavit' kreslo v moju komnatu. allow.ipfv.1sg you.dat move.pfv.inf armchair. acc into my room ‘I allow you to move the armchair into my room.’ b. Ja ne razrešaju I neg allow.ipfv.1sg
tebe stavit' you.dat move.ipfv.inf
kreslo armchair.acc
v moju komnatu. into my room ‘I don’t allow you to move the armchair into my room.’
For some speakers of Russian, pfv in (8b) is not excluded. However, ipfv is definitely preferable. The following illustrations confirm this. (9) a.
Ja imeju pravo I have.ipfv.1sg right.acc ‘I have the right to speak.’
rasskazat'. speak.pfv.inf
b. Ja ne imeju prava I neg have.ipfv.1sg right.gen ‘I have no right to speak.’ (10) a.
rasskazyvat'. speak.ipfv.inf
Zdes' možno pereyti ulicu. here can.imps cross.pfv.inf street.acc ‘It is permitted to cross [pfv] the street in this place.’ (= permission)
b. Zdes' nel’zja perexodit' ulicu. here neg-can.imps cross.ipfv.inf street.acc ‘It is not permitted to cross the street in this place.’ (= no permission)
In (11b), if we leave the pfv untouched then nel’zja acquires the meaning of internal and not deontic impossibility. See (11) (example from Rassudova 1968, discussed also in Rappaport 1985): (11) Zdes' nel’zja perejti ulicu. here neg-can.imps cross.pfv.inf street.acc ‘It is impossible to cross the street here’. (= physical impossibility)
Russian modals možet ‘‘can’’ and dolžen ‘‘must’’ selecting the imperfective
Deontic necessity usually presupposes existence of some person or institution as a source of permission or prohibition: some regulating rules are presupposed. In (12) the source is not clear. As a consequence, it is not clear whether it is a deontic or external possibility meaning: (12) a.
Emu možno poručit' razmetku. he.dat can.imps charge.pfv.inf indexation.acc ‘He might be charged with indexation.’
b. Emu nel’zja poručat’/ poručit' razmetku. he.dat neg-can.imps charge.ipfv.inf/ charge.pfv.inf indexation.acc ‘He can’t be charged [ipfv]/[pfv] with indexation.’
In (13) below, pfv is explained by the positive supposition arising in the context of počemu ‘‘why’’, so that the meaning ceases to be negative: (13) Počemu ja ne imeju prava rasskazat'? why I neg have.ipfv.1sg right.gen tell.pfv.inf ‘Why is it that I have no right to tell?’
Thus, it is in the context of deontic modality that we first meet imperfective of negation.
1.4 Epistemic possibility (≈ ‘‘lack of knowledge’’) In its epistemic use the verb možet, both in the present and in the past tense, expresses lack of knowledge – two mutually excluded possibilities are accepted as plausible; possibility is cognate to probability. As for imperfective of negation, it doesn’t arise in this context: (14) a. Ivan mog ošibit’sja. John could.ipfv.3sg make a mistake.pfv.inf ‘John could make a mistake.’ b. Ivan ne mog ošibit’sja. John neg could.ipfv.3sg make a mistake.pfv.inf ‘John couldn’t make a mistake.’ (15) a. Ivan možet opozdat'. John can.ipfv.3sg be late.pfv.inf ‘John could be late.’ b. Ivan ne možet opozdat'. John neg can.ipfv.3sg be late.pfv.inf ‘John can’t be late.’
The meaning of epistemic possibility arises in the context of non-complete control of the subject. Otherwise, epistemic modality is not clearly distinguished from external
Elena Padučeva
or even internal modality; in (16), for example, the modality can be treated both as epistemic and as external: (16) a.
Ivan možet uspet'. John can.ipfv.3sg come in time.pfv.inf ‘John can manage to come on time.’
b. Ivan ne možet uspet'. John neg can.ipfv.3sg come in time.pfv.inf ‘John cannot manage to come on time.’
The past tense favors the epistemic interpretation – in this case it is clear that the event had or had not taken place, and it is only because of lack of knowledge that the speaker cannot say which of the two was the case. In fact, in (17), with the past tense of the modal verb, the interpretation of modality is undoubtedly epistemic: (17) a.
Ivan mog uspet'. John can.ipfv.past.3sg come in time.pfv.inf ‘John could manage to come in time.’
b. Ivan ne mog uspet'. John neg can.ipfv.past.3sg come in time.pfv.inf ‘John could not manage to come in time.’
Verbs with a negative connotation evidently predominate in epistemic modal constructions. In fact, a negative connotation makes the internal possibility (ability) interpretation highly improbable. In such cases, the epistemic meaning becomes the only one plausible. Still verbs with a positive connotation or neutral evaluation are possible in the epistemic context, especially in case of the past tense of the modal verb: (18) On mog ee ugovorit'. he can.ipfv.past.3sg she.acc persuade.pfv.inf ‘He could have persuaded her.’
Note that ipfv can be used in the context of negated epistemic possibility, but only if it corresponds to the ipfv in the non-negated context. For example, ipfv in negated (19b) below corresponds to ipfv in the underlying non-negated (19a): (19) a. Ja mogu ošibat’sja. I can.ipfv.1sg be mistaken.ipfv.inf ‘I can be mistaken.’ b. Ja ne mogu ošibat’sja. I neg can.ipfv.1sg be mistaken.ipfv.inf ‘I can’t be mistaken.’
Thus, in negated possibility contexts, negated ipfv occurs only if it is deontic possibility.
Russian modals možet ‘‘can’’ and dolžen ‘‘must’’ selecting the imperfective
2. Necessity In the context of necessity it is the norm for the perfective to be replaced by imperfective – in all varieties of necessity, except epistemic one.
2.1 Internal necessity Imperfective of negation is demonstrated by (20b–22b): (20) a.
Mne nužno/ nado otdoxnut'. I.dat need.imps/ must.imps have rest.pfv.inf ‘I need to have a rest.’
b. Mne ne nužno/ ne nado otdyxat'. I.dat neg need.imps/ neg must.imps have rest.ipfv.inf ‘I don’t need to have a rest.’ (21) a.
Ja dolžen I.nom must.pres.m.sg ‘I must accommodate.’
privyknut'. accommodate.pfv.inf
b. Ja ne dolžen I.nom neg ought.pres.m.sg ‘I ought not to accommodate.’ (22) a. Mne neobxodimo èto I.dat must.imps that.acc ‘I need to make that clear.’
privykat'. accommodate.ipfv.inf vyjasnit'. make clear.pfv.inf
b. Mne net neobxodimosti èto vyjasnjat'. I.dat neg must.imps that.acc make.clear.ipfv.inf ‘I need not make that clear.’
2.2 External necessity (23) a. Avtobus dolžen otpravit’sja bus must.pres.m.sg leave.pfv.inf ‘The bus is to leave at night.’ b. Avtobus ne dolžen bus neg must.pres.m.sg ‘The bus is not to leave at night.’
otpravljat’sja noč’ju. leave.ipfv.inf at night
c. *Avtobus ne dolžen otpravit’sja bus neg must leave.pfv.inf (24) a.
noč’ju. at night
noč’ju. at night
Ėto trebuetsja dokazat'. this.acc need to be.imps demonstrate.pfv.inf ‘This is to be demonstrated.’
Elena Padučeva
b. Ėto ne trebuetsja dokazyvat'. this.acc neg need to be.imps demonstrate.ipfv.inf ‘This doesn’t need to be demonstrated.’
Note that very often pfv/ipfv variation is possible also in affirmative sentences: (25) Ego obuv' nužno otremontirovat'/ his shoes.acc necessary.imps repaire.pfv.inf/ ‘His shoes are to be repaired.’
remontirovat'. repair.ipfv.inf
Thus, in external necessity contexts the imperfective of negation is at place. (26) a.
Ego obuv' nužno his shoes.acc necessary.imps ‘His shoes are to be repaired.’
otremontirovat'. repair.pfv.inf
b. Ego obuv' ne nužno remontirovat'. his shoes.acc neg necessary.imps repair.ipfv.inf ‘His shoes do not need to be repaired.’
It is interesting that the modal vynužden ‘‘have to’’ has no negation.
2.3 Deontic necessity (= ‘‘moral obligation’’) (27) a.
Ty dolžen you must.pres.m.sg ‘You should help her.’
ej pomoč'. she.dat help.pfv.inf
b. Ty ne dolžen you neg must.pres.m.sg ‘You shouldn’t help her.’ c. *Ty ne dolžen you neg must.pres.m.sg ‘You shouldn’t help her.’ (28) a.
ej pomogat'. she.dat help.ipfv.inf ej she.dat
pomoč'. help.ipfv/*pfv.inf
Nado/ nužno soglasit’sja. must/ must.imps agree.pfv.inf ‘You should agree.’
b. Ne nado/ ne nužno soglašat’sja. neg must/ neg must.imps agree.ipfv.inf ‘You shouldn’t agree.’ (29) a.
Ty objazan za nee zaplatit'. you obliged.pres.m.sg for her pay.pfv.inf ‘You are obliged to pay for her.’
b. Ty ne objazan za nee platit'. you neg obliged.pres.m.sg for her pay.ipfv.inf ‘You aren’t obliged to pay for her.’
(30) a.
Russian modals možet ‘‘can’’ and dolžen ‘‘must’’ selecting the imperfective
Tebe sleduet ostat’sja. you.dat should.imps stay.pfv.inf ‘You should stay.’
b. Tebe ne sleduet you.dat neg should.imps ‘You shouldn’t stay.’
ostavat’sja/ *ostat’sja. stay.ipfv/ *stay.pfv.inf
In (31) below, pfv is explained by the positive supposition, in the same way as in example (19) in section 1 above: (31) Tebe ne nado postrič’sja? you.dat neg need.imps have a haircut.pfv.inf ‘Don’t you need to have a haircut?’
Note that dolžen ‘‘ought to’’ and objazan ‘‘obliged to’’ are identical as to their aspectual behavior: the imperfective of negation is obligatory both in (32) and (33). But semantically their interaction with negation is different – ne dolžen is interpreted as the result of Neg-Raising, while the interaction with negation for ne objazan is compositional. (32) Ty ne dolžen ej potakat'. you neg must.pres.m.sg she.dat indulge.ipfv.inf ‘You should not indulge her.’ (non-indulgence is obligatory) (33) Ty ne objazan ej pomogat'. you neg must.pres.m.sg she.dat help.ipfv.inf ‘You are not obliged to help her.’ (help is not obligatory)
The verb trebovat’(sja), like objazan, behaves compositionally. Obligatory imperfective in the context of negated deontic necessity seems to be semantically motivated. In fact, in order to say that the action as a whole is forbidden it is sufficient to say this about the activity that leads to this action; see the semantic decomposition of the pfv and ipfv in Dowty (1979), Padučeva (1996); cf. Grice-based account in Rappaport (1985).
2.4 Epistemic necessity (≈ ‘‘probability’’) Epistemic necessity, as well as epistemic possibility, does not license the imperfective of negation – pfv in the affirmative sentence remains untouched under negation: (34) a.
On dolžen vyigrat'. he must.pres.m.sg win.pfv.inf ‘He is bound to win.’
b. On ne dolžen he neg must.pres.m.sg ‘He is not likely to win.’
vyigrat'. win.pfv.inf
Elena Padučeva
(35) a.
On dolžen byl he.nom must.m.sg aux.past ‘He was sure to catch the train.’
uspet' catch.pfv.inf
b. On ne dolžen byl he.nom neg must.m.sg aux.past ‘He was not likely to catch the train.’
na poezd. for train
uspet' na poezd. catch.pfv.inf for train
Epistemic necessity resembles epistemic possibility in that both express probability; the only difference is that negated epistemic necessity expresses not very high probability: (36) Ego uxod ne dolžen vyzvat' nedovol’stva. his departure.nom neg must.m.sg cause.pfv.inf discontent.gen ‘I am confident that his departure won’t cause discontent’.
Here the aspectual form of the infinitive doesn’t change under negation – the aspect remains perfective (as with epistemic possibility). Thus, epistemic necessity is the only kind of necessity for which negation is never accompanied by a shift from pfv to ipfv. It might have seemed that in (37) the meaning of dolžen is to be interpreted as deontic; but imperfective of negation shows that this is not the case: (37) а. Мuzyka dolžna koncit’sja. music.nom must.pres.f.sg end.pfv.inf ‘The music must be over very soon.’ b. Мuzyka ne dolžna music.nom neg must.pres.f.sg. ‘The music cannot be over very soon.’
končat’sja. end.ipfv.inf
This correlation of epistemic modality with the perfective aspect isn’t accidental; suffice it to remember the observation made in Bulygina (1980: 341) about negated perfective imperatives – they denote non-controllable events. An example stemming from Zaliznjak (1992: 81): (38) a. Ne vari kašu. neg cook.ipfv.imp kasha.acc ‘Do not cook kasha.’ (intentionally) b. Ne svari kašu. neg cook.pfv.imp kasha.acc ‘Do not cook kasha.’ (instead of the soup, by chance)
The correlation between the aspectual form of the infinitive and different varieties of possibility and necessity is presented in the Table 1 below:
Russian modals možet ‘‘can’’ and dolžen ‘‘must’’ selecting the imperfective
Table 1. Modality correlations 1. internal 2. external 3. deontic 4. epistemic
I. possibility
II. necessity
pfv pfv ipfv pfv
ipfv ipfv ipfv pfv
Imperfective in the context of deontic possibility and necessity seems to be semantically motivated. In fact, in order to say that the action as a whole is forbidden it is sufficient to say this about the activity that leads to this result. See the semantic decomposition of the pfv and ipfv in Dowty (1979), Padučeva (1996) and a Grice-based account in Rappaport (1985). In the case of necessity perfective may be replaced by imperfective not only in the deontic context but also in the context of “objective” – participant-external and participant-internal – modality. Hence the difference between possibility and necessity: (39) a. Sejčas možno požarit' mjaso. now can.imps roast.pfv.inf meat.acc ‘Now it is possible to roast meat.’ (possibility) b. Sejčas nel’zja požarit' mjaso. now neg-can.imps roast.pfv.inf meat.acc ‘Now it is impossible to roast meat.’ (possibility) (40) a. Sejčas nužno požarit' mjaso. now must.imps roast.pfv.inf meat.acc ‘Now it is necessary to roast meat.’ (necessity) b. Sejčas ne nužno žarit' mjaso. now neg must.imps roast.ipfv.inf meat.acc ‘Now there is no need to roast meat.’ (necessity)
In the context of epistemic modality, be it possibility or necessity, infinitives preserve their pfv aspect under negation. Thus, in the case of possibility imperfective appears under negation only in deontic contexts and aspectual choice is semantically motivated: the imperfective of agentive verbs denotes the activity, not the result, while in the semantics of perfective aspect the result constitutes the main assertion. In the context of necessity perfective may be replaced by imperfective not only in deontic context but also in the context of “objective” modality – participant-external and participant-internal. In the context of epistemic modality, be it possibility or necessity, infinitives preserve their pfv aspect under negation.
Elena Padučeva
3. D iscussion of disputable examples from the national corpus of Russian We felt it necessary to check our preliminary data, presented in Table 1 above, addressing the National corpus of Russian.3 Our conclusions concerning possibility were, on the whole, confirmed. As for necessity, the picture turns out to be more complicated. According to Table 1 (which is based on the data that first come to one’s mind), in class 2.2, external necessity, the aspect of the infinitive in the context of ne dolžen ‘‘should not’’ should always be ipfv. But this is not what we get from the Corpus: pfv is sufficiently widespread in this context, and it may have different explanations. In (41) the verb zatenit’ ‘‘overshadow’’ belongs to the class of the so called perfective verbs, for which pfv past is almost synonymous with ipfv present (Padučeva 1996: 152–160): (41) Suxost’ i formal’nost’ ètogo utverždenija ne dolžny zatenit’ tot fakt, čto koe-čto èkstraordinarnoe bylo obnaruženo. ‘Dryness and formality of this statement shouldn’t overshadow [pfv] the fact that something extraordinary was nevertheless discovered.’ (Semejnyj doktor, 2002.03.15) (41’) (ne) (dolžny) zatenit’ ≅ (ne) (dolžny) zatenjat’, as ogorčit’ ≅ ogorčat’ “to distress”
In (42)–(44) pfv and ipfv are semantically opposed – the pfv denotes a singular event in future, while with the ipfv what is meant is a multiple event in the present: (42) Poxod na pljaž ne dolžen okončit’sja neprijatnostjami. ‘A visit to the beach shouldn’t end [pfv] with unpleasant feelings.’ (Izvestiya 2001.07.13) (43) Na rabote normal’no funkcionirujuščej sistemy smena rukovodstva ne dolžna skazat’sja otricatel’no. ‘A change of command shouldn’t negatively affect [pfv] a normally functioning system.’ (Izvestija 2002.11.04) (44) No […] ostal’nye žiteli sela ne dolžny okazat’sja za bortom. ‘But the other inhabitants of the village shouldn’t find themselves [pfv] overboard’. (Agrarnyj žurnal 2002.02.15)
In the case of pfv the modality is rather interpreted as epistemic; for example, (44) is about whether some singular future event either will or won’t take place and the speaker does not know for sure which of the two. If (44) describes some situation in the present tense then we deal with external modality and ipfv okazyvat’sja ‘‘find oneself ’’ should be used.
. Russian National Corpus (RNC). Institut of Russian Language, Russian academy of sciences. 22 august 2007 < http://www.ruscorpora.ru >.
Russian modals možet ‘‘can’’ and dolžen ‘‘must’’ selecting the imperfective
In (45) pfv and ipfv in the context of ne dolžen of external necessity are semantically opposed. Here the difference between single and multiple events in future is crucial – ipfv (ne dolžny povtorjat’sja ‘‘must not recur’’) would have meant iterativity, which is not what the speaker had in mind: (45) Tragedii Budennovska, Kizlyara i Moskvy ne dolžny povtorit’sja. ‘The tragedies of Budennovsk, Kisljar and Moscow must not reoccur [pfv].’ (Cerkovnyj vestnik 2002.11.10)
The same opposition is at play in the context of other momentary verbs – proizojti ‘‘happen’’, pomešat’ ‘‘disturb’’. Example (46), stylistically immaculate, confirms the observation that the difference between singular and plural events can be significant: (46) Produmano bylo vse do mel’čajšix detalej: utrom Katja s det’mi uedet v Šeremet’evo, čto ne dolžno vyzvat’ nikakix podozrenij, poskol’ku Katja vsegda otpravljalas’ na daču zaranee, čtoby podgotovit’ dom k priezdu Mur. ‘Everything was thought over carefully: in the morning, Katja will travel to Scheremetjevo with the kids, which would not [German würde/dürfte] raise any suspicion [pfv], since Katja always went to the dacha a little earlier to tidy up the house for the arrival of the Mur.’ (L.Ulickaja. Pikovaja dama)
In fact, what is conveyed in (46) is the speaker’s confidence that one single event in the future (departure) will not cause another event in future (suspicions). Hence pfv is used. Example (46) differs from (45) in that the context excludes iteration. Thus, we have to acknowledge that ipfv in the context of ne dolžen (of external necessity) may be opposed to the pfv along the parameter of iterativity. In the context of (45) both the pfv denoting singularity and the iterative ipfv are at place in the context of an event in future, while in the context of (46) only a singular event interpretation makes sense, hence pfv. Thus, in class II.2 we must consider ipfv and pfv as semantically opposed. Another group of comments concerns deontic necessity. The problem here is that different markers of permission/prohibition behave differently in negative contexts. With ne nado, ne nužno ‘‘must not’’, the perfective form of the infinitive is definitely excluded. Meanwhile with ne razrešat’ ‘‘not allow [ipfv]’’ the restriction, as we saw, is less definite. Either there is something besides necessity in the semantics of ne nado, ne nužno that is not captured by our analysis, or the obligatory replacement of pfv by ipfv in the context of ne nado, ne nužno is not motivated in terms of semantics only. In the context of the eventive ne razrešit’ ‘‘not allow [pfv]’’, pfv is often appropriate: (47) No Maša nikogda ne pozvoljala obižat’ ètot fikus i ne razrešila Andreju vynesti ego na kuhnju: žalela bednuyu mamu, mama, sovsem už staren’kaja, vezla ego v podarok čerez vsju Moskvu, taščila na pjatyj ètaž, tak kak lift v te dni remontirovalsja. ‘But Masha did not allow that this Fikus would suffer any harm and she did not permit Andrey to carry him into the kitchen [pfv]: She wanted to spare her
Elena Padučeva
mother the trouble, mama who, in her advancing years, had driven this plant through the whole of Moscow and had dragged it to the sixth floor when the elevator was under repair.’ (V. Grossman. Vse tečet (1955–1963))
But it is clear that only stative ne razrešat’ ‘‘not allow [ipfv]’’ (and not the eventive ne razrešit’ ‘‘not allow [pfv]’’) has the right to be compared with ne nado: razrešit’ ‘‘allow [pfv]’’ is not a modal verb and has grammatical prerequisites of its own. There is a paradox connected with ne razrešat’ ‘‘not allow [ipfv]’’: the verb razrešat’ evidently expresses deontic possibility, i.e., permission. Thus, ne razrešat’ should mean prohibition, i.e., negated (deontic) possibility. But, in fact, ne razrešaetsja means the same as ne nado ‘‘must not’’, which is treated as (deontic) necessity, because nado ‘‘must’’ expresses necessity. The paradox is explained at the level of elementary modal logic. See (48). (48) a. not (possible) ≡ necessarily (not): ne razrešaetsja ≡ necessarily (not); b. not (necessarily) ≡ possibly (not); c. ne dolžen ≡ necessarily (not), not possibly (not).
This is why On ne dolžen tuda hodit’ and Emu ne razrešaetsja tuda hodit’ mean the same.
4. Conclusion To sum up, we arrive at the conclusion that in the context of epistemic modality aspect in Russian is independent of negation: If pfv is used in the affirmative sentence it will be preserved in the corresponding negative. On the other hand, negation of a deontic modality marker places a severe and semantically motivated constraint on aspectual choice in the infinitive, at least with some modal markers – in Russian these are nado, nužno ‘‘must’. It would be interesting to find out whether there are typological parallels to this effect in other languages. In fact, they should exist if the co-occurrence restriction that was delineated is semantically motivated. As for external modality (the case of non-agentive verbs), pfv and ipfv may be opposed as denoting singular vs. multiple events in the future.
References Bulygina, Tatiana. 1980. Grammatičeskie i semantičeskie kategorii i ix svjazi (Grammatical and semantic categories and their connections). In Nina D. Arutjunova & Anna A. Ufimceva (Eds), Aspekty semanticheskix issledovani (Aspects of semantic researches) (pp. 320–355). Moskva: Nauka. Dowty, David R. 1979. Word meaning and Montague grammar. The semantics of verbs and times in Generative Semantics and in Montague’s PTQ. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Russian modals možet ‘‘can’’ and dolžen ‘‘must’’ selecting the imperfective
Padučeva, Elena V. 1982. Tema jazykovoj kommunikacii v skazkax Lewis’a Carroll’a (The topic of linguistic communication in the tales of Lewis Carroll). Semiotika i informatika, 18, 76–119. Padučeva, Elena V. 1996. Semantičeskie issledovanija (Semantic explorations). Moskva: Jazyki Russkoj Kul’tury. Rappaport, Gilbert. 1985. Aspect and modality in contexts of negation. In Michael S. Flier & Alan Timberlake (Eds), The scope of Slavic aspect (pp. 194–223). Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers. [UCLA Slavic Studies 12]. Rassudova, Olga Petrovna. 1968. Upotreblenie vidov glagola v russkom jazyke (Aspectual choice in the verbal system of Russian). Moskva: Izd-vo Moskovskogo Univ. (Reprint München: Sagner 1981). Van der Auwera, Johan & Vladimir A. Plungian. 1998. Modality’s semantic map. Linguistic typology, 2(1), 79–124. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1987. The semantics of modality. Folia Linguistica. Acta Societatis Linguisticae Europaeae, 21(1), 25–43. Zaliznjak Anna. 1992. Issledovanija po semantike predikatov vnutrennego sostojanija (Investigations into the semantics of inner state predicates). München: Otto Sagner. [Slavistische Beiträge 298].
African
Tense, mood, and aspect in Gungbe (Kwa) Enoch O. Aboh & Fabrice Nauze University of Amsterdam
This paper is a first attempt at understanding the distribution of tense, mood, and aspect expressions in Gungbe, and the interaction thereof. The discussion shows that Gungbe INFL-related expressions are realized by functional items, which head distinct projections within I. These items may combine to form complex tense, aspect, and mood sequences. It is further shown that while modal expressions block perfective aspect in Gungbe, imperfective aspect, on the other hand, appears to enhance the deontic and epistemic readings of the modal auxiliaries.
1. Introduction This paper discusses tense, mood, and aspect markers in Gungbe, a Gbe language of the Kwa family. The discussion shows that, in this language family, INFL-related expressions are exclusively realized by free morphemes, some of which can serialize to form complex tense, aspect, and mood sequences. After establishing a general sequencing of the clause structure in Gungbe, from which we can infer the distributive (and scope) properties of tense, mood, and aspect markers (section 1), we move on to discuss the interpretations of the described mood expressions in terms of root versus epistemic readings (section 2). Building on this, we provide a description of combinations of mood and aspect markers by looking at their syntactic and semantic properties (section 3). Section 4 concludes the paper.
2. The clause structure in Gungbe This section only presents general aspects of the clause structure in Gungbe that are relevant for the discussion. We refer the interested reader to Aboh (2004) and references cited there for a detailed discussion. As is generally the case within the Kwa family, Gungbe is a tone language because it resorts to both phonemes and supra-segmentals to form morphemes. These suprasegmentals or tones/tonemes have both morphological and syntactic manifestations, hence the distinction often made between lexical tones (1) and syntactic tones (2).
Enoch O. Aboh & Fabrice Nauze
The examples in (1) indicate that this language exhibits three tone distinctions: High, Mid and Low. (1)
High Mid tó ‘‘ear” to ‘‘country” tf¢ ‘‘father” tf ‘‘river” kán “to take a piece” kan “rope”
Low tò ‘‘to align” t¡f ‘‘to sew” kàn “to write”
On the other hand, the minimal pair in (2) indicates that Gungbe yes-no questions only differ from affirmative sentences by the presence of a sentence-final yes-no question marker in the form of a low tone glossed as Inter in (2b).
(2) a.
Súrù 2ù wὲlí b. Suru eat sweet.potato
‘Suru ate sweet potato(es).’
Súrù 2ù wὲlî? Suru eat sweet.potato-Inter
‘Did Suru eat sweet potato(es)?’
In Fongbe, a closely related language, yes-no questions are clause-typed by a sentencefinal question marker in the form of a full morpheme. This suggests that the Gungbe toneme is probably a leftover of a full yes-no question marker that once existed in this language as well (Aboh 2004: Ch. 8). (3) Súrù 2ù wὲlí à? Suru eat sweet.potato Inter ‘Did Suru eat sweet potatoes?’
(Fongbe)
Another outstanding property of Gungbe (and Kwa in general) is its lack of inflectional morphology of the Indo-European type. For instance, lexical DPs are not inflected for case (4a–b), even though pronouns show case morphology (4c–d). This situation is reminiscent to that of English, which distinguishes between nominative and accusative case in its pronominal system only. (4) a.
Àsé wlé àjàkà b. Àjàkà wlé àsé cat catch mouse mouse catch cat ‘A cat caught a mouse.’ ‘A mouse caught a cat.’
c.
Ùn nyàn àvú l¢f d. 1sg.nom. chase dog det. ‘I chased the dog.’
Àvú l¢f nyàn mì/*ùn dog det. chase 1sg.acc./1sg.nom. ‘The dog chased me.’
In addition, there is no overt gender specification on nouns or pronouns (5a), even though certain common nouns and person names are specified for gender (5b). (5) a.
É wlé mì 3sg. catch 1sg.acc. ‘S/he caught me.’
b.
t¢f = father [M] vs. n¡f = mother [F]
The clausal domain reveals the same inexistence of inflectional marking since there is no subject-verb agreement (6a), and verbs have one basic form in both finite and
Tense, mood, and aspect in Gungbe (Kwa)
non-finite clauses, as made clear from these examples. In the sentence (6b), the embedded clause introduced by the preposition ná is a non-finite clause whose null subject is controlled by the subject of the matrix clause. Yet, the finite verb nyàn in (6a) and the non-finite one in (6b) have the same morphological forms. (6) a.
Ùn0 nyàn yé yì0 b¡f yé nyàn mì lέk¡f0 wá 1sg. chase 3pl. go and 3pl. chase 1sg. return come ‘I chased them away and they chased me back.’
b. Ùni jró [CP ná [IP proi 1sg. want prep ‘I want to chase them out.’
nyàn yé t¡fn]] chase 3pl. get.out
In order to circumvent this lack of inflectional morphology on the verb, Gbe languages resort to free morphemes that encode tense, mood, and aspect, which we now turn to.
2.1 Tense, mood, and aspect markers The sentence under (7) shows that the INFL-related free morphemes (in boldface), which we now refer to as markers, occur in a slot between the subject and the verb. (7) a.
Súrù ná n¡f tò wéx¡fmὲ y`ì ná xwè àtf¢n Suru fut. hab. prog. school go.nr. prep. year five ‘Suru will be going to school for five years.’
b. Súrù ní n¡f tò wéx¡fmὲ y`ì ná xwè àtf¢n Suru mood. hab. prog. school go prep. year five ‘Suru should be going to school for five years.’
These sentences are also interesting in another respect: They form a minimal pair. The only distinguishing factor being that example (7a) includes the future marker ná, while sentence (7b) involves the marker ní. This difference also correlates with a difference in interpretation: (7a) is interpreted in future, while (7b) is understood as involving weak (root) deontic mood. Assuming that these interpretations are the properties of the future and mood markers, we can conclude that these markers can combine with aspect markers in Gungbe. In what follows, we first discuss the combination of tense and aspect markers.
2.1.1 Tense and aspect specifications On a par with previously discussed cases, the sentences under (8) represent a minimal pair: The difference results from the future marker ná in (8a) and its absence in sentence (8b), where the verb is interpreted as perfective. (8) a.
Súrù ná kùn mótò cè b. Suru fut. drive car 1sg.poss. ‘Suru will drive my car.’
Súrù kùn mótò cè Suru drive car 1sg.poss. ‘Suru drove my car.’
Enoch O. Aboh & Fabrice Nauze
In terms of (Aboh 2004: Ch. 6) the interpretation of sentence (8b) as perfective is the default option for event verbs for which there is no overt time and aspect specification. Under this approach, which does not assume a zero perfective marker, an event verb that is negatively defined as [-future; -imperfective] is interpreted as completed, and the event is set into the past. State verbs, on the other hand, are assigned an imperfective reading that results in a ‘‘present state’’ interpretation. Contrast example (9) with the verb jró ‘‘want’’ as opposed to kùn ‘‘drive’’ in (8b). (9) Súrù jró kókó Suru want porridge ‘Suru wants some porridge.’
Under this description then, we may conclude that a simple SV(O) sentence in Gungbe receives a perfective interpretation if the verb is eventive and an imperfective present state interpretation if it is stative. This means that there is a direct correlation between past tense and perfective aspect in Gungbe. Future tense, on the other hand, exclusively derives from the marker ná illustrated in (8a) (Aboh 2004).1 Unlike in the case of perfective aspect, however, all Gbe languages display an habitual aspect marker that has derived from the lexical verb nf¡ ‘‘stay/remain’’ in Gungbe (cf. Aboh 2004: Ch. 2, 5, 6). An example is given in (10). As could be seen from this sentence, the habitual marker triggers an imperfective aspect reading similar to the ‘‘present state’’ reading assigned to state verbs by default. (10) Súrù n¡f kùn mótò cè Suru hab. drive car 1sg.poss. ‘Suru habitually drives my car.’
Both the sentences under (9) and (10) can be set into the past in the context of an appropriate time adverb as in (11). (11) a.
Àzán àt¡fn 2íé wὲ Súrù jró kókó, é má nyín égbè day three dem. foc. Suru want porridge 3sg. neg. cop. today ‘Suru wanted porridge three days ago, not today.’
b. Xwè 2é wá-yì mὲ wὲ Súrù n¡f fìn mótò cè kùn year rel. pass in foc. Suru hab. steal car 1sg.poss. drive é kò jódó dìn 3sg. already let.go now ‘‘Suru used to drive my car without my permission last year, but he has now stopped doing this.’’
. Essegbey (1999: Ch. 2) argues that Ewegbe (a closely related language) does not have a tense marker, but a marker of potentiality that can be used to encode futurity in combination with time adverbs.
Tense, mood, and aspect in Gungbe (Kwa)
Another imperfective aspect that is overtly marked in Gungbe is the progressive. The latter is expressed by the combination of a preverbal marker tò and a sentence-final floating low tone, glossed as NR (for nominalizer (12a)). As already illustrated for yes-no questions, the Gungbe sentence-final floating tone corresponds to an overt morpheme in Fongbe (12b). (12) a. b.
Súrù tò mótò cè kùn ` Súrù 2ò mótò cè kùn wὲ Suru prog. car 1sg.poss drive nr ‘Suru is driving my car.’
(Gungbe) (Fongbe)
Finally, it is important to note that the progressive aspect, unlike the habitual, requires the object to front to a preverbal position. Compared to the previous examples where the object necessarily follows the verb, we reach the conclusion that Gungbe involves VO versus OV alternation that occurs in well defined aspect contexts. At this stage of the discussion it is important to note that Gungbe (and Gbe in general) resemble Germanic languages (e.g., Dutch) to some extent. In addition to displaying NP-det as well as DP-P order in the nominal domain, they exhibit Aux-V-O versus Aux-O-V order in the clausal domain. At first blush, these properties can be interpreted as evidence that these languages are head-final languages or else involve both head-final and head-initial structures. But as discussed at length in Aboh (2004), such view is untenable. Instead, these languages better qualify as head initial languages (i.e., of the SVO type) and instances where the complement precedes the head are analyzed as cases where the complement raises to a position higher than that occupied by the head. In the case of VO versus OV alternation for instance, assuming that Gungbe is of the type OV amounts to saying that in Aux-O-V situations, the object is in its base position, where it also receives case. An empirical fact that undermines this view is that the progressive aspect introducing the OV sequence may embed a prospective aspect marker ná, as shown in (13).2 As could be seen from these sentences, the object precedes both the prospective marker and the verb in such contexts, suggesting that it is not linearly adjacent to the verb. Therefore the object is not in its base position, but in a derived position. (13) a. b.
Súrù tò [mótò cè] ná kùn ` Súrù 2ò [mótò cè] ná kùn wὲ Suru prog. car 1sg.poss. prosp. drive nr. ‘Suru is about to drive my car.’
(Gungbe) (Fongbe)
. Though homophonous with the future marker, the prospective marker ná has a different distribution: The future marker precedes the habitual marker, while the prospective marker follows both the habitual and progressive markers (14).
Enoch O. Aboh & Fabrice Nauze
On the basis of similar facts, Aboh (2004: Ch. 2, 5, 6) concluded that Gbe languages are underlyingly head-complement even though various syntactic operations targeting the head and its complement may alternate this order. We will not discuss this issue any further and the interested reader is referred to this work and references therein for a detailed analysis. Going back to the issue of how INFL nodes are realized in Gungbe, that this language involves free morphemes that encode INFL may lead one to wonder how these morphemes interact and whether they serialize. Not much is known as to the semantic intricacies of the markers just discussed, a fact that sometimes relates to our current lack of knowledge about their origins. We therefore leave this issue for future work. With regard to their combination, however, tense and aspect markers display the fixed order ‘‘tense-habitual-progressive-prospective’’ and follow negation as illustrated in (14a) and (14b), respectively. Note from (14c) that negation and tense precede the bracketed adverbs, which in Gungbe occur between the subject and the verb. Other series of aspect markers follow these adverbs.3
. Like many Kwa languages, the Gbe languages involve two types of adverbs: Those that occur to the right edge and may be subject to movement operations (e.g., focus constructions (ia–b)) and those that occur in a space between the subject and the verb. These are immune to syntactic operations (iia–b). (i) a.
Súrù bí¢f xf¡ mὲ bléún b. Suru enter room in quickly ‘Suru entered the room quickly’
Bléún wὲ Súrù bí¢f xf¡ mὲ quickly foc. Suru enter room in ‘Suru entered the room quickly’
(ii) a.
Súrù s¢f bí¢f xf¡ mὲ b. *S¢f wὲ Súrù bí¢f xf¡ Suru again enter room in again foc. Suru enter room
bléún quickly ‘Suru entered the room again quickly.’
mὲ bléún in quickly
In a sense, (iib) is reminiscent to the behaviour of tense and aspect markers, which also resist movement operations.
(iii) c. *N¡f wὲ Súrù 2à lέsì habitual foc. Suru cook rice ‘Suru habitually cooked rice.’ Just as tense and aspect markers, middle field adverbs also belong to a closed class (e.g., kò ‘‘already’’; kà ‘‘willingly’’; sá ‘‘nevertheless’’; tὲ ‘‘even’’; s¢f ‘‘again’’; gb¿7 ‘‘at least’’; gbf¡ ‘‘reluctantly’’), and could be considered as functional categories. On the other hand, adverbs that occur to the right edge represent an open class and are regarded as lexical categories. All middle field adverbs occur in a position between the tense marker ná and the strong deontic mood 2óná, which we consider the highest modal above the aspect markers.
Tense, mood, and aspect in Gungbe (Kwa)
(14) a.
Àsú ét¡fn ná n¡f tò nú ná 2ù ` lé husband 3sg.poss. fut. hab. prog. thing prosp. eat nr. on.the.moment
b¡f é ná f¡fn bò t¡fn coord. 3sg. fut. stand coord. leave ‘Just at the moment her husband sets to eat, she will stand and walk out.’
b. Súrù má ná n¡f tò nú ná 2ù `… Suru neg. fut. hab. prog. thing prosp. eat nr. ‘Suru will not be about to eat …’ c.
Súrù má ná [s¡f] n¡f tò nú ná 2ù `… Suru neg. fut. again hab. prog. thing prosp. eat nr. ‘Suru will not be about to eat again …’
Summarizing, the Gungbe data described thus far suggest the provisional sequencing in (15). (15) Subject > Negation[má] > Tense[ná] > Adverb[s¡f ] > Aspect[n¡f : Habitual] > Aspect[tò: Progressive] > Object > Aspect [ná: Prospective] Verb > Nominalizer
We now move on to the expression of modality in Gungbe.
2.1.2 The expression of modality This section introduces the sequencing of modality in Gungbe and illustrates the two sets of modal elements that are found in this language: Mood markers versus modal auxiliaries. Starting with the class of mood markers, it essentially includes the element ní, which fulfils two functions: The marker of condition or time adjunct clause (e.g., similarly to English when and if ), and the mark of (weak) deontic mood (e.g., exhortative). This element is also used to mark subjunctive and imperative. We refer to these two variants as ní-type1 and ní-type2, see Aboh (2004: Ch. 5) and Aboh (2006) for detailed discussion. When it introduces a conditional or a time adjunct, ní-type1 always occurs in sentence-initial position as illustrated by the examples under (16). (16) a.
Ní0 Súrù kùn mótò cè wá fí ná0 gblé d’ésì ní-type1 Suru drive car 1sg.poss. come0 here 1sg.fut. spoil at.3sg.hand ‘If Suru drives my car here, I will be mad at him.’
b. Ní Súrù wá fí mì yr¡f-ὲ ná mì ní-type1 Suru come here 2pl. call-3sg. prep. 1sg.acc. ‘When Suru comes, call him for me.’
(iv)
Súrù kà/kò/tὲ/sá/s¢f/gbέ/gbf¡/ Suru willingly/already/even/nevertheless/again/at least/reluctantly/
2óná 2à lέsì have.to cook rice ‘Suru willingly/already/even/nevertheless/again/at least/reluctantly/ have to cook rice.’
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Sentence-initial ní-type1 can also occur in subordinate contexts where it introduces embedded yes-no questions as indicated in (17). (17) Ùn kàmbíf¢ ní Súrù kùn mótò cè wá fí? 1sg. ask ní-type1 Suru drive car 1sg.poss. come here ‘I asked whether Suru drove my car here?’
Ní-type2, on the other hand, differs from the former both in terms of its distribution and function. Unlike ní-type1, ní-type2 always occurs in a position between the subject and the negation marker as illustrated in (18a). Reversing the order leads to ungrammaticality (18b).4 Given that negation precedes tense as clearly indicated by the examples under (14), we can conclude from (18a) that ní-type2 linearly precedes tense, too (Aboh 2004, 2006). (18) a.
Súrù ní má kùn mótò cè wá fí blô Suru ní-type2 neg. drive car 1sg.poss. come here neg.op. ‘Suru should/must not drive my car here.’
b. *Súrù má ní kùn mótò cè wá fí blô Suru neg. ní-type2 drive car 1sg.poss. come here neg.op.
This mood marker is also found in subjunctive and imperative clauses as indicated by the examples under (19a) and (19b) respectively. (19) a.
Òsέn 2f ¡ mὲ 2é0 ní má tf¢n0 zὲ gàn àwó mὲ0 blô law say person det. ní-type2 neg. go.out pass hour ten in neg.op. Lit. ‘The law says no one should go out after 10:00 p.m.’ [i.e., it is forbidden to go out after 10:00].
b. Kpòn¡fn lέ jà! Mì wá mí ní h¡fn! soldier pl. arrive 1pl. come 1pl. ní-type2 flee ‘The police are coming, let us run away!’
It appears from these usages of ní-type2 that it encodes deontic modality in various ways that we will discuss in section 3. At this stage, it suffices to show that ní-type1 and ní-type2 are not in competition for the same position in the clause because they can cooccur in embedded yes-no questions of the type in (20). (20) Ùn n¡f kàmbíf¢ 2éjé ní [ví éhè dìn], [wéx¡fmὲ] wὲ 1sg. hab. ask myself ní-type1 child dem. now school foc. mí ní zé-é xlán kàví àzf¢n-kplf¢n-tὲmὲ 1pl. ní-type2 send-3sg. prep. or work-learn-place ‘I wonder if, this kid, we should send him/her to school or to a training place.’
. This goes against Lefebvre & Brousseau’s (2002) findings in Fongbe where the reverse order NEG-MOD is said to be acceptable. One of the authors of this paper however finds these sequences ungrammatical in Fongbe, too. We will not discuss such speaker variants in this paper.
Tense, mood, and aspect in Gungbe (Kwa)
Observe that this embedded sentence is introduced by ní-type1, which is followed by a topic phrase and a focused phrase. The latter precedes the Gungbe focus marker wὲ, which precedes the subject pronoun itself preceding ní-type2. In accounting for these two modal markers, Aboh (2004: Ch. 5, 2006) argues that they realize the two frontiers of the C-system: Force and Finiteness, respectively (21). In terms of Rizzi’s (1997) splitCP hypothesis, this would mean that sentence-initial ní-type1 encodes clausal type (e.g., in indirect yes-no questions) and is first merged under Force0, while middle-field ní-type2 expresses finiteness and is first merged in Fin0. It is further proposed that Fin0 has a strong EPP feature (Chomsky 1995, 2001) that needs to be checked before spellout. This requirement is met by raising the subject to [Spec FinP]. (21) [ForceP [Force0 ní-type1 [TopP [FocP [FinP Subject [Fin0 ní-type2 [TP tsubject [VP]]]]]]]]
Put together with the description in (15), we reach the sequencing in (22). (22) Force[ní-type1] > Topic > Focus > Subject > Finiteness[ní-type2] > Negation[má] > Tense[ná] > Adverb[sf¢] > Aspect[nf¢: Habitual] > Aspect[tò: Progressive] > Object > Aspect [ná: Prospective] Verb > Nominalizer
The second set of modal elements, which we refer to as modal auxiliaries, includes the elements sígán and 2óná, which are comparable to English can/may and must/ have to, respectively. While the former encodes probability, or ability/capacity, the latter expresses strong deontic mood.5 It is however important to already stress at this stage of the discussion that these modal auxiliaries may express various meanings (among which epistemic, deontic) depending on the context. We postpone the discussion of this question until section 3 where we deal with the reading of each modal auxiliary. (23) a.
Súrù má sìgán n¡f kùn mótò cè wá fí Suru neg. can hab. drive car 1sg.poss. come here ‘Suru can/may not drive my car here.’
b. Súrù má 2óná n¡f kùn mótò cè wá fí Suru neg. have.to hab. drive car 1sg.poss. come here ‘Suru must not drive my car here.’
Using the negation marker má as the highest element within the INFL domain and the habitual marker nf¡ as the highest node of the aspect domain (22), we observe that . A fact that meets the eye and which we do not discuss in this paper is the morphological shape of the modal auxiliaries sí-gán (lit. ‘‘be of equal strength’’) and 2ó-ná (lit. have-prep ≈ ‘‘have to’’) which contrary to other tense, aspect and mood markers exhibits a complex form. Given that such compounds are often phrasal in Gbe, the question obviously arises (i) What is the origin of these forms, (ii) What syntactic structure do they bring about. We leave this issue for future work.
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the main distributive difference between the modal markers of class 1 (i.e., ní-type1; ní-type2) and those of class 2 (i.e., 2óná; sígán) is that the former precede negation, while the latter follow negation. In this regard, it is interesting to note that though the modal auxiliary 2óná follows negation on surface syntax (23b), the interpretation of this sequence gives rise to an inverse reading where the modal auxiliary scopes over negation. This reading is comparable to that of (18a) with ní-type2, where the modal marker linearly precedes negation. This fact may be indication that the syntax of the modal auxiliary 2óná is more complex than the structure assumed here, and we hope to return to this in future work. Another similarity between 2óná and ní-type2 is that they do not easily combine with the tense marker, as shown by the marginal and ungrammatical sentences (24a) and (24b), respectively. (24) a. ??Súrù má ná 2óná kùn mótò cè wá fí Suru neg. fut. have.to drive car 1sg.poss. come here ‘Suru must not drive my car here.’ b. *Súrù ní ná kùn mótò cè wá fí Suru ní-type2 fut. drive car 1sg.poss. come here
The discussion about ní-type2 showed that the incompatibility with tense cannot be attributed to a competition for the same position (i.e., T). See examples (14) and (18). Similarly, it cannot be concluded from the incompatibility of the future tense ná and the modal auxiliary 2óná that they both target the same position. As will be argued below, several distributional facts with regard to sígán indirectly support this view. For instance, the modal sígàn follows tense in (25) suggesting that it occurs in a space between tense and the habitual aspect marker. (In this context the interpretation of the modal follows the surface order.) (25) Súrù má ná sìgán kù mótò cè wá fí Suru neg. fut. can drive car 1sg.poss. come here ‘Suru will not be able to drive my car here.’
The distribution of the middle field adverbs, that is, those that occur in a slot between the subject and the verb and follow tense (26a), further indicates that both 2óná and sìgán occur in a space to the right of the tense marker (26b–c). Finally, the sentences under (26d–e) show that 2óná may precede sìgán, producing a marginal sentence, while the reverse yields a quite degraded or even an ungrammatical sentence. (26) a.
Súrù ná sf¢ kùn mótò cè Suru fut. again drive car 1sg.poss. ‘Suru will drive my car again.’
b. Súrù sf¢ sìgán kùn mótò cè Suru again can drive car 1sg.poss. ‘Suru can drive my car again.’
Tense, mood, and aspect in Gungbe (Kwa)
c.
Súrù sf¢ 2óná kùn mótò cè Suru again have.to drive car 1sg.poss. ‘Suru must drive my car again.’
d. ??Súrù sf¢ 2óná sígán kùn mótò cè Suru again have.to be.able.to drive car 1sg.poss. ‘Suru must again be able to drive my car again.’ e. *Súrù sf¢ sígán 2óná kùn mótò cè Suru again be.able have.to drive car 1sg.poss. ‘Suru must again be able to drive my car again.’
We conclude from these facts that 2óná linearly precedes sìgán underlyingly. Put together, these data lead us to propose the sequencing in (27) as a general characterization of the clause structure in Gungbe. (27) Mood[ní: conditional] > Topic > Focus > [Subject] > Mood[ní: deontic] > Negation[má] > Tense[ná: future] > Adverb[kà: willingly] > Adverb[tὲ: even] > Adverb[kò: already] > Adverb[sá: nevertheless] > Adverb[gb¢f, reluctantly] > Adverb[s¢f, again] > Adverb[gbέ, at least] > Mood[2óná, must] > Mood[sìgán, can] > Aspect[n¢f: Habitual] > Aspect[tò: Progressive] > Object > Aspect [ná: Prospective] > Verb > Nominalizer
Though much work is needed before we reach an exhaustive characterization of the Gungbe clause structure, the sequencing in (27) appears partially compatible with Cinque’s (1999: 106) universal hierarchy of clausal functional projections. Given such a sequencing, nothing in principle precludes the cooccurrence of the future marker and the modal elements contrary to the fact observed in (24). In order to account for this, we tentatively propose that the future marker ná and the deontic elements ní-type2, and 2óná exclude each other due to semantic incompatibility. Indeed, while the future marker in Gungbe implies that an event will take place in (a near) future with certainty, the deontic modal elements somehow express irrealis with no further specification as to whether the event will eventually take place or not. As we will show in section 3, no such incompatibility arises when it comes to the expression of aspect. In such circumstances, the interpretation of the sequence mood > aspect follows the surface order, such that the aspect marker never scopes over the modal marker though it may affect its interpretation. Before getting on to this discussion, however, a question that we first need to address in this characterization of the Gungbe INFLsequence à la Cinque (1999) is that of the categorial status of the identified markers. Without entering the details of the analysis, we assume, following Stewart (1998), Aboh (2004, 2006) and much related work, that the adverbs that occur in the middle field in Kwa (i.e., between the subject and the verb) as well as INFL-related functional elements (e.g., tense, aspect mood) head their own functional projection within the
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inflection domain.6 Note, for instance, that unlike in English where the same adverbs (e.g., often) may occur both clause-externally and clause-internally, the Gungbe middle field adverbs occur in a fixed position only. They form a closed class together with other INFL-related markers, with which they share the same morphological shape (i.e., CV), and immunity to movement operations (see footnote 3). Additional evidence that these INFL-related elements are heads come from the distribution of the negative marker and the future marker. In example (28) we see that the negative marker may merge with clitic pronouns (e.g., 1sg). This leads to a tone change in the vowel ă, which arguably derives from a combination of the high tone of the negative particle and the preceding low tone of the deleted first person singular pronoun ùn. (28) Ùn 2f ¡ ná Sέná 2f ¡ mă sìgán wá 1sg. say prep. Sena that 1sg.neg. can come ‘I told Sena that I could not come.’
Similarly, the negative particle can merge with the future marker ná, giving rise to the form máá, as in (29). The tone change here is associated with vowel lengthening, the two deriving from the combination of the high tone of the negative particle and that of the future marker as well as the deletion of the nasal n- of the future marker. (29) Ùn 2f ¡ ná Sέná 2f ¡ à máá yì Kút¡fnù égbè 1sg. say prep. Sena that 2sg. neg.-fut. go Cotonou today ‘I told Sena that you will not go to Cotonou today.’
Finally, the negative marker can also merge with both the first person clitic pronoun and the following future marker giving rise to the sequence màá in (30). (30) Màá yì Kút¡fnù égbè 1sg.neg.-fut. go Cotonou today ‘I will not go to Cotonou today.’
Assuming that such a merging process is typical of functional heads (e.g., clitics, determiners, auxiliaries), we conclude that the Gungbe INFL-related elements occurring between the subject and the verb are functional heads that project within the inflection system (Aboh 2004). Before moving on to discussing the various readings of mood markers in Gungbe, it is worth contextualizing our discussion with regard to work on modality in typologically different languages. As already observed in the literature (e.g., Abraham 2001, 2002, 2007) modal verbs in languages like Germanic
. Under Cinque (1999), one can claim that these functional heads lexicalize the same positions corresponding to the projections whose specifiers host phrasal adverbs in other languages. We hope to return to this issue in future work.
Tense, mood, and aspect in Gungbe (Kwa)
show a number of differences between deontic modals and epistemic modals. Abraham (2001: 12) claims that “the most important differences are the following ones. (i) Counter to deontic modal verbs (DMV), epistemic modal verbs (EMV) cannot occur in nonfinite environments – i.e. no epistemic reading emerges in embedded constructions; (ii) EMV cannot occur as full verbs; (iii) EMV cannot surface in illocutions other than declaratives; and, (iv), EMV do not take readings in perfective environments whereas DMV do.” In addition, it has been observed in the relevant literature that modal verbs in Germanic are raising verbs, and therefore involves modal verb raising, the latter may correlate with the fact that Germanic has V-to-I-to-C movement. Going back to the sequencing in (27), and considering Aboh’s (2004) discussion of Gbe, these languages differ from Germanic with regard to the latter two points which in turn may relate to the observed distinctions between DMV and EMV. Indeed, Gungbe has no auxiliary verb of the type have or be, the lexical verb does not move beyond the aspectual domain in Gbe, and the INFL-markers typically remain insensitive to syntactic operations such as movement. Furthermore, though Gungbe displays verb serialization, the language does not have restructuring structures of the Germanic type (Wurmbrand 2001) that are relevant to the discussion on modality in embedded contexts (see Aboh forthcoming for discussion). Finally, in embedded contexts involving full CPs, Gungbe displays the striking property that the CPs behave independently with regard to aspect marking, negation, as well as to scope marking. Since aspect is expressed by free morphemes and the verb is always bear, this property is not always easy to detect. However, a domain, where this becomes particularly clear is that of focusing: Unlike Romance and Germanic (Rizzi 1997), Gungbe freely allows simultaneous focus in the matrix and embedded clause, thus violating the often observed constraint of one focus per sentence. (31) [dìn trólóló dìn] wὲ ùn lὲn 2f ¡ [Dòsú] wὲ ná x¡f mótò lf¢ now immediately now foc. 1sg. think that Dosu foc. fut. buy car det. ‘Just now I thought that Dosu will buy the car.’
Given these major differences between Germanic and Gungbe, and for the sake of clarity, the ensuing discussion will mostly center around matrix clauses.
3. The interpretation of modality With this description in mind, we can now discuss the interpretation of the modal markers in Gungbe, that is, the mood marker ní-type2 and the modal auxiliaries sìgán and 2óná. We will use the typology of modality introduced in Van der Auwera & Plungian (1998), which assumes a basic distinction between root and epistemic modality. Epistemic modality relates to knowledge/information, whereas root modality refers to agents or actants of events. In this regard, root modality covers a wide range of
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different interpretations. One relevant interpretation for our discussion here concerns the distinction between participant-internal and participant-external modality. The first includes modals expressing the ability of an agent to perform a certain event, while the second deals with constraints that are imposed on the agent by external factors. In the latter case, we can distinguish two kinds of participant-external types: Deontic and goal-oriented modality. Following Lyons (1977), Palmer (2001), Van der Auwera & Plungian (1998), we assume deontic modality includes both permissions and obligations. As such it may involve interpretations such as preferences and norms (e.g., English should and ought to). Finally, goal-oriented modality is concerned with goals and the ways to achieve them. Figure 1 represents our description of modality in Gungbe. We call the reader’s attention on to the fact that following this representation, we use the term root to mean all branching modal meanings (i.e., participant internal/ external, goal oriented, deontic), while we reserve the term deontic specifically for permission, obligation and exhortative. Modality in Gungbe 3 Epistemic Root 3 Participant external Participant internal 3 Goal oriented Deontic Permission
Obligation
Exhortative
Figure 1. Modality in Gungbe.
3.1 Root modality An interesting fact about Gungbe is that both modal auxiliaries sìgán and 2óná express participant-internal and participant-external modality. As mentioned in previous sections, sìgán can be used to express ability (32a), but it can also encode participantexternal and epistemic modality, as in (32b). (32) a.
K¡fkú sìgán 2ú wè Koku can dance dance ‘Koku can dance.’
b. 2é àsì ét¡fn g¡f sf¢n tòmὲ dìn, K¡fkù sígán tò xwégbè as wife 3sg.poss. return from country now Koku can be home ‘Since his wife has now returned from abroad, Koku might be at home.’
Given our previous discussion with regard to the sequencing of tense, mood, and aspect markers in Gungbe, it is important to notice that when a sentence is of the type subject-MOD-verb-(object), as in (32) for instance, the default perfective reading
Tense, mood, and aspect in Gungbe (Kwa)
assigned to eventive verbs in simple SVO sentences is lost. In such a situation, the sentence is interpreted in present time. In order to express ability in the past, a time adverb (e.g., 2áyí ‘‘before’’) must be used (33). (33) 2áyí, K¡fkú sìgán n¡f kùn mótò, àmf¢ dìn é kò kpò gbáú before Koku can hab. drive car, but now 3sg. already old too.much ‘Previously, Koku could drive a car, but now he is too old.’
Finally, the negative sentence in (34), where the negative morpheme precedes and scopes over the modal auxiliary, indicates that participant-internal ability sometimes depends on participant-external circumstances. Indeed, the incapacity of the subjects/ agents of the matrix clause to perform the action is not due to their intrinsic competence (i.e., internal) but to an external factor, for example, a running tap. (34) Ní pf¢npì lf¢ tò kùnkùn lê, mí má sìgán wà àzf¢n lf¢ ní-type1 tap det. prog. run-run this.way.nr. 2pl. neg. can do job det. ‘If this tap keeps running this way, you cannot do the job.’
Similarly to sígán, the deontic modal auxiliary 2óná, which encodes goal oriented necessity or deontic necessity can also be used to express participant-internal necessity (involving a lack of control of the participant) as in (35). Here too, the insertion of this modal in an SVO sentence containing an event verb leads to the loss of the default perfective reading. Instead, what we get is some type of irrealis. (35) Ùn 2óná xú à2f¢ àmf¢n kpòn¡fn lf¢ gbέ 1sg. have.to eject urine but policeman det. refuse ‘I have to pee, but the policeman refused.’
Both modal auxiliaries can express participant-external modality. In this case, we observe that sìgán can be interpreted to express permission (i.e., it encodes deontic mood under figure 1). The relevant examples are in (36a–b). In sentence (36c), however, we obtain a goal-oriented interpretation. The sequence in parentheses provides the context. (36) a.
Tò sέn mít¡fn mὲ K¡fkú sìgán yì tomὲ prep. law 1pl.poss. in Koku can go country ‘According to our customs, Koku may go abroad.’
b. (Ní jíkùn jà) K¡fkú sígán g¡fn àzf¢n wà ní-type1 rain fall Koku can abstain work do ‘Koku may not work (if it rains).’ c.
Ní à jró ná wà àzf¢n, à sìgán yì x¡fgbónù ní-type1 2sg. want to do work 2sg. can go Porto Novo ‘If you want to work, you can go to Porto-Novo.’
The modal auxiliary 2óná expresses all the different notions of participant-external necessity: Deontic in (37a) and goal-oriented in (37b).
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(37) a.
Mὲ lέ kpó sín àf¡f 2óná s¡f.gbè person pl. all poss. foot must be.ready ‘Everyone has to (must) come.’
b. Ní à jró ná wà àzf¢n, à 2óná yì x¡fgbónù ní-type1 2sg. want to do work 2sg. must go Porto Novo ‘If you want to work, you must go to Porto-Novo.’
In fact, the meaning of 2óná is best understood when contrasted with the meaning of deontic ní-type2 introduced previously. An opposition between these two modal elements indicates that the modal auxiliary implies a stronger deontic interpretation than the marker (Aboh 2006): (38) a. Súrù 2óná là àwú Suru have.to wash body ‘Suru must take a shower.’ [context: It’s been sometime he hasn’t done so and now he has no other choice, he must do it.] b. Súrù ní yì là àwú bò jó gò yíyí dó Suru ní-type2 go wash body and leave body praise prep. ‘Suru should go take a shower and stop boasting.’ [context: Suru is boasting around playing the dandy, and some girl suggests, ‘let him know he should take a shower’.]
Though there is a clear contrast between 2óná and ní-type2 in terms of deontic strength, 2óná does not systematically imply a strong deontic interpretation. In the following examples where we have a dialogue between mother and son over a visit; (39a) is more a suggestion than a requirement. Accordingly, this sentence is easily followed by (39b). (39) a.
2ĕ mì tè dìn mì má 2óná zé àlìò gà énὲ as 2pl. be now, 2pl. neg. have.to take road long dem. ‘Given your present state, you should not undertake such a long journey.’
b. àmf¢ mì sìgán wá ní mì jró but 2pl. can come ní-type1 2pl. want ‘But you can if you want to.’
Even though one may imagine a situation where 2óná is interpreted as ‘‘must’’ in a situation like (39a), such interpretation would make the follow up in (39b) rather odd (or a contradiction). On the contrary, (39b) appears a felicitous follow up if 2óná is interpreted as ‘‘should’’ in (39a). In this case, (39a) expresses the speakers’ opinion that her mother should not take the risk of traveling, but (39b) adds that this choice is hers. Therefore the interpretation of 2óná as ‘‘must’’ versus ‘‘should’’ is sensitive to the speakers’ authority on the recipient/addressee.
Tense, mood, and aspect in Gungbe (Kwa)
Figure 2 is an attempt to represent the contrast in meaning between ní-type2 and 2óná where the Y-axis represents deontic strength from weak to strong, while the X-axis represents discourse contexts from neutral to more specific (e.g., social authority, age difference). It appears there that the default interpretation of ní-type2 (i.e., in a neutral context) is weak deontic necessity (English should), but this meaning can be strengthened in specific contexts to a strong deontic reading as English must. The opposite is true of 2óná. Its default interpretation is strong deontic necessity (English must) but the context can soften it to a weak reading as example (39) shows. Modality strength Strong -
ní-type2
ɖ óná
Weak Default
Specific Discourse context (e.g., social authority, age difference cf. 39)
Figure 2. Interpretation range of ní-type2 and 2óná in discourse context.
Given this description, we tentatively assume that the precise interpretation of these items is context dependent (to some extent). In the situation under (39), the mother versus son relation has the effect of forcing a weak interpretation of 2óná. Maintaining a strong interpretation in such context would have required a reinforcing adverb like dàndàn ‘‘obligatorily’’. Another fact that is worth mentioning now is that the subject of a deontic modal sentence is not necessarily the recipient of the obligation or permission. In (40a), where a dean and a secretary prepare a list of participants for a conference, the expressed obligation is not directed to the students. Instead, what is meant here is that the secretary has to ensure that all students come. The examples in (40b–c) which combine a modal auxiliary and a resultative state VP further support this description. It is clear from these examples that the expressed obligation and permission are meant for discourse agents not expressed in the clause. (40) a.
Wéx¡fmέví lέ kpó 2óná wá student pl. all have.to come ‘All the students have to come.’
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b. H¡fn lf¢ 2óná n¡f súsú door det. have.to remain close.close ‘The door must be closed.’ c.
H¡fn lf¢ sìgán n¡f súsú door det. can/may remain close.close ‘The door can/may be closed.’
Having discussed root modality in Gungbe (Figure 1), we now consider epistemic modality.
3.2 Epistemic modality With regard to epistemic modality in Gungbe, this section only discusses the two modal auxiliaries presented previously: 2óná and sìgán. The main reason for focusing on these two is that it appears from our current understanding that ní-type2 does not participate in epistemic modality but is only used to encode deontic modality. In addition to their root readings, 2óná and sìgán display an epistemic interpretation. As should be expected, the modal sìgán has an epistemic possibility interpretation whereas 2óná gets a necessity reading. The following examples illustrate this with the modal sìgán. The context relevant for (41a) could be one whereby speakers are talking about Kf¡kú who they have not seen often lately and one of the participants suggests that he might have returned to Europe. Example (41b) involves a similar context where Dosa is a baby having difficulties with walking and a visitor comments over his health conditions saying that he might eventually stand and walk.7 (41) a.
K¡fkú sìgán kò lέk¡f yì yòvótòmὲ Koku can already return go Europe ‘Koku may have already returned to Europe.’
b. Dòsà sìgán wá ff¢n fὲὲ Dosa can come stand prt. ‘Dosa might finally stand up (at some point).’
Although previous discussion suggests that 2óná essentially encodes strong deontic modality (e.g., Aboh 2006) the following examples indicate that it may have an epistemic interpretation in the appropriate context.8
. The same sequences with ní-type2 would be ungrammatical with the intended meaning. . It is not necessary for 2óná to be embedded under a verb of saying or an evidential verb (e.g., seem) to force the meaning in (42).
(42) a.
Tense, mood, and aspect in Gungbe (Kwa)
2é yé m¡fn 2éxè x¡f lf¢ mὲ wé dó, As 3pl. see how room det. in white way,
yé lìn 2f ¡ mὲ 2é 2óná n¡f dó flέn dàndàn. 3pl. think that person det. must hab. sleep there certainly ‘As they saw how clean the room was, they thought someone must have been sleeping there.’ b. é 2ì ná mì 2f ¡ mlàhó yét¡fn 2óná g¡f 3sg. seem to me that brother 3pl.poss. must return ú wὲ zf¢n b¡f yé tò àwá 2ó 3sg. foc. make and 3pl. prog. happiness have ‘It seems to me that their brother must return soon, which is why they are happy.’
We observe from both examples that the modal auxiliary 2óná can express epistemic modality in addition to plain strong deontic modality. What appears from this description is that though Gungbe involves distinct modal auxiliaries to encode capacity and deontic modality, these elements can encode epistemic modality in the appropriate context. A last issue that we now turn to is the interaction between the modal auxiliaries and aspect in Gungbe.
3.3 Interaction with aspect As we have suggested previously, not much is known as to the properties of modal elements in Gungbe and their interaction with other tense and aspect markers, which are also represented in this language in the form of various markers. In this section, we limit ourselves to a mere description of the facts (sometimes pointing to certain theoretical implications). Given the sequence in (27), where tense, mood, and aspect expressions occur in distinct domains, Gungbe represents counter evidence to the view that (deontic) modals merge as Asp (e.g., Van Gelderen 2004). Instead, the Gungbe data suggest that modals come in two types: Those that precede the subject, and realize the C-domain (Aboh 2006), and those that follow. The latter head their own projections within the IP-domain and precede the aspect markers.
3.3.1 The interaction with perfective aspect The ensuing discussion further indicates an intriguing interaction between modals and aspect expressions in Gungbe. Recall from previous discussion that the merge of a modal in a simple SVO sentence with an eventive verb cancels the default perfective reading, the resulting situation being a sentence that is ambiguous with respect to tense and may encode root deontic and epistemic reading depending on context.
Enoch O. Aboh & Fabrice Nauze
The examples in (43) illustrate this situation with the modal sìgán ‘‘can’’. Sentence (43a) is interpreted as perfective by default, and the event is set in the past. Sentence (43b) on the other hand includes the modal auxiliary and implies capacity by default, though it has no proper time specification. The sentence is ambiguous with a present or past reading, though the former is the preferred choice in absence of any further specification. In order to get a past reading only, a time adjunct is needed as in (43c). (43) a.
Súrù kù mótò Suru drive car ‘Suru has driven a car [i.e., he drove a car].’
b. Súrù sìgán kù mótò Suru can drive car ‘Suru can drive a car [i.e., he is able].’ or
‘Suru could drive a car.’
c.
Xwè 2ě wá yì éhè, Súrù kò sígán fó àzf¢n lf¢, year that pass go this, Suru already can finish work det.
à2í2f ¡ wὲ dó tùklá ná έ laziness foc. make trouble for 3sg. ‘Suru could have finished this job last year, but he was lazy.’
A point that further underlies the ambiguity of (43b) is that it can encode epistemic and deontic meaning depending on the discourse context. Consider the examples in (44a–b). (44) a.
Xwè 2ě é 2ó dìn, Súrù sìgán nù bíà age that 3sg. have now Suru can drink beer ‘Given his age, Suru may drink beer.’ [deontic: permission]
b. Súrù kò bí gbáú, é má kplf¢n as already intelligent too.much 3sg. neg. learn
wé letter
àmf¢n é sìgán dín ná bákù gànjí but 3sg. can pass for baccalauréat very.well ‘Suru is too intelligent, he did not prepare for the exam but he may very well pass.’ [epistemic]
On the basis of examples (43) and (44), we may conclude that a bare sentence that has the sequence subject-sìgán-verb-(Object) is ambiguous between an ability reading, as well as permission, participant goal oriented (35c), and epistemic readings. In addition, perfective aspect is blocked and the sentence has no proper tense/time specification, the latter is determined on context.
Tense, mood, and aspect in Gungbe (Kwa)
3.3.2 The interaction with imperfective aspect Though not immediately clear, the observed ambiguity for bare modal sentences (i.e., subject-MOD-verb-(object)) points to the observation already mentioned in the literature (e.g., Abraham 2002) that modals combine with perfective to encode root modal meaning and with imperfective to encode epistemic meaning. Indeed, while the discussed interaction with perfective aspect creates ambiguity, the merge of the habitual and progressive markers reduces ambiguity. Out of the blue, example (43b) is interpreted as encoding ability although a more specific context (as described in figure 2) can enforce a deontic or epistemic reading. Yet, the merge of the habitual marker triggers participant-external possibility or epistemic reading only. The capacity meaning appears unnatural or ungrammatical in this context as further illustrated in (45c–d). Still in all these examples, the habitual marker has scope over the VP. (45)
Súrù sìgán n¡f kùn mótò yì wéx¡fmὲ Suru can hab. drive car go school a. ‘Suru may habitually drive to school.’ [deontic] b. ‘Suru might well be driving to school.’ [epistemic] c. ??‘Suru is habitually able to drive to school.’ d. **‘Suru is able to habitually drive to school.’
A similar situation is found with the progressive marker as indicated by the following examples: (46)
Súrù sìgán tò mótò kùn yì wéx¡fmὲ Suru can prog. car drive go school a. ‘Suru may be driving to school.’ [deontic] b. ‘Suru might be driving to school.’ [epistemic] c. ??‘Suru is able to driving to school.’
Finally, combining the habitual and the progressive markers does not change the situation: (47)
Súrù sìgán n¡f tò mótò kùn yì wéx¡fmὲ Suru can hab. prog. car drive go school a. ‘Suru may be habitually driving to school.’ [deontic] b. ‘Suru might be usually driving to school.’ [epistemic] c. ??‘Suru is able to usually driving to school.’
It therefore appears in these examples that the imperfective aspect markers (i.e., progressive, habitual) have the property of enhancing the deontic and epistemic sides of the modal auxiliary sìgán, while blocking the capacity/ability reading.
Enoch O. Aboh & Fabrice Nauze
3.3.3 State verbs The situation here is parallel with event verbs combined with imperfective though the examples are often not natural. In sentences (48a–b) where no aspect marker is realized, only deontic and epistemic readings are available. It is possible to force the capacity reading under very special circumstances (e.g., someone evaluating Suru’s aptitudes in business and issuing a final report). (48) a.
Súrù n¡f wà àzf¢n tàùn, dìn é sìgán 2ó kw¿7 Suru hab. do work a.lot now 3sg. can have money ‘Suru works a lot. He may now have money on his own.’ [deontic]
b. Súrù n¡f wà àzf¢n tàùn, dìn é sìgán 2ó kw¿7 Suru hab. do work a.lot now 3sg. can have money b¡f mí má nyf¢-ὲ and 2pl. neg. know-3sg. ‘Suru works a lot. He might now have money without us knowing.’ [epistemic]
Though state verbs can combine with the progressive marker in Gungbe (48a), a combination of progressive and the modal marker yields a grammatical but very unnatural result with an epistemic reading. (49) Súrù n¡f wà àzf¢n tàùn, dìn é sìgán tò kwέ 2ó Suru hab. do work a.lot now 3sg. can prog. money have b¡f mí má nyf¢-ὲ and 2pl. neg. know-3sg. ??‘Suru works a lot. He might now be having money without us knowing.’ [epistemic]
Participant internal reading aside, the situation is similar with the modal auxiliary 2óná, but differs from that of ní-type2, which maintains its deontic interpretation as well as its scope properties over aspect in all contexts. Table 1 below summarizes our findings for these modal elements in Gungbe matrix clause. With this table in mind, let us now consider the following three predictions by Abraham (2007: 3): (50) a. Perfective aspect is compatible with root modality. b. Imperfective aspect is compatible with epistemic modality. c. Clausal Neg+perfective aspect yields epistemic modality as opposed to positive declarative perfective aspect, which yields root modality.
With regard to predication (50a), we showed that perfective aspect in Gungbe requires a bare VP. Associated with the modal auxiliaries such bare VPs yield root modality by default though they are also compatible with epistemic modality in some contexts. Prediction (50b) is less straightforward. Though both modal auxiliaries allow root and
Tense, mood, and aspect in Gungbe (Kwa)
Table 1. Modal elements in Gungbe matrix clause ní
Bare VP Deontic Habitual VP Deontic
2óná
sígán
Deontic Epistemic (context) Participant internal Deontic Epistemic (context)
Ability Deontic/Epistemic (context) *Ability Deontic/Epistemic (context) *Ability Deontic/Epistemic (context)
Progressive VP/ Deontic Deontic State verbs Epistemic (context)
epistemic modalities when combined with imperfective aspect, the effects are different. With 2óná, participant-internal modality is blocked, but deontic modality remains the default even though epistemic modality is also allowed on context. The modal auxiliary sígán displays a different property. Combined with imperfective aspects it loses participant-internal modality and there seems to be no default interpretation. Here both deontic and epistemic seem to be readily possible. Finally, Gungbe is neutral with regard to prediction (50c) since the intervention of negation does not seem to change the different interpretative possibilities. Indeed the sentences in (51) show that both deontic and epistemic readings are possible even with the intervention of negation. (51) a.
Súrù sìgán kùn mótò Suru can drive car ‘Suru can drive my car.’ [ability] ‘Suru is allowed to drive my car.’ [permission] ‘Suru might drive my car.’ [epistemic]
cè 1sg.poss.
b.
Súrù má sìgán kùn mótò cè Suru neg. can drive car 1sg.poss. ‘Suru can not drive my car.’ [ability] ‘Suru is not allowed to drive my car.’ [permission] ‘Suru might not drive my car.’ [epistemic]
While our findings show that the Gungbe facts are compatible with (50) to some extents, they also suggest that under appropriate context, one reading may be favored over the other.
4. Conclusion This paper is the first attempt to understand the interaction between tense, mood, and aspect markers in Gungbe, a Gbe language of the Kwa family. The discussion shows
Enoch O. Aboh & Fabrice Nauze
that, in this language family, INFL-related expressions are free morphemes, referred to as markers, which head their own projections within the IP domain. As such, these markers can combine to form complex tense, aspect, and mood sequences. With regard to modality, we show that there are two types of mood expressions in Gungbe: Modal markers, which realize the C-domain, and modal auxiliaries, which we argue realize the IP domain. It is further shown that the interaction between modal auxiliaries and aspect in Gungbe leads to a situation where modal auxiliaries block perfective aspect, while imperfective markers (i.e., habitual, progressive) have the property to enhance the deontic and epistemic readings of the modal auxiliaries.
References Aboh, Enoch O. 2004. The morphosyntax of complement-head sequences: Clause structure and word order patterns in Kwa. Oxford: OUP. Aboh, Enoch O. 2006. Complementation in Saramaccan and Gungbe: The case of C-type modal particles. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 24(1), 1–55. Aboh, Enoch O. (forthcoming). Clause structure and verb series. To appear in Linguistic Inquiry. Abraham, Werner. 2001. Modals: Toward explaining the ‘epistemic non-finiteness gap’. In Reimar Müller & Marga Reis (Eds), Modalität und Modalverben im Deutschen (pp. 7–36). Hamburg: Buske. [Linguistische Berichte Sonderheft 9]. Abraham, Werner. 2002. Modal verbs. Epistemics in German and English. In Sjef Barbiers, Frits Beukema & Wim van der Wurff (Eds), Modality and its interaction with the verbal system (pp. 19–50). Amsterdam: Benjamins. [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 47]. Abraham, Werner. 2007. On the logic of generalizations about cross-linguistic aspect-modality links. Ms. Wien. Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. [Current studies in linguistics series 28]. Chomsky, Noam. 2001. Derivation by phase. In Michael Kenstowicz (Ed.), Ken Hale: A life in languages (pp. 1–52). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. [Current studies in linguistics series 36]. Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and functional heads. A cross-linguistic perspective. Oxford: OUP. [Oxford studies in comparative syntax]. Essegbey, James. 1999. Inherent complement verbs revisited: Towards an understanding of argument structure in Ewe. Wageningen: Ponsen & Looijen. [MPI series in psycholinguistics 10]. Lefebvre, Claire & Anne-Marie Brousseau. 2002. A grammar of Fongbe. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Mouton grammar library 25]. Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics. Cambridge: CUP. Palmer, Frank R. 2001. Mood and modality. Cambridge: CUP. [Cambridge textbooks in linguistics]. Van der Auwera, Johan & Vladimir A. Plungian. 1998. Modality’s semantic map. Linguistic Typology, 2, 79–124. Van Gelderen, Elly. 2004. Grammaticalization as economy. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 71].
Tense, mood, and aspect in Gungbe (Kwa)
Stewart, Osamuyimen Thompson. 1998. The Serial Verb Construction Parameter. Ph.D. dissertation, McGill University, Montréal. Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. In Liliane M. Haegeman (Ed.), Elements of grammar (pp. 281–337). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Wurmbrand, Susanne. 2001. Infinitives. Restructuring and clause structure. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Studies in generative grammar 55].
The modal system of the Igbo language Chinedu Uchechukwu LMU München
In spite of the number of studies on mood and modality in Igbo, it is mainly the category of mood that can be found in most grammar books of the language, both old and new. This state of affairs could be as a result of the lack of a morphosyntactic systematization of modality that is comparable to the works on mood in the language; but it could also be as a result of the under-analysis of the verbal morphology of the language in relation to modality. This paper is an initial effort at such systematization. The focus is on the use of such verb morphologyrelated structures as single root verbs like -tósí “should/ought to”, verb+NP verbal structures lke -nwé íké “can”, and verbal suffixes like _nwu “able” and -rí.rí. “compulsion” for the expression of modality in the Igbo language. The use of these structures to cover the whole spectrum of deontic and epistemic meanings argues for their recognition as constituting the verb morphology-related modal system of the language. This attribute also distinguishes them from the modal particles and other structures that have been categorized as “periphrastic forms” (Igwe 1987; Nwigwe 2003) but which are here categorized as “peripheral modals”, because they can only be used to express mainly epistemic but not deontic modal meanings. A further attribute of the identified core structures of the Igbo modal system is some level of interaction with aspect that is comparable to that confirmed in Abraham (2001, 2002), whereby the deontic meanings tend to coalesce with perfective aspect, while epistemic meanings tend to coalesce with imperfective aspect. This quality of a systematic interaction of the modal meanings with aspect, which cannot be confirmed for the “peripheral modals”, further strengthens the conclusion that the identified verbs and affixes constitute the core of the Igbo modal system.
1. Introduction Just like in any other language, there are various periphrastic expressions in Igbo for the expression of a modal meaning such as deductive possibility. Some of the Igbo expressions include, íké kwé “probably; may be” (literal: “if power agrees”), élēghí ányá
. I am grateful to Elisabeth Leiss, Werner Abraham, and the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. Any errors remain mine.
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“probably” (literal: “without looking”), and chumo, which Igwe calls a “modal particle” and explains as “expressing uncertainty, doubt or wondering” (Igwe 1999: 116). These and similar structures do form part of the modal system of the Igbo language, but they are distinct from the “modal verbs” and other verb morphology related structures that make up the core of the modal system of the language. The main endeavour in this paper is to achieve some minimal systematisation. This introductory section first gives a general overview of some relevant structures of the Igbo language before presenting the view of modality on which the paper is based.
1.1 A sketch of some relevant Igbo structures Although the presentation in this section is of a general nature, it suffices to introduce the aspects of the Igbo language that are relevant for the issues to be addressed in the subsequent sections of the paper. Ìgbò is spoken as a first language in the southeastern states of Nigeria and in the local government areas of some neighbouring states. The population of the native speakers has been estimated to be between 15 million (Williamson & Emenanjọ 1992) and 20 to 25 million (Eze & Manfredi 2001; Igboanusi & Peter 2005: 59). The language belongs to the Niger-Congo language family, where it has further been classified as belonging to the West Benue-Congo family (Williamson & Blench 2000). It is a tone language and the tone bearing units are the syllabic, which can be a vowel or a syllabic nasal. Two tones are recognized, a high tone and a low tone; also recognized is an additional tonal phenomenon known as the Downstep. The tone marking symbols on the tone bearing units are the acute accent [ ´] for the high tone, the grave accent [ `] for the low tone, and the macron [-] for the downstep. This is the system adopted by the majority of the Igbo linguists in Nigeria. (1) High égwú “dance”
Low ụ` d`ọ “rope”
Downstep ńkí.tā “dog”
. I try not to go further, especially where I either do not have knowledge of the other languages that are related to Igbo, or there is some disagreement on whether the languages belong to the same language family. The quotation below from Manfredi & Eze (2001) may give the reader an idea of the flux in the issue of language family: “Igbo belongs to the Niger-Congo family. Greenberg (1963) classified it in the Kwa group along with six other big clusters: Akan, Gbè, Yoruba-Igala, Nupe-Ebira, Edo and Idoma. Williamson (1989) redrew this picture, reducing “Kwa” to Akan and Gbè, and shifting the rest including Igbo to an enlarged “Benue-Congo” group (the aggregate that includes Bantu).” (Manfredi & Eze 2001: 322) The other alternative would be to simply adopt the approach of calling one of the peripheral dialects of Igbo a language and additionally describing it as belonging to the same language family as Igbo. This is a more recent approach and gives the impression of a certain progress in research. But I prefer to remain on more familiar grounds.
The model system of the Igbo language
The lexical tones of the above words are two high tones for the first word, two low tones for the second, and a combination of two high tones and one downstep for the third. The lexical tones can also change in usage to acquire what is called grammatical tones. For example, the lexical high tone of the third person pronoun ó. “he/she/it”, changes to a low tone in an interrogative sentence: (2) a. Ó. nà- àbí.á. he aux-prog come-part ‘He is coming.’ b. Ó. nà- àbí.á? he aux-prog come-part ‘Is he coming?’
In terms of its verb morphology, the language has a CV root system as in the verbs -nyé “give”, -hụ¢ “see”, -bà “enter”, and -bì “press”. These verbs are without their infinitive markers, and as such are in their citation forms. The infinitive markers are the high tone vowels 〈í〉 and 〈í.〉, which are prefixed to the CV roots in line with the vowel harmony rule. The harmony rule operates as follows. The 8 vowels of the language are divided into two harmony groups, distinguished on the basis of the Advanced Tongue Root (ATR) phenomenon: Table 1. The two vowel harmony groups −ATR
ị [I]
ụ [ ]
a [a]
ọ [f]
+ATR������������������������� ������������������������ i [i] u [u] e [e]������ ����� o [o]
An infinitive marker can only combine with verbs for which the root vowel belongs to its harmony group. For example, the high tone wide vowel, 〈í〉, can only function as the infinitive marker of verbs for which the root vowels belong to the [+ATR] group. The high tone verb -nyé “give”, for example, with root vowel belonging to this group, combines with the infinitive marker 〈í〉, with the effect of downstepping the root’s high tone, resulting in the infinitive form ínyē “to give”. In a similar manner, the high tone narrow vowel, 〈í.〉, can only function as the infinitive marker of verbs with [-ATR] root vowel, like -hụ¢ “see”, which similarly downsteps the high tone root to í.hụ¢
. The abbreviations used in the paper are: aux → Auxiliary; prog → Progressive; fut → Future; part → Participle; dir → Directional; prf → Prefix; obl → Obligation; comp → Compulsion; det → Determiner; prep → Preposition; inch→ Inchoative; perf→ Perfective; hab → Habitual; imperf → Imperfective; incept →Inceptive; and -rV-suffix. The -rV-suffix is an inflectional suffix; the “v” is either a copy of the last vowel of the verb, or the copy of the last vowel of the (last) suffix attached to the verb root.
Chinedu Uchechukwu
“to see”. This downstepping of the root tone through the infinitive marker is normal with high tone verbs; low tone verb roots retain their low tone in such combinations. For example, the combination of the infinitive marker 〈í.〉 with the low tone verb root -bà “enter” gives rise to í. bà “to enter”, while the combination of the high tone infinitive marker, 〈í 〉 with the low tone verb root -bì “press” gives rise to íbì “to press”. In addition to the above-named simplex roots, two other verb forms are the compound verb and the verb+NP/PP structure. Two paths are involved in the formation of verb compounds. The first is through the simple combination of two verb roots, as in nyé “give” + -fè “go beyond” → -nyéfè “give beyond (an understood limit)”; the infinitive form is ínyēfè. The second path involves the combination of a verb root with a suffix, as in -kụ´ “hit” + -tá “dir” → -kụ´tá “hit at/on”; the infinitive is í.kụ¿tá “to hit at/on”. The verb+NP/pp structure is the most predominant verbal structure of the language. It involves the combination of a single verb root with various nouns or prepositional phrases to form what is often expressed with a single morpheme in a European language. Two examples of the verb+NP structures are -gbá ó.só. “run” and -gbá égwú “dance”, while an example of the verb+PP structure is -gbá n’èzí “lay about”. These verb+NP/PP structures have been described as a verbal complex (Emenanjọ 1975) or inherent complement verb (Nwachukwu 1987), and have been compared with the German Funktionsverbgefüge (Uchechukwu 2006). The NP/PP complement is designated the inherent complement of the verb. In terms of the verb’s inflectional morphology, suffixes are used in the language to mark tense, aspect, and negation (Emenanjọ 1991: 129), but only some features of tense and aspect shall be summarized in this section. Before that, however, some comments are necessary on the classification of suffixes in the language. The suffixes have traditionally been divided into inflectional and extensional suffixes in line with the general classification in African language studies. For Emenanjọ (1982), the extensional suffixes are meaning modifiers because “they extend the meanings of the verbs to which they are affixed” (Emenanjọ 1982: 143). One of such extensional suffixes identified by the author is _we/_wa “inchoative/continuative”, which is also used in line with the vowel harmony. Its combination with the verbs -nyé “give” and -hụ¢ “see” is realized as ínyēwé “to start giving” and í.hụ¿wá “to start seeing” respectively. The aspectual role of this suffix in the modification of the modal meanings of some Igbo modal verbs shall be discussed in section 3 below. For the inflectional suffixes, the more recent approach is to divide them into tense and aspect markers. The two most recent general classifications of tense and aspect in the language are Williamson (1982) and Emenanjọ (1991). Williamson (1982) divides tense into simple past tense, future tense, simple progressive, and neutral tense, whereby all the forms the author discusses under aspect are in the neutral tense. Emenanjọ (1991) divides tense into simple past tense, simple future tense, and simple past-in-the-future tense. Both authors use explicit cross-dialectal morphological markers for their categorizations,
The model system of the Igbo language
but only the simple past and the simple future shall be summarized here because of their relevance to the topic of this paper. The simple past is realized in the northern Ọnicha dialect with the suffix, _bu “before a point in time in the past”, but in other dialects (including Standard Igbo) with the -rV-suffix:
(3) a.
Úchè rì–ì-rì ńrí áhụ`. Uche eat-(r)V-rV food det ‘Uche had eaten that food.’
b. Úchè rì-bù-rù ńrí áhụ`. Uche eat-past-rV-past food det ‘Uche had eaten that food.’
In (3a) the consonant of the first -rV-suffix could be dropped in the dialects that use it; but the second -rV-suffix is mandatory. The temporal reference of the first -rV-suffix in such dialects is realized as _bu in O.nicha.
(4)
a.
Simple future tense Úchè gà- í.bị-á échí. Uche aux-fut to.come tomorrow ‘Uche is going to come tomorrow.’
b. Úchè gà- àbí.á échí. Uche aux-fut come-part tomorrow ‘Uche will come tomorrow.’
c.
Úchè gà- m ´ bịá échí. Uche aux-fut come-obl tomorrow ‘Uche will certainly come tomorrow.’
As a result of tonal inflection the auxiliary -gá is realized as -gà in all of the above sentences; the modified verb in all three sentences is -bí.á “come” [→ í.b.ī á “to come”]. In (4a) this verb is realized in the infinitive, in (4b) in the simple participle [usually formed through prefixing the low tone vowel à/è to the verb root in line with the harmony rule]; and in (4c) it is realized in the emphatic participle [formed through prefixing of the nasal consonant m ´ to the verb root]. With regard to the aspectual system of the language, Emenanjọ (1978: 166f.) noted the fact that there are specific suffixes in the language that mark duration, hence underlining the need to differentiate between the aspectual nature of such suffixes from tense. In a later re-examination of the phenomenon, Emenanjọ (1991) is of the view that Aspect is marked in the language through the use of auxiliaries, inflectional suffixes and tonal morphemes. I shall summarize this later approach, which shall also be taken into consideration in the examination of the interaction of modality and aspect in the subsequent sections of the paper. The approach is in line with the two
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dimensional perfective and imperfective traditional approach to aspect (Sasse 2002). Emenanjọ (1978) divides aspect in Igbo into completive and non-completive, whereby the non-completive is further divided into the neutral, inceptive/continuative, and imperfective. The imperfective is then sub-divided into the habitual and the durative. Emenanjọ’s (1978) completive has also been identified as “perfect tense” in various accounts (Swift et al. 1962; Abraham 1967), but Emenanjọ chose to call it the “perfective” as a way of distinguishing it from the perfect tense (Emenanjọ 1978: 179f.). The later choice of “completive” (Emenanjọ 1991) is based on the fact that the completive involves both the past/completion of the event as well as the present relevance of the event. According to Emenanjo, the completives can either express an experiential or indefinite perfect as in (5a) or the continuing relevance/present state of some past situation as in (5b): (5) a.
Nwátā à à - zụ - ó. lá ákwụkwó. child det pref-buy-perf book ‘This child has bought that book’.
áhụ¢. det
b. Nwátā à à - má - álá m ´ mā. child det pref-verb-perf beautiful ‘This child has become beautiful’.
The non-completive neutral, on the other hand, applies to a specific subclass of stative verbs including copulas, locative, motion, verbs of possession, and manner. It is made up of two groups. The first group expresses the non-completive with ø-morpheme: (6) a.
Àdá bụ¡ nwáàny . Ada be woman ‘Ada is a woman’.
b. Àdá n`ọ n’ụ´l`ọ. Ada be prep house ‘Ada is at home’.
. What in the following sentences are marked as perf have been marked completive, as a way of differentiating his completive from the non-completive. This terminological issue needs to be addressed somewhere else. I shall maintain the gloss of perf for consistency. . It is not clear why Emenanjọ (1991) chose the term ‘neutral’, but the suspicion is that the inflection of these verbs do not easily fit into the completive/non-completive division, i.e., they are neutral to the division. . The verbs íbụ- “to be”, ínọ` “to be at [+ animate]” and í.d-ị “to be” are the three copula verbs of the language with peculiar complementation patterns (Uchechukwu 2007).
c.
The model system of the Igbo language
Àdá nwé égō. Ada have money ‘Ada has money’.
Sentence (6c) has a dialect variation of the verb -nwé “own/possess”. It shall be seen in section 3 below that this verb is inflected with an -rV-stative suffix in Standard Igbo. The second group of the non-completive neutral gets an -rV-suffix that varies in meaning, depending on whether it is attached to a stative or an active verb. For example, the -rV-suffix has a past-time reading for active verbs as in (7a), and a timeless reading for stative verbs as in (7b): (7) a.
Àdá jè - rè Àbá ùnyàáhù. Ada go-rV-past Aba yesterday ‘Ada went to Aba yesterday’.
b. Àdá mà - rà m ´ mā. Ada verb-rV-stative beauty ‘Ada is beautiful’.
Emenanjọ’s (1991) example of the non-completive inceptive/continuative aspect is the harmonizing suffix _wá/_wé. The author also notes the relative freedom of this suffix in its combination with the imperative (8a), the completive (8b) and the simple participle in (8c): (8) a.
Jè - wé! go-imp-incep ‘Begin to go (and continue).’
b. ó. bí.á - wá - lá. he come-incep-perf ‘He has begun to come’. c. Á gà - èdé - wé yā étú à. ������� people aux-keep-part-incept it way det ‘People will keep it this way.’ (→ “It is to be kept this way.”)
There is definitely a need to examine the nature of this suffix in detail, because it has also been counted as an extensional suffix (Emenanjọ 1982: 144–147), although Williamson (1972: liv) identifies it as an aspectual suffix. It is important to note its role in aspect, as it shall be taken up in a later section. Finally, the sentences below are examples of the imperfective aspect constructions and the auxiliaries involved: (9) a.
Ó jì - àzụ¢ áhí.á. he aux-hab- sell-part market ‘He is a trader.’ [→ “He buys and sells.”]
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b. Ó. zụ¢ - gá áhí.á ùgbú à. he sell-dur market now det ‘He is buying and selling right now.’ c.
àzú áhí.á. Ó. nà- he aux-imperf- sell-part market ‘He is a trader.’ [→“He buys and sells.”]
d. Ó. nà- àzú áhí.á úgbù a. he aux-imperf- sell-part market presently det ‘He is buying and selling right now.’
There is a cross-dialectal variation here. In sentence (9a) for example, the auxiliary -jì is used in Òwèrè dialect to mark habitual, and the suffix _ga is used to mark the durative. But in some other dialects, including Standard Igbo, the auxiliary -nà is used to mark both, as in (9c) and (9d). Finally, the above summary of tense and aspect in the language is really sketchy, but it cannot be otherwise without distracting from the focus of this paper. It shall be seen that modality in the language is part of the verbal morphology of the language, the same way that tense and aspect are expressed through definite morphemes attached to the modified verbs.
1.2 The issue of modality The points to be clarified in this section are the approach adopted in analysing the Igbo modal structures, the connection with the more recent issue of the future-projecting nature of deontic modals, and the deontic-epistemic effects of some of the Igbo suffixes. The traditional bipartite division into deontic or “root” and epistemic modality shall be adopted in the discussion of the identified Igbo modal structures. The further terminological issues of agent-orientation of modality (Bybee & Pagliuca 1985; Heine 1995) or volition and speaker-orientation (Narrog 2005) shall not be addressed, because they belong to the further ramifications of modality which are better pursued after confirming the bi-partite deontic and epistemic meanings of the core modal structures of the language. Deontic or root modality involves a conditioning factor/authority that is external to the relevant individual and can include the speaker; such factors are obligation, compulsion or permission emanating from some external source. The Igbo data also indicates the need for such an internal factor as ability to belong to this group. In epistemic modality, on the other hand, speakers express their judgments about the factual status of a proposition or their confidence in the truth of what they are saying, and this could be speculative, deductive, or assumptive (Coates 1983: 8–21; Palmer 2001: 8–10). These two basic assumptions on modality shall guide the discussion of the structures and the sentences in the sections below. The second issue that shall also be touched upon in the course of examining the bi-partite modal function of the identified Igbo structures is the future-projecting
The model system of the Igbo language
attributes of deontic/root modality and the non-temporal reference of epistemic modality. According to Abraham (2001: 22, 2002) and Ziegeler (2006), epistemic meanings lack a future time reference in their meanings. Ziegeler (this volume) describes this attribute of future time reference as the future-projecting meaning of root/ deontic modals. According to Leiss (this volume) it is this future-projecting attribute that all root modals have in common, because they “denote actions which unfold in the future and which are not yet realized at utterance time” (Leiss, this volume, p. 18). It shall be seen that the identified Igbo modal structures not only express the bi-partite deontic and epistemic meanings, their deontic meanings also have future-projecting attributes, while their epistemic meanings lack a similar time reference. It is also often the case that the presence or absence of some Igbo suffixes do contribute to whether the meaning of the Igbo modal structures is deontic or epistemic. Such suffixes have what Leiss (1992: 40) calls aspect affinity, which means the ability to express either the perfective or the imperfective aspect. For example, for the already identified inchoative/continuative suffix pair _wá/_wé, this means it’s being able to express only one of these perspectives in its meanings and also add such a perspective to the event expressed by any verb it modifies. The presence of such suffixes with a perfective/completive meaning in modal constructions tends to add a deontic meaning to the modified event, while their absence results in an epistemic meaning. This systematic effect can only strengthen the conclusion that the identified Igbo structures constitute the modal system of the Igbo language. The phenomenon merits a detailed, corpus-based and cross-dialectal analysis that goes beyond the goal of this paper. As such, it can only be briefly touched upon here. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 is on the expression of compulsion-related modality, while section 3 presents the different morphemes with the basic meaning of ability, but also used to express modal meanings. Section 3 presents the structures whose semantics involve appropriateness, obligation and necessity. Section 5 reappraises the nature of aspect-modality interaction that could be discerned from the examined Igbo language data, while section 6 forms the summary and conclusion.
2. From compulsion to possibility Two main structures are used in Standard Igbo for the expression of modalities of compulsion and possibility; they are the verb -gá and the suffix _rí.rí.. The modal meanings associated with them have been given the deontic meaning of obligation in Igbo linguistics, while the English verb must is often given as their equivalent. In the sentences to follow, however, it shall be seen that the modal meaning has more to do with compulsion than obligation. In fact, the closest meaning to obligation that the suffix _rí.rí. could have is a strong obligation. The table below summarizes the
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t ranslations of the verb -gá and the suffix _rí.rí.. In this and subsequent tables the identified morphemes shall be left as categorized by the different authors. Table 2. Igbo morphemes for compulsion
Author Term used
Identified structures and their equivalents
Williamson (1972:� ����� 1���� 42) ����� verb -gá1 “go; pass; move” -gá2 “thread (so as to hold together)’’ -gá “will” Nwachukwu (1983: 25) (1) auxiliary -gá �������������� “������������� has to; must�” (2) modal verb -gá as an auxiliary which can be Emenanjọ (1978: 127f.)������������������ future auxiliary Emenanjọ (1985: 126f.) ������������������������������������ -marker����������������������������� complemented by the simple infinitive or particle, or the obligative participle -gá aux. used as an auxiliary verb Echeruo (1998: 53) auxiliary verb to indicate future action -gá “�������������������� to go, must have to�” Igwe (1987: 123 ) modal verb -gá1 “go, go to, move” Igwe (1999: 179f.) modal verb -gá2 auxiliary verb – ‘‘will, shall’’ -gá “will, must” “a homophone of Nwigwe (2003:� ����� 131��) ����������� modal verb another verb gá which means “go”” sì and rìrì Nwigwe (2003: 134) ������������� modal suffix “obligatory in order to express the modal meanings – compul sion, obligation, and definite prediction” ��������������� auxiliary verb -gá1 aux. vb. (preceding or prefixed to the active verb) portraying futu rity, i.e., future tense: ‘‘will, shall’’ -gá2 ����������� “���������� go�������� ”������� (syn. -jé)
The different equivalents and terms used for describing the morphme -gá can be brought under four headings: (1) a main verb: -gá “go”; (2) a main verb: -gá “thread”; (3) future marker/future auxilliary: -gá “shall”; and (4) modal auxiliary -gá “has to; must”. As shall be seen in the sub-sections below, these verbs need to be separated from one another. The nature of the first three shall first be summarized before going fully into the modal functions of -gá and the suffixes _rịrị and _sì.
2.1 The main verbs -gá “go” and -gá “thread” The verb -gá has the basic meaning “go”; the sense of “thread” is a causative construction formed through the typical verb+NP construction. The sentences below are
The model system of the Igbo language
examples of these two senses. As a result of tonal inflection, the verb is sometimes also realized with a low tone as gà. (10) a.
Èméká gà - rà Àbá. Emeka go-rV-past Aba ‘Emeka went to Aba.’
b. Èméká nà - àgá Àbá. Emeka aux-progr-go-part Aba ‘Emeka is going to Aba.’ c.
Ńnwá Ōkéàfọ ` à - gá - wá - lá íjè. child Okeafọ prf- go-inch- perf walk ‘Okeafọ’s child has started walking.’
d. Bíkō mèghéé ụ´z`ọ kà ńné ānyí. wèlụ´ fụụ´ ụ´z`ọ gá ífé please open door let mother our take see road thread thing ónū yá. neck hers ‘Please open the door so as to allow our mother to see well thread her necklace.’ (Williamson 1972: 125)
Sentence (10a) is the simple past form of the active verb -gá “go”, marked through the rV-past suffix. In sentence (10b) the verb is modified through the progressive auxiliary -nà “progressive” (presented in sentences 9c and 9d) and is consequently realized as the participle àgá, which in some dialects can also be realized as the simple infinitive í. gā “to go”. The verb forms a verb+NP verbal complex structure in (10c) and (10d); the verbal complex in (10c) is -gá íjè, whose infinitive form, í.gā íjè, Igwe translates as “to walk or to toddle”, and also as “to travel; to go on a trip” (Igwe 1999: 179). The choice of the subject in (10c) restricts the sense to “toddle”. In sentence (40d) the verbal complex involved is í.gā òwú “thread something” (lit: “go thread”), which can be fully spelt out as í.gā íhé òwú with the literal meaning of “go something thread”, but the causative meaning of “cause thread to go through something”, i.e., “thread something”. The object being threaded in sentence (10d) is ífé ónū “necklace” (realized in Standard Igbo as íhé ólū). In these sentences the verb’s basic meaning of “go” is still visible, whether modified by an auxiliary or in a verb+NP verbal complex structure; and “thread” is a causative extension of this basic meaning.
2.2 The auxiliary verb -gá “shall” The verb -gá “shall” was presented in example (4) above in its function as a marker of simple future tense; it shall be seen in the sentences below that it codes both the future and a sense of anticipation. It should be noted in advance that the meanings in actual usage could be restricted to either the future or the anticipative sense
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(see section 2.3.1 below). This auxiliary function is marked through its being followed by the participle of the modified verb, similar to the participle in (10b) above, where the main verb -gá “go” is modified by the progressive auxiliary -nà. (11) a.
Èméká gà - èrí ákpū. . Emeka aux-fut-eat-part casava ‘Emeka shall eat casava.’
b. Èméká gà - àhụ¢ Úche táà. Emeka aux-fut-see-part Uche today ‘Emeka shall see Uche today.’ c.
Èméká gà - àbí.á bé ānyí.. Emeka aux-fut- come-part place we ‘Emeka shall come to our place.’
d. Èméká gà- àgá Ābá. Emeka aux-fut- go-part Aba ‘Emeka shall go to Aba.’
Although the auxiliary is followed in the above sentences by the participle of the modified verbs, it can also be followed by their infinitives in some dialects without a change or loss in meaning: (12) a.
Èméká gà- í.bí.á n ` gá ānyí.. Emeka aux-fut- to.come place we ‘Emeka shall come to our place.’
b. Èméká gà- í.gā Ábá. Emeka aux-fut- to.go Aba ‘Emeka shall go to Aba.’
In both (11) and (12) the main verbs are modified by the auxiliary -gá “go”, but they are realized in their participles in (11) and in their infinitives in (12). Finally, it is possible that the auxiliary function of -gá as a future-anticipative marker could have developed from the basic meaning of the verb -gá “go”. This is in line with Emenanjọ’s conclusion that this future auxiliary must have developed from a “go” verb rather than a “come” verb (Emenanjọ 1985: 206). Hence, the Igbo -gá follows the typological pattern of the development of future auxiliary from “go” motion verbs (Bybee, Perkins & Pagliuca 1991). The development could have been from a motion to an auxiliary future marker in the sense of “go to do something”, which could probably explain why the modified participles of the verbs in (11) can also be replaced with their infinitives in some dialects as in (12). It could be that the participles developed from the infinitives in this environment. All of the above sentences, however, can also be given the meaning of compulsion or strong obligation through an emphatic tone of voice. The next section goes more into this and the suffixes used to express compulsion.
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2.3 The modal uses of the auxiliary gá and the modal suffixes The expressions of modality that involve the use of the morpheme -gá can be divided into morpho-tonologically implicit and explicit forms.
2.3.1 The implicit form The implicit form involves the deontic meaning of (±) weak compulsion in the sense of “have to”, but can also be given the epistemic meanings of possibility and speculative prediction. The examples below from different native speakers suffice to illustrate the implicit modal meanings. I have left the auxiliary -gá as originally glossed by the different authors. (13) a.
Ńnén‒nà gà - àbí.á ébé à. Nnenna aux- come-part place det ‘Nnenna will come here.’
b. Ńnén‒nà gà - í.bịí.á. Nnenna aux to.come ‘Nnenna is going to come.’ (14) a.
(Emenanjọ 1978: 127f.)
Ékhè gà - èrí yā. Ekhe ant- eat-part it ‘Eke will eat it.’
b. Ékhè gà - írī yā. Eke ant- to.eat it ‘Eke must eat it.’
(Emenanjọ 1985: 127)
(15) Ó. gà - èmé yā. he aux- do-part it ‘He will probably do it.’ Ó. gà - ímē yā. he aux- to.do it ‘He will probably do it.’
(Igwe 1973: 496)
The sentences in (13) and (14) are similar to (11) and (12) respectively. However, the verb -gá in (14b) differs by having an additional modal meaning that Emenanjọ (1985) glosses as ant in (14a) and (14b). The difference between the two sentences in (14) is in the occurrence of the participle in (14a) and the infinitive in (14b). This difference seems to indicate the tendency that a combination of the auxiliary -gá with the participle of the modified verb could yield the normal future-anticipative meaning of sentences (13a) ad (14a), while its combination with the infinitive of the modified verb could give rise to a deontic compulsion (14b). In example (15), Igwe (1973) simply merges the future-anticipative and modal meanings, whereby it is especially the
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decontextualization of his gloss that allows this mixing up of both usages. In fact, in the appropriate contexts, and with the right emphatic tone of voice, the verb -gá can be given a deontic meaning of compulsion or the epistemic meaning of a deductive prediction in any of these sentences. This possible variation can only confirm that the auxiliary -gá can also function alone as a modal auxiliary, in addition to its explicit combination with specific morphemes for the expression of modality.
2.3.2 The explicit forms The morpho-tonologically explicit forms involve the combination of -gá with specific suffixes or prefixes at a cross-dialectal level. Some of these are the suffixes _s and _sìrì from Ńgwà dialect, _nátá from Ọn chà, and the pan Igbo suffix _rí.rí., realized in Ìgbòụ¢zọ` dialect as _lílí. These suffixes have the deontic meaning of compulsion and strong obligation that has the force of law, and the epistemic meaning of possibility and deductive or speculative prediction. It is comparable to the modality realized through the English must or the German müssen. Many elderly speakers translate the modal meanings of compulsion and obligation involved in the English must with such Igbo periphrastic constructions as ó.bụ¢ ìwú nà … “it is a law that … ”. The sentences below are examples of the use of these suffixes in some dialects: gà - èlí - nátá n‒lí áfụ`. (Ọn chà) gà - èlí - lílí n‒ní ọ`. (Ìgbòụ¢zọ`) gà - èrí - rí.rí. n‒rí áhụ`. (Mbìèrì) gà - írī - rí.rí. n‒rí áhụ`. (Óbōòwò) he aux-eat-part-comp food det ‘He must eat that food.’
(16) a. a. a. a.
í. gà - èlí – nátá n‒lí áfụ`. b. í. gà - èlí - lílí n‒ní ọ`. b. í. gà - èrí - rí.rí. n‒rí áhụ`. b. í. gà - èrí - rí.rí. n‒rí áhụ`. b. you aux-eat-part-comp food det ‘You must eat that food.’
a.
‒ rí áhụ`. b. í. gà - írī - rí.rí. n you aux- to.eat-comp food det ‘You must eat that food.’
a.
‒ rí áh��� í. `��������� n - gà - s írī � n ụ`.� you prf-aux-comp to.eat food det ‘You must eat that food.’
ó. ó. ó. ó.
‒ rí áhụ`(Íshíádụ-) ó. gà - írī - rí.rí. n he aux to.eat-comp food det
‘He must eat that food.’
(Ńgwà)
‒ rí áhụ`. b. ó. `n - gà - s - írī n he prf-aux-comp- to.eat food det ‘He must eat that food.’
The dialects vary in their specific forms for the expressions of deontic compulsion. Four of them express it with the suffix _rí.rí.; Ọn chà expresses with the suffix _nátá; while Ńgwà expresses it through the attachment of the comp suffix directly to the auxiliary -gá. There is also a relationship of morphological bondedness between the
The model system of the Igbo language
auxiliary -gá and these suffixes. The bond can be analyzed as the circumfix gà … lílí for Ìgbòụ¢zọ`; gà…nátá for Ọn chà; and gà…rí.rí. for the others, whereby the participle or the infinitive of the modified verb always occurs between the auxiliary verb and the suffix. In Ńgwà dialect, however, the modal suffix is directly attached to the auxiliary. All these point to a strong bond between the verb -gá and these suffixes at a cross-dialectal level, regardless of whether the suffixes are directly attached to -gá or not. The same structures are also used to express epistemic meanings. The context of the sentences below is where the speaker’s statement about a third person is based on his knowledge of that third person. The sentences could be given as an answer to someone who for example, has looked for Obi in different places. He finally turns to the speaker to let out his frustration that Obi is nowhere to be found. At this the speaker responds: (17)
Óbì gà - ánọ` - nátá n’ ú.nọ`. Óbì gà - ánọ` - lílí n’ ú.nọ`. Óbì gà - ánọ` - rí.rí. n’ ú.nọ`. Óbì gà - ánọ` - rí.rí. n’ ú.nọ`. ‘Obi aux- be- comp prep house’
Óbì gà - í.nọ` - rí.rí. n’ ụ´lọ`. Obi aux- to be- comp prep house ‘Obi must be at home.’ Óbì `n - gà- rì.rì. - í.nọ` n’ ụ´lọ`. Obi prf- aux- comp- to be prep house ‘Obi must be at home.’
(Ọn chà) (Ìgbòụ¢zọ`) ` bìèrì) (M (Óbōòwò) (Íshíádụ-)
(Ńgwà)
The above answer entails the speaker’s confidence that Obi must definitely be at home, with the implication that the interrogator has probably not yet looked properly in that direction. Another epistemic meaning of strong deductive speculation can also be expressed with the identified structures as follows: ´ mílī gà - ézò - M ´ mírī gà - ézò - M ´ m rī - gà - ézò - M ´ mírī gà - ézò - M ‘water aux- rain
(n’ ányàs ). (n’ ábàl ). (n’ ábàl ). (n’ ábàl ). (prep night)’
(Ò.nì.chà) (Ìgbòụ¢zọ`) ` bìèr ) (M (Óbōòwò)
´ mírī gà - ízò - rí.rí. (n’ ábàl ). M water aux- to.rain comp (prep night) ‘It must rain (in the night).’
(Íshíádụ-)
(18)
ná�� t�á rí.rí. rí.rí. rí.rí. comp
While all the other dialects have the participle ézò after the auxiliary, Íshíádụ- has the infinitive ízò, which gives the whole sentence the literal translation of “It is going to rain in the night.” For an Ńgwà dialect example, I shall use a sentence from Nwigwe
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(2003: 135), but whose gloss I do not adopt for the sake of a consistency with the rest of the paper: (19) ọ` `n - gà - s - í.bụ- Úchè. ��� it prf- aux- comp- to.be Uche ‘It must be Uche.’
(Ńgwà) (Nwigwe 2003: 135)
Finally, although the above examples are not quite detailed, they suffice to demonstrate that the bipartite epistemic and deontic modal meanings can be expressed through the combination of the auxiliary -gá with the different dialect-specific suffixes. These suffixes and their possible modal meanings in such combinations are summarized in Table 7 below. The “root meaning” in the table is not analysed here as “root modality” in the sense of Coates (1983); instead, it is the basic meaning of the root morphemes with extensions including the deontic and epistemic usages. Table 3. The first group of verb morphology related modal structures Deontic meanings Structures Root meanings Strong obligation and compulsion s /s r nátá lílí/lí.ií. rírí/rí.rí. -gá
emphatic ? ? ? continuative continuative go → shall
+ + + + +
Epistemic meanings Possibility/Prediction + + + + +
With regard to the future-projecting attribute of deontics mentioned in section 1.2 above, Emenanjọ (p.c.) is of the view that there is something “futuristic” about all the modal sentences involving the auxiliary -gá. How does this view agree with the conclusion on the futue-projecting attribute of deontics and non-temporal reference of epistemics? First of all, two points need to be separated in dealing with this issue. The first is the effect of the simple presence of the auxiliary, while the second is the actual nature of the future-projecting deontic meanings. The obligatory combination of these suffixes, either directly with the auxiliary -gá or with the participle or infinitive of the verb it modifies, seems to give the whole event expressed through the modified verb a sense of a yet-to-be-fulfilled event. This is most obvious in the deontic meanings of the sentences. In the light of this, the future-projecting attribute of the deontics can be seen as a contribution of the auxiliary -gá. However, this differs from the continued presence of this auxiliary in the epistemic constructions where this sense of a “future fulfilment” that applies to the deontic meaning is missing, for example, compare examples (16) with (17) and (18). The deontic meaning of the sentences in (16) are to be fulfilled in the future; the subject has not yet eaten the food. In contrast to this sense of a “future fulfilment”, sentence (17) does not have such a temporal reference; instead, it has an
The model system of the Igbo language
exclusively epistemic meaning. This can be confirmed by the fact that the subject of the verb, Obi, is not in such a motion that would end in his being located at home at a future time. Even for sentence (18) that seems to connote a “future fulfilment” of the event, the sense of a future-fulfilment is brought about by the presence of the expression n’ányàs /n’ábàl “at night”, and not through the future-anticipative auxiliary -gá. This conclusion can be confirmed through a deletion of the expression n’ányàs /n’ábàl “at night”, whereby, in spite of the continued presence of the future-anticipative auxiliary -gá, the effect of the deletion remains the same exclusively epistemic meaning. Hence, the inherent future sense of the auxiliary seems restricted to deontic modality. It shall be seen in the subsequent sub-sections that in all its combination with Igbo modal suffixes, the future-anticipatory attribute of the auxiliary -gá always coalesces with the future-projecting attribute of deontic modality, while the epistemic meanings of such combinations do not involve a definite temporal reference. With regard to their possible sources of development, mainly -gá is transparent and in line with typological findings. The lexical source of the ọn chà suffix _nátá is not yet clear; neither are the sources for the Ńgwà suffixes _sì and _sìrì. For the modal suffix pair _rírí/_rí.rí., there is a suffix pair, _rírí/_rí.rí., that has been identified and given the basic meaning of “still, continuously, persistently” by Emenanjọ (1978). The example given by the author is: ´ gà - èmé rírí yā. (20) Ọ he aux do still it ‘He will still do it.’
(Emenanjọ 1978: 120)
The same suffix, with similar semantics, is also realized as _lílí/lí.ií. in Ìgbòụ´zọ` dialect. The suspicion is that the modal meaning of the suffix might have arisen from an initial deontic usage that was further extended as a form of a generic expression. For example, in the appropriate grammatical context and with the right emphatic tone of voice, sentence (20) can be given a deontic meaning of compulsion, while a softer tone of voice would yield an epistemic meaning of a strong possibility or speculation. For sentence (20) to have the meaning of a strong speculation, the speaker must generally know what the subject is capable of.
3. From ability to possibility The specific structures used for the expression of ability and possibility are the verbs -nwé íké “can” and -pụ` “can, be able”, and the suffixes _nwu “able” and _lí “able”. The table below presents a summary of their English equivalents as given by different authors.
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Table 4. The Igbo morphemes for ability Author
Term used
Identified structures and their equivalents
Welmers & Welmers (1968: 198) verb ínwé + íké “can” (“be able to”) ínwé + íké (plus infinitive) Welmers & Welmers (1968: 124 ) verb í.pụ` “be equal to; be able” Williamson (1972: 176) verb ínwē íké “be capable, strong, able” Emenanjọ (1978: 117) suffix _nwu denotes “ability to do/perform a task” Igwe (1999: 548) verb ínwē íké “to have strength, might, or power; to be able” Igwe (1987: 124) periphrastic form -nwé íké “can, be able, may be possible” Nwigwe (2003: 126) modal verb -nwé íké “can; may”
Welmers & Welmers (1968), Williamson (1972), and Igwe (1999) identify -nwé íke and í.pụ` simply as a “verb”, while Nwigwe (2003) identifies it as a “modal verb”. Igwe (1987) differs by describing it as a “periphrastic form” for expressing modal meanings. The choice of this term might have been influenced by the English language, where, for example, the modal verbs are single lexical items. It is therefore not surprising that Igwe identifies only the verbs that constitute single morphemes as modal verbs. Nwigwe’s (2003) approach of identifying -nwé íke as a modal verb, regardless of its being made up of more than one morpheme, is in line with the facts of the language, because -nwé íké is a verb+NP structure, similar to other verb+NP/pp structures of the language pointed out in section 1.1 above. Finally, Emenanjọ (1978) differs from all the others through the inclusion of the suffix _nwu, which is realized in Ụmụahịa environ as _li. It shall be seen in the sub-sections below that the two suffixes express the same modal meanings as the verbs -nwé íke and í.pụ`. In addition, at the end of this main section, the two modal verbs and the suffixes shall also be examined with regard to the possibility of their combination with the progressive auxiliary -nà and the anticipative-future auxiliary -gá, as this could give more insight into the future-projecting attributes of their deontic meanings and their interaction with aspect.
3.1 -nwé íké “have strength/power; be able/can” This is a verbal complex structure, made up of the free verb root -nwé “own/have/ possess” and the noun íké “power/strength”. As a main verb, it can be combined with any noun:
(21) Óbì nwè - rè ńnúkwú íke-. Obi have-rV-stative great strength/power ‘Obi has great strength/power.’
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(22) Óbì nwè - rè Obi have-rV- stative ‘Obi owns/has a car.’
mótò. motor
In both sentences the verb -nwé retains its full meaning as a main verb. The noun íké in sentence (21) is a free noun that functions as the object of the verb; it is also additionally modified by the adjective ńnúkwú. The same verb-object relationship exists between the verb and the noun mótò in sentence (22). With regard to their formation of a modal verb, there is a collocational bond between the verb -nwé and the noun íké, which does not allow either the occurrence of an extra lexical material between them as in sentence (21), or the non-inclusion of the noun íké as in (22). This is why Nwigwe’s (2003) designation of the whole structure as a “modal verb” is in line with the facts of the language. As a main verb, -nwé íké basically means “own/have/possess power/strength”, but as a modal verb it is used to express the additional meanings of “have an ability/be able” and other modal meanings. It has to be added that this verbal complex also has the morphosyntactic attribute of combining only with the infinitives of the verbs it modifies through effecting the addition of the high tone infinitive vowel prefixes 〈í〉 or 〈í. 〉 to the modified verb in line with the rule of vowel harmony. The sentences below illustrate some of the modal meanings the verb can express. Ability:
(23) a.
‒rí áhụ`. Óbì nwè - rè íké írī - chá n Obi have-rV-stative strength to.eat- completely food det ‘Obi can eat up/finish that food.’
Úchè nwè - rè íké í.rụ‒ ó.r ụ´ áwà àsáà Uche have-rV-stative strength to.work work hour seven n’ ézùghì íké. prep rest.not strength ‘Uche can work for seven hours without resting.’
b.
Permission: (24) a.
Ó nwè - rè íké í.lā - wá. he have-rV-stative strength to.go inch [lit: ‘he has the strength to start leaving’] ‘He may leave.’
Í nwè - rè íké ịbà- tà. you have-rV-stative strength to.enter- direction of speaker [lit: ‘you have strength to come in’] ‘You may come in.’
b.
Possibility: (25) a.
Óbì nwè - rè íké í.nọ n’ ụ´ lọ` ùgbú à. Obi have-rV-stative strength to.be prep house presently det [lit: ‘Obi has strength to be at home now.’] ‘Obi might be at home now.’
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b. Óbì nwè - rè íké írī n‒rí áhụ`. Obi have-rV-stative strength to.eat food det ‘Obi might eat that food.’ c. Ó nwèrè íké í. lā. he have strength to.go ‘He might go.’ d. Ó nwèrè íké ịbà. he have strength enter ‘He might enter.’
Prediction/Possibility: (26) a.
Úchè nwè - rè íké í.lọ‒tá n’ábàl . Uche have-rV-stative strength to.return.home prep night [lit: ‘Uche has strength to return home in the night.’] ‘Uche might return home in the night.’
b.
Óyí nwè - rè íké í.tụ‒ échí. cold have-rV-stative strength to.throw tomorrow [lit: ‘Cold can throw tomorrow.’] ‘It might be cold tomorrow.’
c.
Úchè nwè - rè íké í.rụ‒ ọ`rụ¢ . Uche have-rV-stative strength to.work work ‘Uche might work.’ (→ ‘Uche might do something.’)
In example (23) the verb -nwé íké has the quality of a stative verb because its -rV-suffix has only a stative, non-past meaning, but the modified verbs involve a holistic, perfective reading. In sentence (23a), for example, this holistic, perfective input is added to the modified event by the suffix _chá “completely”, while in (23b) the view involves the whole seven hours of work. Compare (23a) for example, with (25b). The suffix chá has an aspect affinity of expressing only the holistic, hence perfective meaning, and this goes with the deontic meaning of ability in sentence (23a); but in the absence of this suffix, the modal meaning becomes epistemic possibility as in sentence (25b). Sentence (23b), on the other hand, does not involve the modification through a suffix; instead, the verbal complex -nwé íké retains the meaning of ability even in the combination with another verbal complex, í. rụ‒ ọ` rụ¢ “to work” (literally: “to work work”). Its deontic meaning could be as a result of the definite nominal syntagma áwà àsáà n’ézùghì íké “seven hours without resting”, because it gets an epistemic meaning of possibility without this nominal syntagma as in sentence (26c). The sentence can apply in a situation where, for example, things are beginning to get difficult. Someone who knows Uche and Uche’s tendencies can make the statement as a form of possible
The model system of the Igbo language
prediction. A similar deontic effect of suffixes as found in sentence (23a) can be confirmed for the two sentences in (24). In both sentences the two verbs modified by the modal verb -nwé íké differ with regard to the suffixes attached to them. For the verb í. lā “to go” in (24a), this is the inchoative suffix _wá, while for í. bà “to enter” in (24b) it is the directional suffix _ta. Both suffixes have the same effect of eliciting a deontic meaning of permission. But as can be seen in sentences (25c) and (25d), their absence brings about an epistemic reading. Thus, similar to (23a), the suffixes have a perfective affinity that can be explained as follows. The inchoative suffix _wá (in 24a) denotes the completion of the onset of the event; it gives the onset a holistic, completive perspective. The directional suffix _ta, modifies the verb í. bà in two ways. The first is through adding definiteness to the movement by specifying the direction of the motion, while the second, resulting from the first, is a holistic perspective to the motion, hence a perfective affinity. Such a perfectivising effect is lacking in sentences (25c) and (25d) where only the epistemic readings are realized. The sentences in (26) differ from the exclusive meaning of possibility in (25) because example (25) has a mixture of possibility and prediction arising from the speaker’s judgement of the event. The modified infinitives í. lọ‒tá “to return home” and Óyí í. tụ‒ “to be cold/have cold weather” in (26a) and (26b) respectively, are both active verbs, but they are unconcluded events in their infinitives. Their combination with the -rV-stative meaning of the modal verb -nwé íké strengthens the imperfectivity, which has an epistemic meaning as in the other examples. Hence, for the modal verb -nwé íké the tendency is that its combination with the infinitive of a verb alone, without a modification of such an infinitive through a suffix, gives rise to epistemic meanings, while the modification of the infinitive through a suffix not only adds a telic, perfectivizing effect to the meaning of the infinitive, but also leads to a deontic reading. The sentences indicate that the verb -nwé íké can be used to express the deontic meanings of (internal) ability and (externally enabled) permission, and the epistemic meanings of possiblity and prediction, hence the bipartite modal meanings. The possible development of these usages can be summarized as follows: (27)
a. b. c. d.
-nwé íké “have strength/power” → have strength [to do something] have strength to do something → be able [to do something] be able to do something → have the possibility to do something have the possibility to do something → be possible to happen
The paths in (27) can be explained as follows. A person that has physical strength can execute an act, which is similar to someone that has a mental capability. The strength, both physical and mental, not only enables the person to carry out some activities but also gives him the general possibility of carrying out different acts.
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3.2 -pụ ` “be able/can” The two dialect variants of this verb are -fụ` and -pụ`, but it is realized in Standard Igbo and some other dialects as -pụ`, with the concrete meaning of “go out”, as in the sentences below: (28) a.
Úchè pụ` - rụ` n’ èzí. Uche go.out-rV-past prep frontage ‘Uche went out to the frontage.’
b. Úchè pụ` - rụ` ígwù égwú. Uche go.out-rV-past to play game ‘Uche went out to play.’
In both sentences the verb -pụ` is realized as an active verb with the meaning of “go out”; in addition, it also has the inflectional -rV-past suffix of active verbs. There is, though, a morphosemantic difference when it functions as a modal verb, as in the sentence below: (29) Úchè pụ` - rụ` í.sụ` bèkéè. Uche be.able-rV-stative to speak English ‘Uche can speak English.’
The modified verbs in (28b) and (29) are verb+NP structures, ígwù égwú “to play” (literally: “to play game”) and í.sụ‒ bèkéè “to speak English” respectively. While the morphological similarity in both sentences lies in the infinitive forms of their verbal components (ígwù “to play” and í.sụ‒ “to speak”), the differences between them are in the morphosemantics of -pụ` as a main verb or as a modal verb. As a main verb it can occur with a PP, as in (28a), but it always only occurs with an infinitive as a modal verb. Another point of difference is in the semantics of the -rV-suffix it gets. As an active verb its -rV-suffix has a “past tense” meaning (as in 28a and 28b), but as a modal verb its -rV-suffix has a stative, non-past meaning, as in (29). These morphological differences suffice to posit two forms for this verb: (1) active verb -pụ` “go out”, and (2) stativemodal verb -pụ` “be able/can”. However, there are some occasions of ambiguity: (30) Úchè pụ` - rụ` Uche be.able-rV-stative ‘Uche can steal.’
ízū óhī. to.steal theft
(31) Úchè pụ` - rụ` ízū óhi. Uche go.out-rV-past to.steal theft ‘Uche went out to steal.’
In both sentences the verbal complex -zú óhī is realized in the infinitive form: ízū óhī “to steal” (literal: “to steal theft”). The apparent ambiguity in (30) and (31) arises mainly from the decontextualization of both sentences. Although such an ambiguity can also be delibrately used in the form of a word play, it does not arise in actual usage.
The model system of the Igbo language
The modal function of the verb -pụ`, however, goes beyond a simple morphological alteration of the modified verb through the infinitive markers. The verb also has both deontic and epistemic meanings. For example, although -pụ` in sentence (29) has the meaning of ability, it can be given the epistemic meaning of speculative possibility in (30). This epistemic meaning would be appropriate in a context where, for example, the speaker knows that Uche does steal or has stolen before. The speaker can utter the statement in the event of something being lost, especially if Uche had visited the place before. A further usage of -pụ`, but with an exclusively epistemic meaning of possibility, is in sentence (32a) below: (32) a.
Égwù pụ` - rụ` í.nọ` n’ ụ`lọ` ùgbú à. Egwu be.able-rV-stative to.be prep house presently det ‘Egwu may be at home now’
b. *Égwù pụ` - rụ` í.nọ` ‘Egwu went out to be at home now.’
n’ ụ¢lọ`
ùgbú
à.
Sentence (32a) does not have the ability-cum-possibility meaning of (30), neither does it have an active form that is comparable to sentence (31). In fact, an active form for it (as in 32b) is unacceptable; instead, its possibility also involves some prediction. Hence, the modal verb -pụ` can be used to express the deontic meaning of ability and the epistemic meaning of possibility and prediction, but not that of permission. Finally, the possible development of these usages of the verb -pụ` “go out” can be summarized as follows: (33) a. -pụ` “go out” → “go out”: [to do something] b. go out → and consequently be in the position to do something c. be in the position to do something → have the possibility/be able to do something d. have the possibility/be able to do something → be possible to happen
The path in (33) is slightly similar to the path of -nwé íké in (27). The difference between the two paths is that while the modal usage of -nwé íké can be seen as arising from the consequences of having strength to carry out an action, in (33) the modal usage of -pụ` can been seen as arising from the enabling event of simply “going out”. Someone can go out of a house (as in sentence 28a), or also additionally carry out some activity in the process (as in sentence 28b). Similarly, someone that has an ability or has acquired a skill or quality moves out of the initial state and is consequently placed in a position where he/she has the possibility of exercising the ability (as in sentences 29 and 30). Finally, this possibility is generalized in the epistemic meaning of possibility in sentence (32a).
Chinedu Uchechukwu
3.3 _nwu “able” Emenanjọ, who was the first to identify this suffix, explains that it “denotes ability to do/perform a task” (Emenanjọ 1978: 117), whereby the particular task must always be coded either through an anaphor, or through the direct object or the inherent complement of the verb it is attached to. This need for an explicit coding of the executed task argues for a perfectivizing effect of the suffix because it adds the sense of definiteness to the event, which is similar to the perfectivising effect of nominal definiteness on verbs (Leiss 2000). This points in the direction of a deontic meaning as the basic modal meaning of this suffix. A variant, _li, can be heard in Ụmụahịa environs of Abịa State in eastern Nigeria. Both forms, _nwu and _li, shall be used to illustrate the modal meanings associated with this suffix. Ability:
[with the auxiliary -gá]
(34) a.
Óbì gà - àsụ¢ - nwú bèkéè. Obi aux-speak-part-able English ‘Obi can speak English.’
b.
[with the auxiliary -nà → habitual] Óbì nà - àsụ` - nwú bèkéè. Obi aux-speak-part-able English ‘Obi is able to speak English regularly.’
c.
[with the auxiliary -gá] Óbì gà - ásụ` - lí bèkéè. Obi aux-speak-part-able English ‘Obi can speak English.’
d.
[with the auxiliary -nà → habitual] Óbì nà - ásụ` - lí bèkéè. Obi aux-speak-part-able English ‘Obi is able to speak English regularly.’
Possibility: (35) a.
[with the auxiliary -gá] Úchè gà -èzú - nwú óhī. Uche aux-steal-part-able theft ‘Uche can steal.’
b.
[with the auxiliary -nà → habitual] Úchè nà - èzú - nwú óhī. Uche aux-steal-part-able theft ‘Uche is able to steal regularly’
c.
[with the auxiliary -gá] Úchè gà - ízú - lí óhī. Uche aux-to.steal-able theft ‘Uche can steal.’
The model system of the Igbo language
d.
[with the auxiliary -nà → habitual] Úchè nà - ízú - lí óhī. Uche aux-to.steal-able theft ‘Uche is able to steal regularly.’
In sentence (34) the suffixes have the concrete meaning of ability, which Obi is able to execute in speaking English. The two auxiliaries -ga and -nà differ in their contribution to the sentence. The future-anticipative auxiliary -gá facilitates the deontic meaning of ability, while the progressive -nà auxiliary contributes a regular, habitual sense in both (34b+d) and (35b+d). Sentences (35a+c) on the other hand, have an epistemic meaning of deductive possibility, regardless of the presence of the future-anticipative auxiliary gá. The sentence can be uttered by someone who knows Uche and his general tendency to steal. The possibility in (35a) and (35c) is similar to the possibility of sentences (25) and (32a). The similarity between these sentences is that they can be uttered by a speaker based on his or her knowledge of the general tendency of the person being spoken about (Uche). Hence, they could also be classified as generics, which is the basis for their epistemic meaning. This seems to agree with Ziegeler’s conclusion that generics provide a fertile ground for modal inferences (Ziegeler, this volume). The table below summarizes the modal uses of the verbs and suffixes discussed in this section. Table 5. The second group of verb morphology related modal structures
Deontic meanings
Structures
Root meanings
Ability Permission Prediction Possibility/Deduction
-nwé íké -pụ` _nwu
“have strength/power” + “go out” + “able” +
+ − −
Epistemic meanings
+ ± −
+ + +
Only the suffix _nwu differs from the other structures in the table, because its root meaning is also available within its deontic meaning of ability. The possible source of this suffix is not yet clear. At the most it is similar to the high tone verb root -nwú “shine”, which is realized in Ọhụhụ dialect as -nwó. Both verbs are also used to form a similar verbal complex, -nwú ọ´kụ¢ “give light” (literally “shine light”) in Standard Igbo, and -nwó ọ´kụ¢ in Ọhụhụ dialect. If this verb is the source of the suffx _nwu “able”, it should also be possible to find it as _nwo in some dialects; but this needs more investigation to confirm or disprove. Finally, although all the structures analyzed in this section can express the bi-polar deontic and epistemic meanings involved in modality, only -nwé íké seems to have the additional quality of expressing the deontic meaning of permission. Another relevant point is the issue of the future-projecting qualities of the four modal structures presented in this section. First of all, it can be seen in all the examples
Chinedu Uchechukwu
with the two modal verbs -nwé íké and -pụ` that they express the deontic and epistemic meanings with the stative -rV-suffix. The suffix _nwu, on the other hand, is always attached to the modified verb, which in turn is modified by an auxiliary. These points shall be illustrated with the sentences below: (36) a.
Óbì nwè - rè íké í.nọ` n’ ụ¢lọ` ùgbú à. Obi have-rV-stative strength to.be prep house presently det [lit: ‘Obi has strength to be at home now’] ‘Obi can/might be at home now.’
b. Égwù pụ`- rụ` í.nọ` n’ ụ¢lọ` ùgbú à. Egwu be.able-rV-stative to be prep house presently det ‘Egwu may be at home now’ c.
Úchè gà - èzú - nwú/lí óhī. Uche aux-steal-part- able theft ‘Uche can steal.’
d. *Óbì gà - ènwé íké ínọ`
n’ ụ´lọ`
ùgbú
à.
e. *Óbì gà - ápụ`
n’ ụ´lọ`
ùgbú
à.
f.
ínọ`
Óbì gà- ánọ` -nwu Obi aux- be-part-able ‘Obi might be at home now’.
g. *Óbì nà - ánọ` - nwu
n’ ụ´lọ` ùgbú à. prep house presently det
n’ ụ´lọ` ùgbú
à.
The auxiliary -gá was first presented in sections 1 and 2 in connection with the formation of the simple future tense. It adds a future-anticipative meaning to the event expressed through the verb it modifies. The connection with modality is that the modal verbs -nwé íké and -pụ` and the suffixes _nwu/_li can be correctly combined with the modified verbs as in sentences (36a, 36b, 36c). The verbs -nwé íké and -pụ` cannot be combined with the auxiliary -gá as in sentences (36d) and (36e), while the auxiliary can be combined with the suffix _nwu, as in examples (36c) and (36f). The epistemic usage of the habitual auxiliary -nà is not grammatical (36g). The question that arises here is: why is it that the two modal verbs, -nwé íké and -pụ`, cannot be combined with the future-anticipative auxiliary, -gá? The answer might well lie in the fact that both modal verbs have an inherent future-projecting element in their deontic meanings, which makes an extra marking with the auxiliary unnecessary. As for the suffix _nwu, it is always suffixed to a verb that is modified by the future-anticipative auxiliary -gá, and which consequently takes the form of the infinitive or the participle, as in sentences (34a), (34c), (35a), (35c), (36c) and (36f). As was pointed out in the discussion of the auxiliary with the comp suffixes in section 2.3.2 above, the suffix _nwu, does not have an inherent future-projecting attribute; instead, this attribute is added to its deontic meaning through the presence of the future-anticipative auxiliary -gá. But this temporal reference plays virtually no role in the epistemic meanings of (35a) and (35c).
The model system of the Igbo language
The only resemblance to a future-projection attribute in the epistemic meaning of (35a) and (35c) is the sense of a general possiblity that can be fulfilled any time it becomes necessary; it is not a possibility that is about to be fulfilled. Thus, it is a generic possibility that has no temporal reference. The same applies also to sentence (36f) where, in spite of the presence of the future-anticipatory auxiliary and the nominal expression with a temporal deixis ùgbú à “now”, the projected location of Obi is simply a speculation that has nothing to do with the subject, Obi, going to the house either presently or some time in the future. Finally, the verb -nwé íké falls within the typological pattern of verbs with the concrete meaning of “have power/strength” that are extended to cover mental and general ability, as well as epistemic usages. The uses of -pụ` on the other hand, is similar to the development of dynamic verbs of movement into modal verbs, as in Guaymi’s auxiliary, reb, that means “arrive at”, and that in the present imperfective with a verbal complement means “be able” (Bybee, Pagliuca & Perkins 1994: 187–191). Only the suffix _nwu needs further investigation to confirm its position within the typological pattern in the development of lexical sources to modal expressions.
4. From appropriateness to possibility The structures to be examined in this section have the English “should” or “ought” as their equivalents. They are also used to express the epistemic meaning of supposition/possibility connected with the speaker’s judgement or confidence in the status of his statement. Table 6 summarizes the Igbo verbs and their equivalents as given by the different authors. Table 6. The Igbo morphemes for obligation Author
Term used
Identified structures and their equivalents
Welmers & Welmers (1968: 88) verb íkwési “be proper, fitting” (rephrasing often involves “ought to”, “should” or “deserve”) Williamson (1972: 242) verb -kwesi “be capable, strong, able” Igwe (1987: 123) modal verb (1)-kwesi “worthy, supposed to” (2)-tosi “ought to” Igwe (1999: 548) verb íkwēsi “to be appropriate to, to fit, suit; to be proper to” Nwigwe (2003: 126) modal verb -kwési “ought to, supposed to”
All the authors have basically the same equivalents for the verb -kwésí, only Igwe (1987) has the additional verb -tósí. The two verbs shall be treated separately.
Chinedu Uchechukwu
4.1 -kwésí “be appropriate/suitable” One needs to differentiate between the concrete meaning of the verb -kwésí, “be appropriate/suitable” from its modal meaning. The concrete meaning can easily be confirmed with the following expression: (37) Íhé à b������������������������ ụ`���������������������� íhé kwésí- rí èkwésí. thing det be thing be.appropriate/suitable- rV-stative appropriate/suitable ‘This is an appropriate/suitable thing.’
The repeat of the morpheme at the end of the sentence is known as a bound cognate noun (Emenanjọ 1978) or bound verb complement (Nwachukwu 1987). It is a morphological process of forming a nominal from a verb in the same sentence by affixing the harmonizing low tone vowel prefix 〈à〉 or 〈è〉 to the verb stem: -kwésí + 〈è〉 → èkwésí. The bound cognate noun is not an independent lexical item and must always occur in the same sentence as the verb from which it is formed. In addition, its semantics includes, but is not restricted to, emphasizing the basic meaning of the verb from which it is formed (Emenanjọ 1978: 131). The basic meaning being emphasized in sentence (37) is “be appropriate/suitable”. The additional meanings of “ought to” or “should” can be seen as extensions from this basic meaning, because what is appropriate is what ought to be: (38) Óbì kwèsì- rì Obi be.suitable/appropriate- rV-stative ‘Obi is suitable to be a king.’
í.bụ‒ ézè. to.be king
Sentence (38) not only has the sense of Obi being suitable, or it being appropriate for Obi to be a king; it could also entail an obligation for Obi, and hence be realized as “Obi is obliged to be the king”, maybe as a result of his being the only qualified candidate or also as a result of one external factor or the other. The next sentences widen the modal meanings: Obligation/Necessity: . (39) Óbì kwèsì- rì í.nụ‒ ó.gwụ` yá. Obi be.suitable/appropriate – rV-stative to.drink medication his ‘Obi should drink his malaria medicine.’ (40) Óbì kwèsì- rì íbīdó kọ` - wá úgbó yā. Obi be.suitable/appropriate - rV-stative to.start cultivate-inch farm his ‘Obi ought to start cultivating his farmland.’ Deductive Possibility: (41) Óbì kwèsì- rì í.nọ` Obi be.suitable/appropriate- rV-stative to.be ‘Obi should be at home now.’
n’ ụ´lọ` u`gbu´ à. prep house presently det
The model system of the Igbo language
(42)
´ mírī kwèsì- M rì íbīdō zò-wé n’ ábàlí. à. water be.suitable/appropriate- rV-stative to.start rain-inch prep night det [lit.: ‘Rain is suitable to start falling in this night.’] ‘It should start raining this night.’
In (39) it is not only appropriate but also necessary that Obi, as a sick person for example, should take his medicine. In (40) Obi is obliged to start the cultivation of his farm, maybe as a result of the rainy seasons having started. In (41) there is a speculation of a possibility on the part of the speaker. Finally, in sentence (42) the verb has the epistemic meaning of a prediction which would be applicable in a context where, for example, the speaker utters the words as a result of some hindsight. Finally, the verb -kwésí, can be used to express both the deontic meanings of obligation and necessity, as well as the epistemic meanings of deductive prediction or possibility.
4.2 -tósí “be appropriate/suitable” The verb -tósí is also realized in some dialects as -tóshí, but it is written more as -tósí. The number of meanings expressed with the verb -kwésí above, can also be confirmed for it. The difference between the two, however, is that with regard to its concrete meaning, -tósí connotes that the subject who is to carry out the action modified by this verb is “old enough” to execute it. This connotation could be connected with the CV root component of the verb which is realized as a main verb -tó “grow”; otherwise, the consitituents need further investigation. Obligation:
(43) Óbì tòsì - rì Obi be.suitable/appropriate- rV-stative ‘Obi should be king.’
í.bụ‒ ézè. to.be king
. (44) Óbì tòsì - rì í.nụ‒ ó.gwụ` yá. Obi be.suitable/appropriate- rV-stative to.drink medication his ‘Obi should drink his malaria medicine.’ (45) Óbì tòsì - rì íbīdó kọ` - wá u´gbó yā. Obi be.suitable/appropriate- rV-stative to.start cultivate-inch farm his ‘Obi ought to start cultivating his farmland.’ Deductive possibility: ´ mirī tòsì- (46) M rì water be.suitable/appropriate- rV-stative ‘It should start raining this night.’
íbīdó n’ ábàlí. à. to.begin prep night det
In sentence (43) Obi has the qualities, and is old enough, to be king. Sentence (44) involves a situation where, for example, Obi is old enough to drink a particular medicine,
Chinedu Uchechukwu
while (45) entails an obligation on the part of Obi to start with his farm work, being that he is old enough to bear the responsibility, and maybe the rains might also be over if he waits too long. In all three sentences the sense of obligation is stronger than that of sentences (38) to (40), which have a mixture of obligation and necessity. In sentence (46) the verb has mainly an epistemic meaning and involves a speculation that might have the nature of Obi’s activities as its source, and in this sense could also have a generic reading. It is similar to sentences (40) and (41). The modal meanings of the two verbs are summarized in Table 7 below: Table 7. The third group of verb morphology related modal structures Structures -kwési -tósí
Root meanings
Deontic meanings
Epistemic meanings
Obligation Necessity
Possibility and Deduction
“be appropriate/suitable” “be appropriate/suitable”
+ +
+ +
+ +
Both verbs can hence be used to express the deontic meanings of obligation and internally or externally induced necessity, as well as the epistemic meaning of possibility. A similar deontic, future-projecting meaning can also be confirmed for these verbs as was the case with the verbs -nwé íké and -pụ` in section 3 above. The deontic usages of the verb -kwésí are sentences (37) to (39), and (42) to (44) for -tósí. Both verbs cannot be combined with the future-anticipative auxiliary, -gà, for expressing deontic meaning. This seems to indicate that they also have an inherent future-projecting meaning. For the verb -kwésí, the sense of appropriateness always refers to the event/activity expressed through the verb it modifies and which is always in the infinitive, as is also the case with the verbs modified by -nwé íké and -pụ` discussed in the previous section. The same applies also to the verb -tósí. Both verbs, -kwésí and -tósí, involve an implicit indication of a yet to be fulfilled activity in their deontic meanings. Their epistemic usages have a similar, non-future-projecting meaning like the epistemic usages of -nwé íké and -pụ` in sentences (25), (26), and (32a). Finally, the positions of -kwésí and -tósí within the typological pattern of modal verb development are similar to Mwera and Lahu languages, where the auxiliaries of obligation are glossed as “be fitting, be proper” (Bybee, Pagliuca & Perkins 1994: 183).
5. Aspect-modality interaction Some issues connected with the aspect-modality interaction that were submerged in the discussion of the identified modal structures in the previous section include the
The model system of the Igbo language
future-projecting attribute of deontic modals, as well as the perfectivizing effect of some suffixes like _we/_wa and _te/_ta. The aim of this section is to summarize and highlight the points about these issues. The first modal structure is the auxiliary -gá, which was initially identified in connection with the simple future tense. The tense attribute is also visible in its role as a modal auxiliary, but with the difference that the future fulfilment of the modified event is relevant for its deontic meaning but not for the epistemic meaning, in spite of its continued presence in the epistemic constructions. The auxiliary has this attribute both in its single usage as a modal auxiiary as well as in its combination with the modal suffixes that lack an inherent future-projecting attribute in their lexical semantics. The second group of modal structures are the modal verbs -nwé íké, -pụ`, -kwésí, and -tósí. In terms of the future-projecting attributes of their deontic usages, they can definitely be compared with their English or German modal verb equvalents like can/können for -nwé íké, -pụ`, and should/sollen for -kwésí, and -tósí; but that would be a comparison that is based on analogy, leaving open the issue of language-internal evidence. More compelling, language-internal evidence for the future-projecting attribute of the deontic meanings of the above named Igbo modal verbs is the impossibility of their combination with the future-anticipatory auxiliary -gá. The conclusion from this system of combinability is that although the Igbo auxiliary -gá has more to do with tense than aspect, its interaction with modality seems to provide additional evidence for Abraham’s (2001, 2002) and Ziegeler’s (2006) conclusions on the future-projecting attribute of deontics and the non-temporal reference of epistemics. In terms of the aspect-modality interaction, this seems to be restricted to specific suffixes. For example, in Emenanjọ’s (1991) presentation of aspect, it is mainly the imperfective aspect that is expressed through verbs (for example, the auxiliary -nà in Standard Igbo). The other aspect categories are expressed through ø-morphemes or suffixes. But as was presented in examples (34b), (34d), (35b) and (35d), the auxiliary -nà only adds the habitual sense to the deontic meaning in its combination with the modal suffixes, while its epistemic usage yields ungrammatical sentences (36g). It is mainly the non-completive inceptive/continuative suffix _wa/_we that has an explicit aspectmodality interaction. It needs to be pointed out, though, that, although this suffix has been glossed by Emenanjọ as “inceptive (and continuative)” (Emenanjọ 1991: 136), it seems that mainly the inceptive sense interacts with modality, because the whole event expressed through the modified verb is marked with this suffix as having fully started. This is a perfectivizing effect, which does not seem to agree with Emenanjọ’s inclusion of the suffix in the group of non-completive, imperfective aspect markers. The perfective nature of this suffix is further visible in its giving the modified event a “holistic onset”, as in sentence (24a), repeated below as (47a), while its absence effects an epistemic reading (25c) repeatd below as (47b).
Chinedu Uchechukwu
(47) a.
Ó nwè-rè íké í.lā-wá. he have-rV-stative strength to.go inch [lit.: ‘He has the strength to start leaving.’] ‘He may leave.’
b. Ó nwèrè íké í.lā. he have strength to.go ‘He might go.’
Other suffixes like _cha “completely” and _ta/_te “directional” were respectively shown in sentences (23a) and (24b) to have a similar deontic effect because of their affinity with the perfective aspect, while their absence was shown to give rise to epistemic meanings in sentences (25b) and (25d) respectively. The suffixes are summarized in the table below: Table 8. Aspect affinity of some Igbo suffixes Suffix
Basic meaning Aspect affinity
_wa/_we inchoative presence: telic, perfective; marks the ONSET of the whole event absence: atelic, imperfective _ta/_te directional presence: telic, perfective; adds DIR to the whole modified event absence: atelic, imerpefective _cha/_che completely presence: telic; perfective; adds a HOLISTIC perspective to the modified event absence: atelic, imperfective
Generally, the aspect affinity of these suffixes is in their telic nature, because their presence gives a holistic perspective to the event expressed through the verbs they modify. This effect seems to agree with Abraham’s (2001, 2002) position that the perfective aspect coalesces with deontic modality. Finally, the above picture of aspect-modality interaction suffices to indicate the need for a deeper and more detailed analysis of aspect and modality in the Igbo language than has hitherto been the case.
6. Summary and conclusion It is a matter of fact that language and context are connected in such a manner that the same language data can have different meanings in different contexts, whereby the contexts also have dynamic contributions to understanding the data (Hewings & Hewings 2005). This fact has been demonstrated with some of the data presented in this paper. In addition, although such dynamic contexts have not been explored in detail
The model system of the Igbo language
in this paper, it can safely be assumed that the present effort provides the minimal starting point for seeking an answer to the simple question of what could make up the modal system of the Igbo language. The Igbo structures are summarized in Table 9 below. Table 9. The summary of the core Igbo modal structures Modal structure
The �������������� structure it ��� ��������������� modifies Modal meanings ��������
modal auxiliary: -gá root meaning: “go” modal meaning: “will; must” modal suffixes: s /s r ,������������� nátá, lílí/lí.ií. and rírí/rí.rí. root meaning: “compulsion” modal verb: -nwé íké root meaning: “have strength” modal verb: í. pụ ` root meaning: “go out” modal suffix: _nwu root meaning: “able”
participle and infinitives (1) with infinitives: deontic strong/ weak obligation (“must/has to”); epistemic strong possibility (2) with emphatic participles: compulsion (3) with simple participles: non-modal meaning; simple future a participle or infinitive (1) suffixed to infinitives: strong modified ������������������������������������������������� by the modal���������������������������� ������������������������� deontic compulsion (“must”) and ����������� auxiliary -gá ���������������������������������� epistemic speculative, deductive, assumptive (2) suffixed to participles: deontic compulsion (“must”) and epistemic speculative, deductive, assumptive infinitives deontic: ability and permission epistemic: speculative deduction
infinitives deontic: ability and permission epistemic: speculative deduction a participle or infinitive (1) suffixed to infinitives: deontic modified by the modal ability and epistemic possibility auxiliary -gá (2) suffixed to participles: deontic ability; epistemic: speculative de duction modal verbs: -kwési; infinitives deontic: ability and permission -tÓsí root meaning: “be epistemic: speculative deduction appropriate/ suitable”
The data presented in this paper indicates that the verb morphology-related structures for the expression of modality in Igbo are mainly modal verbs and suffixes, all of which slightly differ in the structures they modify. The modal auxiliary -gá modifies infitives and simple and emphatic participles, with a variation in the modal meanings. The suffixes _s /_s r , _nátá, _lílí/_lí.ií. and _rírí/_rí.rí. express the same range of deontic and epistemic meanings as the modal verbs, but combine with the infinitives or participles already modified by the modal auxiliary -gá. Only the modal verbs -nwé íké, -pụ`, -kwési and -tósí exclusively modify infinitives. This lack of morphological
Chinedu Uchechukwu
uniformity in terms of the modified structures can only strengthen the conclusion that the Igbo modal structures are best identified and described in terms of their expression of the whole spectrum of deontic and epistemic modality. The fact that the suffixes _s /_s r , _nátá, _lílí/_lí.ií. and _rírí/_rí.rí. express the same range of deontic and epistemic meanings as the modal verbs also indicates that they are not just meaning modifiers for verbs, otherwise designated extensional suffixes in Igbo linguistics. The facts of the language presented in this paper indicate that they should be recognized as “modal suffixes”. It is also possible that similar modal suffixes or even prefixes can be discovered in one dialect of the language or the other. Hence verb morphology-related modality can be expressed in the Igbo language through modal verbs and modal affixes. The additional modal structures like élēghí ányá and íké kwé have varying dialect realizations, like élēhé ányá and íké kwé in Achi (Igwe 1987), and élēghí ányá and íké kwé in Ńgwà (Nwigwe 2003). These structures have been described by Igwe as “periphrastic forms” and by Nwigwe as “periphrastic modals”. Nwigwe adopts Jacobs’ (1995) division of English modals into core modals and periphrastic modals, whereby the modal verbs form the core modals while the structures identified in this paragraph make up the “periphrastic modals”. According to Jacobs, the periphrastic modals in English are “multiword idioms used to express modal notions like possibility and necessity” (Jacobs 1995: 217). Another Igbo structure, chumo, identified by Igwe (1999) as a “modal particle”, expresses similar notions of epistemic possibility, but is not a periphrastic structure; instead, it might have been formed from a periphrastic structure. It is problematic to use their morphological composition for classifying the Igbo modal structures, because such an approach does not lead to a consistent classification that can also be of some relevance for grammars of the language. For example, Igwe (1987) uses the morphological approach to classify -nwé íké as periphrastic modal; Nwigwe (2003) on the other hand, classifies it as a modal verb, and the other multiword expressions like élēghí ányá and íké kwé as periphrastic modals. A different approach, which is consistent with the bi-partite approach adopted in this paper, is to focus on the modal meanings of these structures. First of all, they have the quality of modal affinity in being able to express only one of the binary modal meanings. Thus, this restriction to only one of the bi-partite modal meanings (exclusively epistemic), argues for their recognition as “peripheral modals”. This approach would distinguish them from the modal verbs and affixes that can express the full spectrum of deontic and epistemic modal meanings. Hence, in line with their morphosemantics, the modal system of the Igbo language can be described as being made up of (1) modal verbs, (2) modal affixes, and (3) peripheral modals. The modal verbs and affixes make up the core, while the rest form the periphery. This categorization and the identified modal verbs also seem to contradict Igwe’s conclusion some years ago that “there is nothing in the language, exactly corresponding to the modal auxiliaries which exist in English” (Igwe 1973: 494).
The model system of the Igbo language
Finally, the usefulness of the components of the modal system of the Igbo language presented here should not only facilitate the integration of modality into the grammar books of the language, but could also serve as a format or template for a wider, cross-dialectal investigation of modality in the language.
References Abraham, Roy Clive. 1967. The Principles of Ibo. Ibadan: University of Ibadan, Institute of African Studies. [Occasional Publication No. 4]. Abraham, Werner. 2001. Modals: Towards explaining the “epistemic non-finiteness gap”. In Reimar Müller & Marga Reis (Eds), Modalität und Modalverben im Deutschen (pp. 7–36). Hamburg: Buske. [Linguistische Berichte; Sonderheft 9]. Abraham, Werner. 2002. Modal verbs. Epistemics in German and English. In Sjef Barbiers, Frits Beukema & Wim van der Wurff (Eds), Modality and its interaction with the verbal system (pp. 19–50). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Bybee, Joan L. & William Pagliuca. 1985. Cross-linguistic comparison and the development of grammatical meaning. In Jacek Fisiak (Ed.), Historical semantics, historical word-formation (pp. 59–84). Berlin: de Gruyter. [Trends in linguistics / Studies and monographs 29]. Bybee, Joan, William Pagliuca & Revere D. Perkins. 1991. Back to the future. In Elisabeth C. Traugott & Bernd Heine (Eds), Approaches to grammaticalization. Vol. 2 (pp. 17–58). Amsterdam: Benjamins. [Typological Studies in Language 19] Bybee, Joan, William Pagliuca & Revere D. Perkins. 1994. The evolution of grammar. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Coates, Jennifer. 1983. The semantics of the modal auxiliaries. London: Croom Helm. [Croom Helm linguistics series]. Echeruo, Michael J. C. 1998. Igbo-English Dictionary. New Haven/London: Yale University Press. Emenanjọ, E. Nolue. 1975. Aspects of the Igbo Verb. In F. C. Ọgbalụ & E. N. Emenanjọ (Eds), Igbo Language and Culture. Vol. 1. (pp. 160-173). Ibadan: Oxford University Press. Emenanjọ, E. Nolue. 1978. Elements of Modern Igbo Grammar. Ibadan: OUP. Emenanjọ, E. Nolue. 1979. On the diachronic aspects of Igbo suffixes. African Notes, 7(1), 15–19. Emenanjọ, E. Nolue. 1982. Suffixes and enclitics in Igbo. In F. C. Ogbalu & E. Nolue Emenanjọ (Eds), Igbo World. Vol. I (pp. 132–167). Ibadan: University Press Limited. Emenanjọ, E. Nolue. 1985. Auxiliaries in Igbo syntax: A comparative study. Bloomington IN: Indiana Linguistics Club. [Studies in African Grammatical Systems No. 2]. Emenanjọ, E. Nolue. 1991. The Tense System of Igbo. Afrikanische Arbeitspapiere, 27, 129–143. Eze, Ejike & Victor Manfredi. 2001. Ìgbo. In Jane Garry and Carl Rubino (Eds), Facts about the world’s languages: An encyclopedia of the world’s major lanuages, past and present (pp. 322–330). New York, NY: The H.w. Wilson Company. Greenberg, Joseph. 1963. The languages of Africa. The Hague: Mouton, and Bloomington, IN: Indiana University. Heine, Bernd. 1995. Agent-oriented vs. epistemic modality: Some observations on German modals. In Joan Bybee & Suzanne Fleischman (Eds), Modality in grammar and discourse (pp. 17–53). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Typological Studies in Language 32]. Hewings, Ann & Martin Hewings. 2005. Grammar and context: An advanced resource book. London: Routledge.
Chinedu Uchechukwu Igboanusi, Herbert & Lothar Peter. 2005. Languages in competition. Frankfurt: Lang. Igwe, Egemba G. 1973. The role of affixation in Igbo Grammar. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of London. Igwe, Egemba G. 1999. Igbo-English Dictionary. Ibadan: University Press Plc. Igwe, L.O. 1987. Mood and modality in Igbo. M.A. Thesis, University of port Harcourt, Nigeria. Jacobs, Roderick A. 1995. English syntax. A grammar for English language professionals. Oxford: OUP. Leiss, Elisabeth. 1992. Die Verbalkategorien des Deutschen: Ein Beitrag zur Theorie der sprachlichen Kategorisierung. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Studia linguistica Germanica 31]. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2000. Artikel und Aspekt: Die grammatischen Muster von Definitheit. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Studia Linguistica Germanica 55]. Narrog, Heiko. 2005. Modality, mood, and change of modal meanings: A new perspective. Cognitive Linguistics, 16(4), 677–731. Nwachukwu, Akụjụọobi P. 1987. The Argument structure of Igbo verbs. Cambridge, MA: The Center for Cognitive Science, Mit. [Lexicon Project Working Papers 18]. Nwigwe, Victoria Ngozi. 2003. Mood and modality in Ngwa Igbo. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of port Harcourt, Nigeria. Palmer, Frank R. 22001. Mood and modality. Cambridge: CUP. [Cambridge textbooks in linguistics]. Sasse, Hans-Jürgen. 2002. Recent activity in the theory of aspect: Accomplishments, achievements, or just non-progressive state? Linguistic Typology, 6, 199–271. Swift, Lloyd B., Ahaghotu, A. & Ugorji, E., 1962. Basic Igbo Course. Washington, DC: Foreign Service Insitute. Uchechukwu, Chinedu. 2006. Was verrät uns das Image-Schema der Igbo-Verbwurzeln über die deutschen Funktionsverbgefüge? Sprachwissenschaft, 31(3), 293–326. Uchechukwu, Purity Ada. 2007. A corpus-based analysis of Igbo and Spanish copula verbs. Diplomarbeit, submitted to the Department of Romance Languages. Otto-FriedrichUniversität Bamberg. Welmers, Beatrice F. & William E. Welmers. 1968. Igbo: A learner’s dictionary. Los Angeles CA: UCLA. Williamson, Kay. 1972. Igbo English dictionary. Benin: Ethiope Publishing Corporation. Williamson, Kay. 1982. A Tentative Scheme for Igbo Verbs. [Unpublished Monograph. University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State]. Williamson, Kay & Nọlue Emenanjọ. 1992. Igbo. In William Bright (Ed.), International encyclopedia of linguistics. Vol. 2 (pp. 195–199). Oxford: OUP. Williamson, Kay & Roger Blench. 2000. Niger-Congo. In Bernd Heine & Derek Nurse (Eds), African Languages: An introduction (pp. 11–42). Cambridge: CUP. Ziegeler, Debra. 2006. Omnitemporal will. Language Sciences, 28, 76–119. Ziegeler, Debra. Forthcoming. Prepositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English.
Asian
The Aspect-Modality Link in the Japanese verbal complex and beyond Heiko Narrog
Tohoku University This contribution investigates the aspectual and modal marking in the Japanese verbal complex, and as a result offers support for the hypothesis of a link between aspect and deontic vs. epistemic interpretation of modal markers. Since Japanese is structurally largely different from the Germanic and the Slavic languages and is genetically unrelated, the aspect-modality link must be motivated by general cognitive principles. On the other hand, I suggest that with respect to some points in Abraham’s and Leiss’s (in this volume) theory of the aspect-modality link a revision might be called for. Concretely, I propose the following: (1) The temporality of deontic modal sentences differs from epistemic modal sentences in that deontic modal sentences require [S ≠ E] (E standing for the event time in the complement) while there are no such restrictions on sentences with epistemic modals. (2) The crucial factor in modal interpretation is temporal rather than aspectual. Aspectuality mediates between modality and temporality rather than motivating or entailing modality directly. (3) Grammatical aspect only provides a cue to modal interpretation, but cannot determine it. The ultimate determining factor is context, which provides either a volitive or non-volitive background to the utterance.
1. Introduction1 In a number of publications, the editors of this volume have raised issues which are potentially of central importance for the understanding of the distinction between
. The following abbreviations are used in the Japanese examples and tables: nom – nominative, gen – genitive, dat – dative, acc – accusative, ess – essive, exi – existential, loc – locative, abl – ablative, sta – status, quo – quotative, qua – quality, dem – demonstrative, lim – limitative, top – topic, foc – focus, adv – adverbial, adn – adnominal, nmz – nominalization, cop – copula, pas – passive, cau – causative, pot – potential, nec – necessity, epi – epistemic modality, cont – continuative, cpv – completive, pst – past tense, npred – nominal predicate, nps – non-past, pol – politeness, cpl – complementizer, que – interrogative, ill – illocutionary force.
Heiko Narrog
different types of modality. The first issue, associated primarily with Abraham’s work, is the potential link of deontic modality with perfectivity/terminativity, and epistemic modality with imperfectivity/indeterminativity (e.g., Abraham 1991, 2001a, 2005a,b, in this volume). A second major issue has been raised by Leiss, who put forward the hypothesis that aspect fulfills the function of modality in a language with poorly developed grammatical modality (e.g., Leiss 2002a: 87). Leiss goes even further in proposing that only languages without well-developed aspect paradigms have modal verbs or a distinctly developed modal system (cf. Leiss 2000: 64; 2002a: 69, 75). Observations and hypotheses about the relationship between modality and aspect in synchrony and diachrony have been circulated for a number of years now (e.g., Sherebkov 1967; Steedman 1977; Coates 1983; Goossens 1987; Leech 1987; Aksu-Koç 1995). However, arguably, the study of this relationship has never been pursued with much consequence. The new impetus imparted to it by Abraham (1991, 2001a, 2005a, b, in this volume) and Leiss (2000, 2002a–c) thus provides the opportunity to investigate the phenomenon in more depth than before. The present paper investigates the two questions indicated above as far as this is possible with data from Modern Japanese. Japanese does not have a set of modal markers which share morphosyntactic properties to the extent that the modals in English or the German modal verbs do. On the other hand, if the claims offered by Abraham (1991, 2001a, 2005a, b, in this volume) and Leiss (2000, 2002a–c) were limited to languages with modal markers which share the same morphosyntactic properties as the modal verbs in English and German, they would only concern a tiny fraction of existent languages and would be of little interest for the study of language in general. In my understanding, however, their questions pertain to functional categories that are potentially universal to human language. Furthermore, in my view, the link between tense, aspect and modality, if it exists, must be due to universal cognitive and pragmatic criteria rather than to structural idiosyncrasies of individual languages. Therefore, if Abraham’s (1991, 2001a, 2005a, b, in this volme) and Leiss’s (2000, 2002a–c) hypotheses are to have broad relevance, it is not only useful and legitimate, but even mandatory to scrutinize their hypotheses on a variety of languages with divergent morphosyntactic structures. Japanese has grammaticalization conditions different from those of the modern Germanic and Slavic languages. It can be assumed that the older Indo-European languages grammaticalized modality as mood suffixes (endings) on the verb in a phase of OV word order. Many prominent modern Indo-European languages have shifted, or are in the process of shifting, to VO structures. They are currently grammaticalizing modality in auxiliaries preceding the verb. Japanese is strictly head final and grammaticalizes modality in the form of suffixes to the verb with various degrees of fusion, or, as periphrastic constructions following the lexical. The degree of grammaticalization of these affixes and constructions is not of
The Aspect-Modality Link in the Japanese verbal complex and beyond
concern here.2 The important question is what functional categories these modal markers stand for in a semantic hierarchical ordering. In the empirical part of this paper, I will investigate the realizations of deontic and epistemic modality in the Japanese verbal complex. I will furthermore focus on the core issue, namely the interface between deontic and epistemic meaning, and on the question under which conditions a deontic marker may become susceptible to epistemic interpretation, with special respect to tense-aspect. Adverbs are not included in the study. For one thing, it might be necessary indeed to treat them separately (as suggested by Abraham in the introduction to this volume). For another thing, since Japanese has no modal adverbs which independently express deontic meaning, they would not reasonably contribute to the issue investigated here. As a preview of the result, the data that I will present do indeed provide support for the association between modality and aspect as claimed by Abraham (1991, 2001a, 2005a, b in this volume), although, in contrast to Abraham (1991, 2001a, 2005a, b, in this volume), I suggest that this association should be formulated in terms of temporal rather than aspectual relations. I will furthermore point out that grammatical aspect as such is only a strong cue to (deontic vs. epistemic) interpretation, but not the only decisive factor. Ultimately, the interpretation depends on the background of the utterance, as provided by the context and reconstructed by the hearer. In the remainder of the paper, I will proceed as follows: The next section will deal with the issues raised by Leiss (2000, 2002a–c). This is done so only briefly because the Japanese verbal complex, in which aspect and modality have both been well grammaticalized throughout history, does not offer much material to test Leiss’s (2000, 2002a–c) hypotheses. I will then critically discuss the basis of the issues raised by Abraham (1991, 2001a, 2005a, b, in this volume) in section 3. Sections 4 and 5 present the data from Japanese, including an extensive corpus study. Sections 6 and 7, finally, explore again the basis for the aspectmodality link in the light of the empirical data presented. Section 8 concludes the paper.
2. The balance between aspect and modality (the Leiss question) This section will deal relatively briefly with the questions posed by Leiss. In broad terms, Leiss (2000, 2002a–c) suggests a view of aspect and modality as grammatical categories which interact, with aspect not only complementing but even triggering modality. The notion of tense, aspect, and mood/modality as standing in a complementary relationship
. With respect to Japanese periphrastic root modal markers based on conditionals, e.g., –(a) nakereba narana- “must”, Hanazono (1999) has shown the degree to which they have already grammaticalized.
Heiko Narrog
has also been espoused in other recent research such as Bhat (1999), and Bhatt (1999). Bhat (1999) hypothesizes that languages often do not develop tense, aspect, and mood equally, but one of the three categories may be more “prominent” than the others. The better developed members of the TAM triad extend their functional domain and secondarily cover the functions of less developed members. Thus, according to him, in a language with a strong realis – irrealis system, realis may be associated with past and present, while irrealis is associated with the future, or, in a language with a strong aspectual system, a perfective may secondarily denote past. It is also well-known that cross-linguistically the past tense often serves to mark counterfactuality or hypothetical utterances (e.g., James 1982; de Haan 2005). In my eyes, the novelty of Leiss’s (2000, 2002a–c) idea thus lies in emphasizing the relationship between modality and aspect, while traditionally the relationships between tense and mood/modality and tense and aspect has been given much more attention.3 This is also true for historical studies. Paddock (1997) for example, argues for English language history that “[…] the loss of separate mood inflections increased the mood-like functions of English tenses, whereas the development of systematic progressive and perfect forms reduced their aspectual functions” (Paddock 1997: 1527). By and large, the relationships between tense and modality as well as tense and aspect appear to be much better established than the one between aspect and modality. Now turning to Japanese, this language has grammaticalized aspect and modality to a high degree throughout its history. However, in its documented history of more than 1300 years, some salient developments have taken place, which are shortly summarized below (cf. Suzuki 1993; Narrog 2005b). •
•
•
A relative shift in prominence from aspect to tense has taken place. Compared to Old Japanese aspect, Modern Japanese aspect in its grammatical forms is simplified. There has been a general shift from synthetic to analytic marking of aspect and modality. That is, concepts that were formerly mostly expressed as affixes and inflections are expressed periphrastically in Modern Japanese. For instance, a periphrastic progressive form (-Te i-ru) has developed, while formerly the present tense –(ur)u had progressive function. While Old Japanese commonly had modal polyfunctionality, i.e., deontic and epistemic modality expressed by the same morpheme, Modern Japanese in general only has forms specializing on one type of modality.
. One notable exception is the work by Fleischman (1995), who investigates the association of imperfective marking with irrealis. However, Fleischman (1995) does not go so far as to claim that imperfective aspect systematically covers modal functions within the overall balance of tense, aspect, and modality in any specific language.
The Aspect-Modality Link in the Japanese verbal complex and beyond
In sum, Old Japanese had very well-developed complex aspect and polyfunctional modality, while Modern Japanese has simplified aspect and highly specialized modality. The formal expression of aspect and modality are mainly synthetic in Old Japanese and mainly analytic in Modern Japanese. Since aspect and modality have been well developed throughout, the investigation of the interaction between aspect and modality in Japanese can presumably contribute little to Leiss’s (2000, 2002a–c) hypothesis, except for rejecting its strong version, namely, that only languages without well-developed aspect can have a well-developed modal system. Beyond Japanese, I suspect that in a cross-linguistic survey it would not be difficult to find languages which have both well-developed grammatical modality, including modal polyfunctionality, and aspect. Leiss’s (2000, 2002a–c) strong hypothesis apparently needs more specification if it is to be upheld.4 The rest of this section shall briefly discuss an issue raised by Leiss (2002a) with respect to dynamic modality (ability and root possibility). Leiss notices for Russian and Old High German (OHG) that dynamic modality can be implied by imperfective verbs without being expressed overtly (cf. Leiss 2002a: 89–92).5 A similar phenomenon can be observed in Modern German in sentences such as the following: (1) Sprechen Sie Deutsch? ‘Do you [= Can you] speak German?’ (2) Gatlin läuft die 100 Meter in 9 Sekunden. ‘Gatlin runs [= can run] 100 meters in 9 seconds.’
Modern Japanese, like Modern German and English, or even more than them, has rich morphological and syntactical (periphrastic) means to express ability and root possibility. It is even more difficult to find expressions with implied root possibility like the examples above. Example (1) would routinely be expressed with a potential (root possibility) marker in Japanese. However, conversely, there are some contexts in which one can find apparent implied root possibility in Japanese, where it would be marked by can/können in English and German The events are either generic (i.e., imperfect) or negated. See (3) and (4).
. Note that limiting Leiss’s (2000, 2002a–c) hypothesis to English/German-style modal verbs would make the hypothesis theoretically uninteresting. This would be quasi tautological, as the hypothesis would be limited from the beginning to systems in a tiny number of languages for which the outcome is already known or foreseeable. . Leiss (2002a), however, treats this phenomenon under the heading of “deontic” modality.
Heiko Narrog
(3) mitukar-ana-i / ??mituke-rare-nai find.itr-neg-nps find.tr-pot-neg6 ‘I can’t find [it]’ (4) me-ga mie-ru7 / ??me-ga mi-rare-ru eye-nom see-nps eye-nom see-pot-nps ‘I can see’
Note that in each case the version with the potential (POT) morpheme would be decidedly odd. In any case, it seems that we can find expressions with implied root possibility even in languages like Modern English, German and Japanese, which have ample grammaticalized means to mark it. In other words, it is conceivable that generic and imperfective expressions implying dynamic modality are possible irrespective of grammaticalization of modality. Another related issue is the distinction between dynamic modality on the one hand, and “spontaneity” on the other hand. It is wellknown that English can has also “spontaneous” use (e.g., I can feel an insect crawling on my back), and this spontaneous use is practically synonymous to a modally unmarked sentence (e.g., I feel an insect crawling on my back) (cf. e.g., Declerck 1991: 167f.; Sawada 2006: 386f.). Conversely, modally unmarked “spontaneous” sentences might be interpreted to have “invisible” modal marking. Similar observations have been made for French (e.g., Le Querler 1996: Ch. 2). More detailed language- specific and cross-linguistic investigations are needed in order to determine the relevance of the existence of such constructions. In any case, it is important to distinguish carefully “unmarked” (or implicated) dynamic modality from “unmarked” implicated deontic modality because the conditions under which both phenomena occur appear to differ. Particularly, it appears that “unmarked” dynamic modality is a more common phenomenon (at least in main clauses) and easier to obtain than unmarked deontic modality. The remainder of this paper is devoted to the hypothesis raised by Abraham (2005a, b), namely, that there exists a root-perfective and an epistemic-imperfective link. I will proceed in three steps. First, in the following section, I will try to state more precisely the issue at stake as it presents itself in my view, which is slightly different from Abraham’s (2005a, b) view. Second, I will shortly discuss aspectuality of modal makers including modal verbs themselves. Then, I will present
. “-” indicates a junction between two lexemes, “. ” a junction between lexeme and affix or affix and affix, and “ = ” the suffixation of a particle. . mie-ru “see” etymologically goes back to mi-y-u in Old Japanese, containing the Old Japanese suffix verb of potential, –(ra)y-u. However, this suffix became obsolete by Late Old Japanese, and mie-ru in Modern Japanese is a simplex lexical verb. It does not belong to the so-called “potential verbs” (kanō dōshi), which contain –(r)e-ru, a pattern that arose in Late Middle Japanese (16th c.).
The Aspect-Modality Link in the Japanese verbal complex and beyond
an empirical study of the issue with Modern Japanese data before presenting my conclusions.
3. The nature of the deontic-perfective, epistemic-imperfective link The essential issue in the modality-aspect link is whether specific aspectual properties of the proposition induce a specific, i.e., either deontic or epistemic interpretation of the modal marker (modal verb) that governs the proposition, provided that the modal marker is open to both deontic and epistemic interpretation. Specifically, perfective (terminative) propositions may induce deontic interpretation while imperfective (nonterminative) propositions may induce epistemic interpretation. Abraham (2005a, b) formulates the issue in a Reichenbachian temporal denotation, which ultimately bears out in terms of aspect. According to him, for deontically-read modal verbs the relationship [S≠(E = R)], also abbreviated as [S≠R] holds, S being the time of speech, E the time of the event, and R the time of modal reference. In contrast, epistemicallyread modal verbs and their complements are monophasic, resulting in a relationship [S = R] (cf. Abraham 2005a: 451, 460f.; Abraham 2005b: 251, 269).8 Abraham’s hypothesis contrasts with earlier hypotheses about the tense of modals, for example that by Hornstein (1990), who suggested [E, R_S] (that is, [S≠R]) for epistemic modals with perfect complements, and implicitly suggests [S, R, E] for present tense deontic modals (cf. Hornstein 1990: 36, 18), and the one by Steedman (1997: 913), who sees R preceding S in the case of epistemic modals with perfect complements. Neither Hornstein (1990) nor Steedman (1997), however, claimed any relationship between temporality and deontic vs. epistemic interpretation of modals. As I will argue below, there are problems both with Hornstein (1990) and with Abraham (2005a, b). I suggest a recasting of Abraham’s (2005a, b) intended generalization, while retaining the Reichenbachian notation, in two fundamental points. 1. The basic contrast is not between [S≠R] (deontic reading) vs. [S = R] (epistemic reading), but between [S≠E] (deontic) and “unrestricted” (epistemic).9 Furthermore, in order to describe the temporality of sentences with modal verbs fully, a complex temporal structure with two temporal reference points must be assumed. 2. The relationship
. Abraham (2005a, b) does not mention E as relevant in this context. . With respect to the event time of modals (E) it should be kept in mind that the event itself is always irrealis, that is either not yet realized or not yet known. In this respect, it is different from E in realis sentences. This might call for a different representation (e.g., Steedman 1997), but I follow Hornstein (1990) and Abraham (2005a, b) in treating event time of the modals like the event time with other verbs.
Heiko Narrog
between S and E that plays a decisive role in the disambiguation of modals is essentially temporal and not aspectual in nature. The aspectuality of the embedded proposition implies specific temporal relationships but cannot determine them. Let us start here with considering the divergence between Hornstein’s (1990) and Abraham’s (2005a, b) hypotheses. First, Abraham (2005a, b) and Hornstein (1990) differ in their view on the temporality of deontic sentences, e.g.,
(5) John must go to school now.
Hornstein (1990) does not explicitly provide this type of example, but he suggests the temporality [S, R, E] for directives with present-time reference (see Hornstein 1990: 18). In contrast, Abraham (2005a: 461) has [S≠R] for all deontics, that is, in this case presumably [S_R, E] (cf. (Abraham 2005a: 451f.). The following infelicitous sentence, built on (5), shows that at least [S≠E] must hold, that is, Hornstein’s (1990) view is incorrect, and Abraham’s (2005a, b) view is, at least partially, correct:
(6) *John is already going to school now and/but he must go to school now.
Speakers use directives or deontics to express that a state-of-affairs that does not hold in the present is to be realized. If the state-of-affairs (E) already holds at the time of the utterance (S), that is [S = E], as would be the case in (6), a deontic is pragmatically infelicitous. Therefore, deontics have been characterized as “future-oriented”, or “projective”, or “future-shifting” (cf. Bybee et al. 1994: 185; Enç 1996: 353; Ziegeler 2006: 215f.; Abraham 2008). While the mutual position of S and E is clear in the case of present tense deontics, it is less certain where R has to be located. Reichenbach (1947) himself did not deal with modals directly, but his position on future will and shall (which many scholars consider as a modal anyway) should be applicable to deontic (i.e., future-oriented) modals as well. Reichenbach (1947) proposes two interpretations for the future, namely [S,R_E] if the event in the proposition is held to occur immediately (e.g., Now I shall go), and [S_R, E] if the event in the proposition is temporally removed (e.g., I shall go tomorrow) (cf. Reichenbach 1947: 295). We can assume the same temporality for corresponding deontic sentences: I must go now [S, R_E], and I must go tomorrow [S_R, E].10 Following this, the fundamental temporality of deontics is not [S≠R] as stipulated by Abraham (2005a, b) but [S ≠ E].11
. This is a view also supported by Enç (1996: 354f.), who, however, does not employ Reichenbachian notation. . As a matter of course [R, E_S], i.e., [S≠E, R] holds for past tense deontics, since they express an obligation that held in the past.
The Aspect-Modality Link in the Japanese verbal complex and beyond
The [S ≠ E] in the deontic sentence constitutes a fundamental contrast with modals in epistemic reading, as in the following example.
(7) John must be very unhappy now.
This sentence clearly expresses an inference about a present state of affairs [S = E]. The reference time is also the present, so that the relationship [S, R, E] holds. The presentorientation of the proposition can be demonstrated with the following sentence where negation of the modal judgment in the present is shown to be infelicitous.
(8) *John must be very unhappy now, but I don’t believe so.
The second difference between Hornstein (1990) and Abraham (2005a, b) emerges with epistemic modalized sentences with formally “perfect” complements. Hornstein claims the relationship [E, R_S]:
(9) John must have arrived yesterday.
(Hornstein 1990: 36)
Essentially, the same claim is made by Steedman (1997: 913), who states that “it is clear that we are dealing with the modalization of the past reference point, rather than of a present perfect”. Abraham (2005a), in contrast, claims the anterior present (present perfect) relationship [E_R,S] for a corresponding sentence in German:12 (10) Er muss in A. gewohnt haben.13 ‘He must have lived in A.’
(Abraham 2005a: 450)
The decisive difference is the position of R. In other words, is the reference time for the event in the past, as with simple past tense (Hornstein 1990; Steedman 1997), or in the present, as with the present perfect as claimed by Abraham (2005a, b)? The answer is “simple past”. This is already indicated by the past adverb yesterday in (9). It could perhaps nevertheless be claimed that an event of the previous day still can have current relevance ([S = R]), and the embedded proposition is an anterior present (present perfect). However, the adverb yesterday can easily be replaced by a temporally further removed adverb clearly ruling out present time reference, that is, a present perfect-like reading (cf. (11)). The same can be done with the German example (cf. (12)). (11) The first humans must have arrived in Australia about 40,000 years ago. (12) Zur Zeit der Bauernaufstände muss er in A. gewohnt haben. ‘At the time of the peasants’ revolts, he must have lived in A.’
. Cf. Reichenbach (1947: 297), who lists [E_R, S] for anterior present (present perfect) and [E, R_S] for simple past. . The semantic difference between English present perfect and German present perfect in finite use can be ignored in this case of embedding.
Heiko Narrog
The complements in these examples are clearly located in the past, as is their reference time R. Thus, Hornstein (1990) and Steedman (1997) are correct when they posit [R_S], as contrasted with Abraham’s (2005b) [S = R]. In the same context, Abraham (2005b) points out a potentially significant difference between deontic modals, which he believes to fall in the scope of tense, and epistemics which he believes not to.14 Cf. example (13), which expresses deontic necessity and contrasts with (9): (13) (According to the plan,) John had to arrive yesterday.
In the case of both (9) and (13), the relation [R_S] holds. The difference is that in the case of (13), the modal force (deontic) or modal judgment (epistemic) itself is located in the past, while in the case of (9) it is located in the present. This difference cannot be captured by simply rearranging one set of the Reichenbachian variables S, R, and E. In order to describe the temporal relation not only between the time of utterance and the event but additionally also of modality itself, a more complex temporal notation is needed, involving at least two reference points (R), one for the modality (R1) and one for the event (R2). One possibility would be a notation parallel to complement clauses (cf. Hornstein 1990: 129), positing one temporality for the modal itself and a separate one for the complement, and assuming a link between the two temporalities. If this is done, the temporalities of sentences such as (9) to (12) can be represented as in Figure 1: S1, R1, E1 E2, R2_S2 Figure 1. Temporality of epistemic modal with past complement.
The present-orientation of the modal itself is represented here in the upper row with the structure [S1, R1, E1] while the past orientation of the embedded proposition is represented in the lower row. In contrast, (13) would have to be represented as in Figure 2: E1, R1, S1 S2, R2_E2 Figure 2. Temporal representation of deontic modal with past time reference.15
. A similar claim is made, for example, by Hacquard (2006: 160), who claims that epistemic modality, in contrast to “circumstantial” modality, merges above tense. For deontic modality, she distinguishes between different cases. . Cf. Hornstein 1990: 128f. for similar structures.
The Aspect-Modality Link in the Japanese verbal complex and beyond
Here, R1 and E1 in the upper row are located in the past, that is, the modal itself is in the scope of past tense. As with present tense deontics we assume [S≠E] for the embedded proposition. According to the hypotheses by Abraham (2005a, b), the temporal structure as represented in Figure 2 should be ruled out, as should be the structures in Figure 3. Figure 3a is a variation of the structure in Figure 2, taking into account the flexibility of R in future-oriented clauses (cf. Reichenbach 1947: 295), and b. represents simultaneity (present-orientation) in the proposition, which is, as argued above possible only for epistemics and not for deontics. a. E1, R1_S1
b. E1, R1_S1
S2_E2, R2
S2, E2, R2
Figure 3. Temporal representation of (putative) epistemic modals with past time reference.
Whether equivalents of the structures in Figure 2 and Figure 3 are realizable for epistemics is a controversial question, for which I do not pretend to present a final solution here. However, I will present here some evidence that appears to speak against this hypothesis. The first example below (14) shows a transposition of the modal judgment into the past with a typical “objective”16 epistemic modal construction of English (cf. Dik 1997: 296). It corresponds to the structure in Figure 3a. The second example (15) is with a German modal verb and suggests that transposition into the past is possible in a narrative context. It corresponds to structure b. in Figure 3.17 (14) It was possible that the enemy would strike from behind.18 (15) Ich war mir ganz sicher: Die Tür rechts musste der Ausgang sein. ‘I was absolutely sure. The door on the right had to be the exit.’19
. For “objective” / “low level” vs. “subjective” / “high level” modality cf. Dik (1997: 242). “Level” refers to the place in a hierarchical structure of functional categories where a specific category is located/generated/merged. . Fagan (2001: 220) claims that in sentences like these, “[t]he modality itself … is not located in time”, but no reasons for this claim are given. In fact, in ex. (15), it is easy to show that the modal judgment is indeed located in the past, by adding a sentence canceling the inference from the point of view of the present, e.g., Aber ich hatte mich getäuscht “But I was mistaken”. . Based on similar examples with be possible, Iatridou (1990: 125) concluded that epistemic predicates contain a time variable, that is, are time-sensitive. . Similar counterexamples are presented in Hacquard (2006: 156–158).
Heiko Narrog
In contrast to German müssen, English must has no past tense form, and needs to be replaced by have to, as is done in the translation to ex. (15). Note that this not only holds for the epistemic but also for the deontic interpretation (*I musted go vs. I had to go). Nevertheless, in actual language use, one also finds epistemic must with past reference in its present tense form. Cf. the following example: (16) Then she realised how he must feel.
(Mindt 1995: 119).
In a corpus study, based mainly on fictional texts of British English, Mindt (1995) counts a full 34% of occurrences with past time reference. This type of example presumably corresponds to the structure in Figure 3b as well. Overall, it seems that there are cases of modal constructions such as be possible, have to, must in English and müssen in German, where the modal judgment itself is located in the past. In Japanese, this is a common phenomenon with epistemic modal constructions. Cf. the following examples with hazu (epistemic) “should”. (17) Kare-wa moo ki-te i-ru hazu-da. 3s-top already come-ger be-nps epi-cop(-nps) ‘He should already be here.’ (18) Kare-wa moo ki-te i-ru hazu-dat-ta. 3s-top already come-ger be-nps epi-cop(-nps) ‘He was supposed to be already there.’
In contrast to hazu in (17), which denotes an epistemic judgment in the present, hazu in (18) expresses an inference which held at a point of time in the past, but does not necessary hold anymore at the time of utterance (S). Since E should does not have this option, it needs to be replaced in the translation. In the last few paragraphs, I have both discussed the contrast between Hornstein (1990) and Abraham (2005a, b), and issue (1) that I raised with respect to Abraham’s generalization. I will now proceed to the second point which I consider as not yet solved, the question whether we are dealing with aspectuality as the decisive factor here, or with temporality. Perfectivity, as Abraham (2005a, b) states, is necessarily bi-phasic, with an incremental phase and a resultant phase. It is therefore bound to either future or past interpretation, but can never refer to the present. In contrast, imperfectivity is logically not bound to any specific temporal interpretation, but it is associated by implication with the present, to which perfectivity is not applicable. Now, as argued above, deontic modality as a pragmatic and cognitive condition in principle requires future-orientation (“posteriority”; “projectivity”). Deontic interpretation is therefore not compatible with temporal present-orientation. This time gap, or future-orientation relative to the time of speech, can be triggered by perfective aspectuality of the proposition. Note that in many languages, including Russian and German, a perfective/terminative predicate in the present temporally has by default future value (unless it is modified by adverbs, used habitually etc.).
The Aspect-Modality Link in the Japanese verbal complex and beyond
In contrast, a modal verb is by default reinterpreted epistemically if the proposition is present-oriented, because no deontic reading is available. Imperfectivity, in contrast to perfectivity, allows reference time to be included in event time. The perfective-imperfective contrast is neutralized in the past, because both perfectivity and imperfectivity are compatible with past events. In addition, since it is pragmatically infelicitous to demand or permit a past event, deontic modality is incompatible with past propositions unless the modality itself is marked as past, and the obligation or permission is only reported. As evidence for the primacy of temporality over aspectuality in determinating the epistemic vs. deontic interpretation, consider the following example (19): (19) You must be in good shape this afternoon (otherwise our team will lose).
The predicate of the complement is stative/imperfective, but the modal is nevertheless interpreted deontically, because the temporal adverb this afternoon indicates future orientation. Without this adverb, and without further information from the context, the modal verb would have to be read deontically, due to the imperfective/stative predicate. It is clear however, that if a temporal adverbial is inserted, this adverbial overrides the implication of present-orientation which comes from the aspectual monophasicness of the predicate. Overall, I conclude that there is a cognitively and pragmatically highly plausible link between modality and aspect, as proposed by Abraham (e.g., 2005a, b). However, I suggest that this link is mediated by temporality, since it is the temporal orientation of the proposition which induces specific modal interpretations. The aspectuality only implies temporal relations.20 Temporal adverbs overrule the imperfectivity of the predicate. Furthermore, I suggest that the fundamental opposition in temporality which is relevant for deontic vs. epistemic interpretation is between [S≠E] (i.e., futureorientation) for deontic modality and no restriction for epistemic modality.21 However, in order to represent the temporality of modal sentences comprehensively, we need to assume complement clause-like structures in which both the modal and the complement have their own temporality. If this is done for all modals, it is the event time of the complement ([E2]) which is necessarily different from the time of utterance in the case of deontics.
. This claim is consonant with the description with the treatment of one of the very first authors who have tackled the role of temporality in the deontic vs. epistemic interpretation of modal verbs. For Sherebkov (1967: 358f.) as well, the decisive factor is the temporal relation (“Zeitstellenwert”) of the complement in relation to the modal verb, and the aspectual value (aktionsart) of the predicate in the complement only plays a “certain role” that “facilitates” temporal interpretation. . Above, we have shown examples for both [S≠R, E] (9), and [S = R, E] (7).
Heiko Narrog
4. Aspect in Japanese – a brief orientation Aspect in Modern Japanese is characterized by a basic opposition between stative and non-stative predicates (cf. Suzuki 1976: 76; Okuda 1985: 90; Kaneko 1987: 670f.). This is slightly different from a perfective vs. imperfective system, but the basis for the investigation of the aspect-modality link is nevertheless given, since stative predicates form the core of imperfective predicates. First, Japanese verbs can be divided into stative and non-stative on a lexical level (the non-stative verbs can in turn be divided into two or three sub-categories; cf. Suzuki 1976; Okuda 1985; Yoshikawa 1995). Stative verbs form a small class with low type frequency but high token frequency. They include mainly verbs of existence and potentiality (the potentiality verbs are verbs derived with –(r)areru and –(r)eru). Typical state verbs of English such as know, have, or live are non-stative in Modern Japanese. Only the non-stative verbs participate in the grammatical aspectual paradigm below (cf. Kudō 1995: Ch. 1; Takahashi 2003: Ch. 3). Table 1. Japanese grammatical aspect
perfective
present past
-(u)ru -Ta
stative (progressive, result-state, perfect) -Te i-ru22 -Te i-ta
Note that “perfective” is only a default value since it is the unmarked form, and can have imperfective (generic, habitual etc.) value in specific contexts. Furthermore, the rare “perfect” reading of the stativizing construction is imperfective, which is probably the original aspectual value of perfects in general, before they become tense-like (cf. Leiss 2002c: 31 for German). Besides the stativizing -Te iru, which is generally considered to be obligatory part of the morphological paradigm of verbs, there are a number of optional grammatical aspect marking constructions. These include: – – – –
completive -Te simau; optional; has a denotation of regret. preemptive -Te oku; also optional. resultative state -Te aru; only with transitive verbs, infrequent. progressive -tutu aru; infrequent.
The first two of the constructions are non-stative and perfective, while the latter two are stative.23
. The capital T on morphemes indicates morphophonemic variation. The gerund –Te has the allomorphs –te and –de depending on the final phoneme of the preceding verb stem. . There are two more optional aspectual constructions, namely with –Te kuru and –Te iku.
The Aspect-Modality Link in the Japanese verbal complex and beyond
It was mentioned above that potential (root possibility) formations are counted among the stative verbs as well. These include verbs on –(r)areru, –(r)eru, –(ur)u, and –kaneru, and the lexical verb dekiru in the root possibility sense, and in the construction koto-ga dekiru. Adjectival, nominal, and adverbial24 predicates, of course, are also stative. Desiderative verbs ending on the suffix adjective –tai ‘want to’ are included in the adjectives here.
5. Empirical study The most important goal set in this paper is to empirically test the hypothesis of an aspect-modality link in the verbal complex in Modern Japanese. Specifically, we need to find out whether the aspectuality of the proposition influences interpretation of modal markers in the verbal complex that correspond to the modal verbs in Germanic and that have the possibility of both deontic and epistemic interpretation. On first sight, it is not obvious that such an investigation can be carried out in Japanese. The textbook view is that modal markers in Japanese are not polyfunctional like their Germanic counterparts, but that deontic, dynamic and epistemic modality are expressed by distinct markers (e.g., Iwasaki 2002: Ch. 13; Matsuoka 2000: Chs. 13, 16). It appears that the periphrastic construction of deontic necessity, –(a)nakereba naranai, and the epistemic suffix daroo, for example, are interpreted unambiguously, no matter what the aspectuality of the proposition is. See examples (20) to (23): (20)
Deontic marking + perfective (completive) aspect: Kimi = wa [tp [mp1 [aspp [sore = o haya.ku wasure]te simaw] you-top that-acc quick-adv forget-ger cpv anakereba narana] i] nec -nps ‘You must forget that quickly’ (deontic)
(21)
Deontic marking + imperfective (stative) aspect: Kimi = wa [tp [mp1 [aspp [soko = de mat]te i] you-top there-loc wait-ger cont (a) nakereba narana] i] nec -nps ‘You must be waiting there’ (deontic)
They are not included in the investigation here because their aspectual value is less unambiguous perfective or imperfective than that of the constructions listed here. . Adverbs often used in predicative position include the koo-soo-aa-doo ‘‘this way/that way/ how’’ paradigm.
Heiko Narrog
(22)
Epistemic marking + perfective (completive) aspect: Kimi = wa [mp2 [tp [aspp [sore = o haya-ku wasure]te sima(w)] u] you-top that-acc quick-adv forget-ger cpv-nps daroo] epi ‘You’ll surely forget that quickly’ (epistemic)
(23)
Epistemic marking + imperfective (stative) aspect Kimi = wa [mp2 [tp [aspp [soko = de mat]te i] ru] daroo] you-top there-loc wait-ger cont-nps epi ‘You’ll probably be waiting there’ (or: ‘You must/I’m sure that you’re waiting there’) (epistemic)
Note that deontic and epistemic modality can in principle freely combine with any kind of aspect, without changing their meaning. However, some scholars have claimed the existence of exceptions (Morita & Matsuki 1989: 186f.; Kuramochi 1993: 103; Moriyama 1997, 1999; Tamura 1999; Amemiya 1999; Fujii 2000). They have pointed to a marginal epistemic use of two deontic expressions, namely necessity –(a)nakereba naranai, and permission –Te mo ii, and they have named the following conditions for epistemic readings of the deontic constructions: 1. Stativity of the proposition. (Morita & Matsuki 1989: 186) 2. Stativity is not enough. The proposition must be perfect. (Tamura 1999: 26f.) 3. The state of the affairs expressed in the proposition cannot be controlled by the subject. (Tamura 1999: 24, 27f.) 4. A conditional or causal clause precedes the modalized clause. (Fujii 2000: 58f.; Amemiya 1999: 63; Moriyama 2000: 44; NKBK 2003: 109)25 Although the epistemic readings of deontic modal markers are generally acknowledged as marginal, it is not really known to what extent and under which conditions they actually occur because there has been no empirical study on them yet, and authors have mostly relied on recurrently cited invented examples. This paper thus presents the first empirical investigation. In the absence of a balanced corpus of the language similar to the BNC, a large electronic database of Japanese text (mostly fiction, newspaper and essay writing, but also containing about 400 transcribed conversations, technical and other miscellaneous writing), built by the author, was used. The size is 215MB (because, unlike in European languages, Japanese writing employs no spacing between words, a word count is not possible). I identified the four most common modal markers and constructions in the . Fujii (2000) seems to consider this as a necessary condition for the epistemic interpretation, although she does not state it clearly, while Amemiya (1999) merely says “in most cases”.
The Aspect-Modality Link in the Japanese verbal complex and beyond
verbal complex in each the deontic and the epistemic domain. They are presented in Table 2 below, and include all those deontic markers that have been mentioned in the literature as allowing marginal epistemic readings. Table 2. Deontic and epistemic Japanese modal markers in the verbal complex Marker
Meaning/function
Frequency
-(a)na-kereba nar-ana-i beki -Te-mo i-i -(a)zaru-o ena-i
necessity/obligation “must” moral evaluation “should” approval “may” necessity “must’ (‘cannot not”)
19746 18428 3398 2838
daroo/desyoo ka-mo sir-e-na-i hazu ni tigai na-i
speculative “will, must” possibility “may, might” expectation “should” necessity “must”
33148 15059 5036 3309
Note again that the four deontic markers are in principle exclusively deontic, and the four epistemic markers are in principle exclusively epistemic. I then investigated the co-occurrence of these modal markers with clearly stative and stativized predicates on one hand, and with clearly perfective predicates on the other hand. The following types of predicates were regarded as clearly stative (cf. the preceding section): Existential-locative predicates with stative verbs, nominal, adjectival and adverbial predicates, and grammatically stativized verbs (V+Te iru/aru, -tutu aru; potential verbs). In contrast, verbs with the completive –Te simau and the preemptive –Te oku were regarded as perfective. Unmarked non-stative verbs are perfective by default, but they may include contextually imperfective predicates. Therefore, they were not included in the investigation. The following table shows the token frequency of stative propositions governed by the eight most frequent modal markers and constructions, and their share of the overall number of occurrences of the respective marker: Table 3. Modal markers taking stative propositions Marker -(a)na-kereba nar-ana-i beki -Te-mo i-i -(a)zaru-o ena-i daroo/desyoo ka-mo sir-e-na-i hazu ni tigai na-i
loc-exi
NPred
Adj
cont
pot
Total Proportion
393 279 58 0
757 341 195 6
165 82 28 8
424 35 63 1
26 11 0 0
1765 748 344 15
0.09 0.04 0.10 0.01
3347 1447 620 249
6981 3792 304 977
3071 1066 613 161
3520 1816 492 551
1525 907 321 91
18444 9028 2350 2029
0.56 0.60 0.47 0.61
Heiko Narrog
The following table shows the same for the propositions marked with completive aspect: Table 4. Modal markers with propositions marked as perfective -Te oku/ -Te simau
Proportion
-(a)na-kereba narana-i beki -Te-mo i-i -(a)zaru-o ena-i
406 162 42 0
0.02 0.01 0.01 0.0
daroo/desyoo ka-mo sir-e-na-i hazu ni tigai na-i
677 244 45 58
0.02 0.02 0.01 0.02
Marker
The numbers in Table 3 reveal a stark contrast between deontic and epistemic modal markers. While epistemic modal markers take as much as 47 to 61% stative propositions, deontic modal markers take only between 1 and 10%. These numbers alone show a strong association of epistemic modality with stativity (core imperfectivity), and deontic modality with perfectivity (since the non-stative propositions are by default perfective). The relevance of the numbers in Table 4, which are much smaller, is less clear at this point. Perfective predicates in Japanese are as a rule unmarked, and the completive marking is entirely optional, as explained in section 4. Therefore, the numbers are simply low for any kind of modal marker. Now we come to the crucial point, namely the epistemic readings of deontic markers with stative propositions.26 The raw numbers are shown in Table 5 below: Table 5. Epistemic readings of deontic modal markers with stative propositions Marker -(a)na-kereba nar-ana-i beki -Te-mo i-i -(a)zaru-o ena-i
LOC-EXI
NPred
Adj
CONT
POT
Total
7 (1) 0 0
8 0 0 0
1 (3) 0 0
5 0 3 0
0 (2) 0 0
21 (6) 3 0
The numbers with beki are put into brackets, since beki here reflects classical language, and not Modern Japanese. Its predecessor be-si was a marker with wide ranging polyfunctionality in Old and Late Old Japanese. The other markers allowing epistemic . The reverse case, namely perfective propositions with epistemic markers triggering a root reading did not occur. This was checked as well.
The Aspect-Modality Link in the Japanese verbal complex and beyond
readings are –(a)nakereba naranai and -Te-mo ii. The numbers are very small, but the fact is amazing that two of the deontic markers which are not supposed to be polyfunctional can receive epistemic readings in exceptional cases.27 The fact that only -(a)nakereba naranai and -Te-mo ii allow epistemic readings confirms the findings in the literature on this topic (see above). Below, I give two examples of epistemic readings of deontic markers with stative propositions, one for -(a)nakereba narana-i and the other for -Te-mo ii. (24) Daawin siNka-ron = ga zettai-teki = ni tadasi.i = to s.uru = nara, Darwin evolution-theory-nom absolute-qua right-fpr-sta do-con
siNka = wa ima siNkoo-tyuu = de nakereba narana.i. evolution-top now progress-during-ess nec-nps ‘If Darwin’s theory of evolution is absolutely right, then evolution must be in progress now.’ (Essay 1991)
(25) (‘When does the patient regain consciousness?’) Wakari-mas-eN = na. HoNrai = nara tokkuni me = o understand-pol-neg-ill origin-con already eye-acc samasi.te i.te = mo i.i = no = da = ga… awake-ger be-prm-nps-nmz-cop-ctr ‘I don’t know. Normally, though, (s)he should already be awake.’ (Fiction 1982)
The three instances of epistemic readings with -Te-mo ii, like the one above, although they are present-oriented, all express some kind of counterfactual expectation, instead of a belief or a conclusion about a present state. The following discussion will therefore focus on –(a)nakereba naranai ‘must’. First, we examine the factors potentially triggering epistemic readings. Stativity (or imperfectivity) of the main predicate alone, as named by Morita & Matsuki (1989: 186), is not enough. The vast majority of examples of the deontic markers with stative propositions had clearly deontic readings. An example is given below: (26)
Idootai sizyoo = de = mo susamazi.i kyoosoo = ga okot.te Movable object market-loc-foc fierce-nps competition-nom arise-ger i-mas.u = ga, subete = wa yuuzaa = ga kime.ru koto = da = to be-HON-nps-ctr all-top user-nom decide-nps thing-cop-quo
. Note that this is not an apparent example of historical change. The epistemic readings occur across times in the corpus. It might be more appropriate to view the occurrence of epistemic readings of the root markers with stative propositions as a phenomenon occurring for cognitive reasons. Whether these readings become grammaticalized or not probably depends on historical and structural conditions. It may be suggested that in Japanese their grammaticalization is apparently blocked by the abundance of already existing epistemic markers.
Heiko Narrog
omoimas.u. think-nps
Soo yuu thus say
imi = de, sikkari = to yuuzaa = o meaning-ess firm-adv user-acc
mi.te i-nai = toikena.i = to omoi-mas.u. look-ger be-nec-nps-quo think-hon-nps ‘In the mobile [communication] market as well, fierce competition is taking place, and everything is decided by the customers. In this sense, I think we must be firmly looking at the customers’. (Newspaper 1998)
Even a more restricted condition on the aspectuality of the proposition, namely that it must be a perfect or resultant state (Tamura 1999: 26f.) is neither sufficient nor even necessary. Ex. (24) was epistemic but not aspectually perfect. Conversely, there are examples of sentences with a perfect proposition which still receive a clearly deontic reading.28 (27) Doo yuu koto = na = N = da? Kasei kuuiki = o, moo zyuu-zikaN how say thing-adn-nmz-cop Mars air space-acc already ten-hours izyoo mae = ni syuppatu-si.te i-nakya more than before-adv depart-do-ger be-nec-nps
narana.i,
kizai maNsai = no koosoku kamotu-seN = ga rop-pai = mo machine full-gen high speed freight-ship-nom six-cla-foc horyuu-s-ase-rare-te ‘ru = N = da. suspension-do-cau-pas-ger (be)-nps-nmz-cop ‘What’s going on here? We should have left the Martian air space already more than 10 hours ago. Six high-speed freighters fully loaded with equipment are (Fiction 1980) being suspended.’29
The lack of control of the state-of-affairs by the subject (Tamura 1999: 24, 27f.) is not sufficient either. In the following example, no willful subject is expressed, but the modality is nevertheless unambiguously deontic. (28) Kaikaku = to yuu mono = wa koohei = de nakute = wa narana.i. reform-quo say thing-top fair-ess nec-nps ‘A reform must always be fair.’ (Newspaper 1998)
. Interestingly, there are parallels in German. While Engel (1988: 465, 471) claimed that only epistemic modals can govern infinitive perfect complements, Hennig (2000: 132) points to the existence of exceptions, which can be illustrated with an example which we render abbreviated here:
(i) Man muss nicht mehr Griechisch und Latein studiert haben, um zu wissen, dass…
(cf. Hennig 2000: 130) ‘One does not need to have studied Greek and Latin, in order to know that….’
. Note that in the English translation should have was used since must have in English is obligatorily epistemic.
The Aspect-Modality Link in the Japanese verbal complex and beyond
With respect to preceding conditional or causal clauses (Fujii 2000: 59; Amemiya 1999: 63), ex. (24) above shows that such clauses are indeed conducive to epistemic interpretation, but as can be seen in the following ex. (29), they are in no way necessary. (29) Sore = ga saisyo = no yoo = na zyuNsui = o usinai, siNseN = o usina.u this-nom first-gen way-adn purity-acc lose freshness-acc lose-nps yoo = ni nat.te it.ta = ni tuite = wa, syuzyu = na geNiN = ga way-DAT become-ger go-pst-adv about-top various-adn cause-nom nakute = wa nar-ana.i. nec-nps ‘There must be various causes for the fact that it [= the literature of our time] has gradually lost its purity and freshness.’ (Literature 1900)
Finally, we turn to temporal reference, as discussed in section 3 as the last candidate to trigger the non-deontic readings. Grammatically marked imperfectivity governed by the MV, including stativity, is clearly not enough to trigger an epistemic reading. Note that even in the case of English must, whose deontic and epistemic readings are divided quite strictly along aspectual lines, a deontic interpretation obtains when the stative or progressive proposition refers to the future. In (30), for example, the temporal adverb marks the proposition as unambiguously future-oriented and therefore unambiguously deontic. (30) You must be in good shape tomorrow.
The next example, (31), is ambiguous, allowing both deontic and epistemic interpretation. (31) You must be standing over there.
In the deontic sense, it could be an instruction to an actor by the stage director. The situation could be that the actor is not yet standing at the location demanded by the director, or the “standing” is to take place at a later point in time. The second person subject may be conducive to the deontic interpretation but it is not indispensable. Consider (32): (32) He must be standing over there.
This could be uttered in the same situation, namely by the stage director to his assistant who is in charge of instructing the extras. In any case, the propositions are interpreted as future-oriented in these contexts. Now, in the examples above, (26) has a similar future-orientation. (28) is a timeless proposition. There is still arguably a temporal gap between the demand that reforms must be fair, and its possible implementation. By contrast, the adverb ima “now” in (24) indicates present-orientation and contributes to the exceptional epistemic reading. Likewise, in (29), the existence of causes is logically anterior or simultaneous with the “fact” that “[contemporary] literature has lost its purity”. This makes a present-orientation, and hence an epistemic reading, inevitable.
Heiko Narrog
In other words, the generalization [S ≠ E] for deontic modality and “unrestricted” for epistemic modality appears to be very solid, and the best explanation for the triggering of epistemic readings in the Japanese examples. However, the grammatical (or lexical) aspect of the proposition alone does not determine the temporal relationship between modality and the state-of-affairs encoded in the complement. Temporal adverbs and non-linguistic contextual factors apparently play a role as well. They shall be further discussed in the remaining sections.
6. Possible counterexamples In this section, examples shall be discussed which apparently challenge the generalizations made here about the relationship between modality and tense-aspect. It was claimed that for cognitive and pragmatic reasons deontic modality is essentially future-oriented, while only epistemic modality can (but does not have to) be presentoriented. Future-orientation, in turn, can be implied by perfectivity. However, since humans process languages flexibly in adaptation to pragmatic conditions, rather than mechanically, we can expect counterexamples, or at least cases which are on the borderline. In my view, such borderline cases do not necessarily invalidate a hypothesis in the study of natural language. They are rather suggestive in finding the motivations for deontic and epistemic interpretation. In the following three examples, we find deontic interpretation with propositions which are not only stative but also possibly present-oriented: (33) Sore = wa, motiron, horogurafi = no dna that-top of.course holography-gen dna
sono mono = ni seigyo dem thing-loc control
zyoohoo = to si-te hukum-are.te i-na.kereba nar-ana.i. information-sta do-ger contain-pas-ger be-nec-nps ‘This [information] must of course be contained in the holography dna of itself as control information’ (otherwise the experiment won’t work) (Literature 1998) (34) NiNgeN = tte, koNna sugata = o si.te = made iki.te man-top this.kind.of appearance-acc do-ger-lim live-ger i-nakereba narana.i = no = kasira? be-nec-nps-nmz-que ‘Does man have to be living even if he is miserable like this?’ (Literature 1930) (35) SuimiN zikaN = o kezut.te = made, oki.te i.ru = kara = ni = wa, sleep time-acc cut-ger-lim awake-ger be-nps-abl-adv-top sore = nari = no riyuu = ga na.kereba nar-ana.i. that-cop-adn reason-nom nec-nps ‘As [I] am being awake like this cutting [my] sleeping time, [I] must [= /I demand it of myself to] have reasons for this.’ (Essay 1988)
The Aspect-Modality Link in the Japanese verbal complex and beyond
(33) reports on a (fictional) experiment in genetic engineering. In order for cell multiplication to work, the holography DNA must contain control information constraining cell growth. This is not a future-oriented demand, but it a necessity imposed on an already existing state. The experiment has already been conducted, and the speaker has no knowledge whether the state-of-affairs encoded in the proposition (“contain control information”) actually holds at present or not, but (s)he states that it is a necessity. (34) is a rhetorical question. The state-of-affairs ‘live miserable like this’ already holds in the present. If it has been imposed on human beings by some force, it is unclear who this force is (God, destiny etc.) and whether it was ever imposed at a specific point in time. In (35), the writer writes about himself as cutting his sleep, and he has already stated the reasons for it. Therefore, the necessity ‘must have reasons’ does not seem to be future-oriented, or have a time gap with the present state. One could argue that there must have been a point of time in the past when the speaker demanded of himself ‘have a reason for this’ and then found reasons after that, but this cannot be directly induced from the context. The data above have all been empirical and from a corpus. For the purpose of illustration, we can make up similar examples in English in which we locate the same problem. Consider (36): (36) The luggage must already be in Paris by now (otherwise, we’ll get into trouble).
This sentence, similar to (33) or (35) above, states a necessity in the present. It does not imply a future-orientation, nor even that the necessity had arisen prior to the moment of speaking, or any other time gap between the time of speech and the time for which the modality takes effect. In summary, there are peripheral cases that can be labeled as “necessity” rather than as “obligation”, in which the rule [S≠E] for deontic interpretation appears to be violated, or where [S≠E] is not the distinguishing factor in deontic vs. epistemic interpretation. In such cases, the time gap between speech time and the modality taking effect is either not discernible or irrelevant. In my view, they do not invalidate the generalization [S≠E] for deontic modality, but show that human cognition can conceptualize situations flexibly. This point of flexibility and adaptation to situations leads us to the last issue discussed in the paper, the presumably decisive factor in deontic vs. epistemic interpretation.30
. Traugott & Dasher (2002: 127f.) and Ziegeler (2003) promote the idea that sentences denoting general necessity are pivotal to a switch between root and epistemic interpretation. It appears to me that such an approach is not entirely incompatible with an approach that emphasizes the role of aspectuality and temporality. In generic statements, events lose their specificity and may enter a gray zone with respect to temporal orientation. The nature of the subject may also play a role. These are factors that cannot be discussed sufficiently within the confines of this paper.
Heiko Narrog
7. The crucial factor in deontic vs. epistemic interpretation Recall that the vast majority of stative propositions with deontic -(a)nakereba naranai ‘must’ are interpreted deontically. Even in the case of polyfunctional English must, which distinguishes deontic and epistemic modality by temporal-aspectual factors with relative rigor, stative propositions can receive deontic interpretation.31 This can be due to the presence of temporal adverbials, as in (19), but this can also occur without temporal adverbials, as in (31) and (32). It can therefore not be emphasized enough that the grammatical and lexical aspect of the proposition provide a strong cue to interpretation but cannot determine it. Consider the following example for must again, and an ambiguous example for –(a)nakereba naranai taken from the Japanese corpus: (37) You must be standing over there. (38) Kono niNsiki-no zeNtei = ni = wa, sore-zore = no dem perception-gen precondition-adv-top this-this-gen guruupu-kaN = ni = wa itioo = no daNzetu = no sayoo = ga group-space-loc-top tentative-gen disconnection-gen effect-nom nakereba narana-i. nec-nps A. (S = R) ‘As a precondition for this perception [the perception that groups have to cooperate], there must be [= I conclude that there is] an effect of tentative disconnection between the individual groups’. B. (S < R) ‘As a precondition for this perception, there must be an effect of tentative disconnection between the individual groups. [= this effect is necessary/indispensable/must be created]’ (Essay 1972)
In these cases, at least out of context, both deontic and epistemic interpretation is possible. In the case of (38), context reveals that only B is possible. The sentence is from a passage where the writer elaborates how society should work. The “perception” written about is not one in the real world, but one posited for an ideal (deontic) world. In the same way, a good number of sentences with deontic modality and stative predicates in my database are ambiguous if viewed in isolation, but they are unambiguous in context. Cf. (33) again. I have already given away that in context the interpretation is deontic, but looking at the very same sentence out of context, an epistemic interpretation (B) is possible as well (39):
. In Coates’ count, in fact more than a quarter of all stative propositions with must received root interpretation (cf. Coates 1983: 44).
The Aspect-Modality Link in the Japanese verbal complex and beyond
(39) Sore = wa, motiroN, horogurafi = no dna sono mono = ni seigyo that-top of.course holography-gen dna dem thing-loc control zyoohoo = to si-te hukum-are.te i-nakereba narana.i. information-sta do-ger contain-pas-ger be-nec-nps A. volitive: ‘This [information] must of course be contained in the holography DNA of itself as control information.’ (it is desirable/necessary for someone) B. non-volitive: ‘This [information] must of course be contained in the holography DNA of itself as control information.’ (we conclude this)
The epistemic interpretation would be feasible in a context where a speaker/writer does not know the details of the experiment and is uttering his inferences. In other words, ultimately, in sentences like this, which are neither clearly past- nor future-oriented, it is not the grammatical cues which decide the interpretation, but contextual clues and world knowledge. Lastly, consider the following examples by Halliday (1970: 326): (40) You must be very careful. (41) You must be very careless.
Although both sentences have the same structure, (40) will receive by default a deontic interpretation, and (41) an epistemic interpretation. This is a decision purely based on our world knowledge, which categorizes carefulness as desirable and carelessness as undesirable, and not on grammatical structure. In fact, the assignment of deontic vs. epistemic interpretation could be reversed in a world in with opposite values to our present world (cf. Wunderlich 1981: 26). Kratzer (1981) and others (cf. Zifonun et al. 1997: 1882–1887 for an implementation) have famously formulated the dependency of the interpretation of polyfunctional modal verbs on context in terms of conversational backgrounds provided by the utterance situation and world knowledge. Given that the basic distinguishing factor between deontic and epistemic modality is the presence or absence of an “element of will” (cf. Jespersen 1992 (11924): 313ff.; Heine 1995; Narrog 2005a), the speaker may either construe a volitive (deontic) background, which usually entails the temporal interpretation [S≠E], or a non-volitive background, which does not entail it.
8. Conclusion The data from Japanese provide positive support for the hypothesis that deontic modality is linked to perfectivity and epistemic modality to imperfectivity. This link appears in the data not as an absolute rule, but as a strong tendency. Yet, it was suggested that in a number of points Abraham’s (1991, 2001, 2005a, b etc.) hypothesis is open for discussion. First, the decisive factor in the modality-aspect link may not be aspect itself, but temporal
Heiko Narrog
relations that can be implied by aspect. Second, while for deontic modality [S≠E] (E referring to the event encoded in the complement of the modal verb) holds, epistemic modality is unrestricted. In other words, deontic modality, as a strong pragmatic and cognitive rule, is essentially future-oriented, requiring a temporal gap between the time of speech and the time that the modality takes effect. In contrast, epistemic modality is not temporally bound, but conversely [S=E] is by default bound to epistemicity, because this temporal relationship is not available for deontic readings. We observed that even in Japanese, where modal markers in the verbal complex are basically not polyfunctional, but specialize in one type of modality, stativity of the proposition can be conducive to an epistemic reading of deontic markers. Furthermore, statistically, epistemic markers are strongly associated with stative propositions and deontic markers with non-stative propositions. On the other hand, since we are dealing here with essentially temporal relationships, and not aspectual relationships, the link between grammatical aspect and modality is not 100% straightforward. It is easy to find sentences with perfective propositions and epistemic interpretation and imperfective propositions and deontic interpretation. Also, many sentences in natural discourse are ambiguous between deontic and epistemic out of context. In the case of such ambiguous sentences, the decisive point is whether or not the hearer construes a volitive (i.e., deontic or boulemic) conversational background for the sentence. The temporal/aspectual interpretation of the sentence follows from the choice of background. The choice of background, in turn, is based on contextual clues and world knowledge.
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Aksu-Koç, Ayhan. 1995. Some connections between aspect and modality in Turkish. In Pier Marco Bertinetto et al. (Eds), Temporal reference, aspect and actionality. Vol. 2: Typological perspectives (pp. 271–287). Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier. [Linguistica 13]. Amemiya, Yūichi. 1999. Gendai nihongo ni okeru gimu ronriteki hyōgen [Expressions for obligation logic in Modern Japanese]. Nihon Gakuhō, 18, 59–68. Bhat, Darbhe N. Shankara. 1999. The prominence of tense, aspect and mood. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Studies in language companion series 49]. Bhatt, Rajesh. 1999. Covert modality in non-finite contexts. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins & William Pagliuca. 1994. The evolution of grammar. Tense, aspect & modality in the languages of the world. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Coates, Jennifer. 1983. The semantics of the modal auxiliaries. London: Croom Helm. [Croom Helm linguistics series]. Declerck, Renaat. 1991. A comprehensive descriptive grammar of English. Tōkyō: Kaitakusha. De Haan, Ferdinand. 2005. Typological approaches to modality. In William Frawley (Ed.), The expression of modality (pp. 27–69). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. [The expression of cognitive categories 1]. Dik, Simon C. 1997. The theory of functional grammar. Part 1: The structure of the clause. Edited by Kees Hengeveld. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. [Functional grammar series 20]. Enç, Mürvet. 1996. Tense and modality. In Shalom Lappin (Ed.), The handbook of contemporary semantic theory (pp. 345–358). London: Blackwell. [Blackwell handbooks in linguistics 3]. Engel, Ulrich. 1988. Deutsche Grammatik. Heidelberg: Julius Groos Verlag. Fagan, Sarah M.B. 2001. Epistemic modality and tense in German. Journal of Germanic Linguistics, 13(3), 197–230. Fleischman, Suzanne. 1995. Imperfective and irrealis. In Joan Bybee & Suzanne Fleischman (Eds), Modality in grammar and discourse (pp. 519–551). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Typological Studies in Language 32]. Fujii, Seiko. 2000. Ninshikiteki modariti to sono shūhen to no kanren – bunpōka, tagisei bunseki no kanten kara (Epistemic modality and the relationship to its fringes. From the perspective of grammaticalization and analysis of polysemy). In Epistemic modality and related phenomena: The cases of Japanese, English and Chinese. Seventh International Symposium, session 6 (pp. 52–71). Tōkyō: The National Language Research Institute. Goossens, Louis. 1987. Modal shifts and predication types. In Johan Van der Auwera & Louis Goossens (Eds), Ins and outs of the predication (pp. 21–37). Dordrecht: Foris. [Functional grammar series 6]. Hacquard, Valentine. 2006. Aspects of modality. Ph.D. Dissertation, MIT. Halliday, Michael A.K. 1970. Functional diversity in language as seen from a consideration of modality and mood in English. Foundations of Language, 6, 322–351. Hanazono, Satoru. 1999. Jōken fukugō yōgen keishiki no nintei (The recognition of complex conditional verb forms). Kokugogaku, 197, 39–53. Heine, Bernd. 1995. Agent-oriented vs. epistemic modality. Some observations on German modals. In Joan Bybee & Suzanne Fleischman (Eds), Modality in grammar and discourse (pp. 17–53). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Typological studies in language 32]. Hennig, Mathilde. 2000. Tempus und Temporalität in geschriebenen und gesprochenen Texten. Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Linguistische Arbeiten 421]. Hornstein, Norbert. 1990. As time goes by. Tense and universal grammar. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Heiko Narrog Iatridou, Sabine. 1990. The past, the possible, and the evident. Linguistic Inquiry, 21, 123–29. Iwasaki, Shoichi. 2002. Japanese. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [London Oriental and African language library 5]. James, Deborah. 1982. Past tense and the hypothetical. A cross-linguistic study. Studies in Language, 6 (3), 375–403. Jespersen, Otto. 1992. The philosophy of grammar. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. (11924 London: Allen & Unwin). Kaneko, Tohru. 1987. Tempus und Aspekt im Japanischen und Deutschen. In Tohru Kaneko & Gerhard Stickel (Eds), Deutsch und Japanisch im Kontrast, Vol. 4 (pp. 637–717). Heidelberg: Julius Groos. Kratzer, Angelika. 1981. The notional category of modality. In Hans-Jürgen Eikmeyer & Hannes Rieser (Eds), Words, worlds, and contexts. New approaches in word semantics (pp. 38–74). Berlin: de Gruyter. [Research in text theory 6]. Kudō, Mayumi. 1995. Asupekuto, Tensu Taikei toTekusuto. Gendai Nihongo no Jikan no Hyōgen (The system of tense-aspect and text. The temporal expressions of Modern Japanese) Tōkyō: Hitsuji shobō. Kuramochi, Yasuo. 1993. Handan no hituzenteki na kiketsu o arawasu iikata (Expressions for necessary conclusions). In Yukiko Sakata & Yasuo Kuramochi (Eds), Bunpō II (pp. 97–112). Tōkyō: Heibonsha. [Kyōshiyō nihongo kyōiku handobukku 4]. Leech, Geoffrey N. 1987. Meaning and the English verb. Second edition. London: Longman. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2000. Verbalaspekt und die Herausbildung epistemischer Modalverben. Germanistische Linguistik, 154, 63–83. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2002a. Explizite und implizite Kodierung von Deontizität und Epistemizität: Über die grammatische Musterbildung vor der Entstehung von Modalverben. Jezikoslovje, 3/1–2, 69–98. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2002b. Die Rolle der Kategorie des Aspekts im Sprachwandel des Deutschen: Ein Überblick. In Japanische Gesellschaft für Germanistik (Ed.), Grammatische Kategorien aus sprachhistorischer und typologischer Perspektive (pp. 9–25). München: iudicium. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2002c. Der Verlust der aspektuellen Verbpaare und seine Folgen im Bereich der Verbalkategorien des Deutschen. In Japanische Gesellschaft für Germanistik (Ed.), Grammatische Kategorien aus sprachhistorischer und typologischer Perspektive (pp. 26–41). München: iudicium. Le Querler, Nicole. 1996. Typologie des Modalités. Caen: Presses Universitaires de Caen. Matsuoka, Hiroshi (Ed.). 2000. Shokyū o Oshieru Hito no Tame no Nihongo Bunpō Handobukku (Japanese grammar handbook for people teaching basic Japanese). Tōkyō: Three Ace Network. Mindt, Dieter. 1995. An empirical grammar of the English verb. Modal verbs. Berlin: Cornelsen. Morita, Yoshiyuki & Masae Matsuki 1989. Nihongo Hyōgen Bunkei (Japanese expression patterns). Tōkyō: Aruku. Moriyama, Takuo. 1997. Nihongo ni okeru jitai sentaku keishiki (Forms of event choice in Japanese). Kokugogaku, 188, 12–25. Moriyama, Takurō. 2000. Kihon johō to sentaku kankei to shite no modariti. In Takurō Moriyama, Yoshio Nitta & Hiroshi Kudō, Nihongo no Bunpō 3: Modariti (Japanese Grammar 3: Modality). Tōkyō: Iwanami. Narrog, Heiko. 2005a. Modality, mood, and change of modal meanings – A new perspective. Cognitive Linguistics, 16 (4), 677–731.
The Aspect-Modality Link in the Japanese verbal complex and beyond
Narrog, Heiko. 2005b. Gengo ruikeiron kara mita nihongo bunpōshi (The history of Japanese grammar from a typological perspective). Kokugo to Kokubungaku, 984, 1–12. NKBK. 2003 = Nihongo Kijutsu Bunpō Kenkyūkai 2003: Gendai Nihongo Bunpō 4. Modariti (Modern Japanese Grammar 4. Modality). Tōkyō: Kuroshio Shuppan. Okuda, Yasuo. 1985. Kotoba no Kenkyū, Josetsu (Language research, an introduction). Tōkyō: Mugi Shobō. Paddock, Harold. 1997. Effect of mood loss and aspect gain on English tenses. In Raymond Hickey & Stanislaw Puppel (Eds), Language history and linguistic modelling. A festschrift for Jacek Fisiak on his 60th birthday (pp. 1527–1536). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. [Trends in Linguistics / Studies and monographs 101]. Reichenbach, Hans. 1947. Elements of symbolic logic. New York, NY: Macmillan. Sawada, Harumi. 2006. Modariti (Modality). Tōkyō: Kaitakusha. Sherebkov, V. A. 1967. Zum Zeitbezug beim deutschen Modalverb. Deutsch als Fremdsprache, 4, 357–361. Steedman, Mark. 1997. Temporality. In Johan van Benthem & Alice Ter Meulen (Eds), Handbook of logic and language (895–938). Amsterdam: Elsevier. Suzuki, Shigeyuki. 1976. Nihongo no dōshi no sugata (asupekuto) ni tsuite (About the aspect of Japanese verbs). In Haruhiko Kindaichi (Ed.), Nihongo Dōshi no Asupekuto (pp. 63–81). Tōkyō: Mugi Shobō. Suzuki, Tai. 1993. Jikan hyōgen no hensen (The change of temporal expressions). Gekkan Gengo, 22/2, 60–67. Takahashi, Tarō. 2003. Dōshi Kyūshō (Nine chapters on verbs). Tōkyō: Hitsuji Shobō. Tamura, Naoko. 1999. Nakereba naranai no yōhō to meidai yōso to no kakawari (The usage of nakereba naranai and the relationship to the proposition) Nihongo Kyōiku, 101, 21–31. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs & Richard Dasher. 2002. Regularity in semantic change. Cambridge: CUP. [Cambridge studies in linguistics 97]. Yoshikawa, Chizuko. 1995. Nichiei Hikaku Dōshi no Bunpō (Comparative Japanese and English verb grammar). Tōkyō: Kuroshio. Wunderlich, Dieter. 1981. Modalverben im Diskurs und im System. In Inger Rosengren (Ed.), Sprache und Pragmatik. Lunder Symposium 1980 (pp. 11–53). Lund: CWK Gleerup. Ziegeler, Debra. 2003. On the generic origins of modality in English. In David Hart (Ed.), English modality in context. Diachronic perspectives (pp. 33–69). Bern: Lang. Ziegeler, Debra. 2006. Interfaces with English aspect. Diachronic and empirical studies. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Studies in language companion series 82]. Zifonun, Gisela, Ludger Hoffmann & Bruno Strecker. 1997. Grammatik der deutschen Sprache. 3 vols. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Schriften des Intituts für deutsche Sprache 7].
The Aspect-Modality Link in Japanese The case of the evaluating sentence Shin Tanaka
Chiba University In this paper we address the Aspect-Modality Link (AML) as it is observed in Japanese. As a direct comparison between verbal expressions, modal verbs and modal paraphrases does not show a pronounced affinity between aspect and modality, we look elsewhere for occurrences of the AML: We will mainly examine the epistemicity expressed through Handan-bun (‘‘evaluating sentence’’), which interests us for two reasons. On one hand, it has a marked affinity with imperfectivity. On the other hand, it seems that the development of Handanbun, the evaluating type of sentence, runs counter to the received sequel of the grammaticalization of modality, namely the development from deontic usages to epistemic usages. Apart from the AML observed in the evaluating sentence, we discuss another A-M Link phenomenon in Japanese, which is found in the core of the verbal paradigm in Japanese. In both cases, the AML in Japanese is not observed explicitly in terms of proper verbal expressions like modals or modal predicatives, but rather, can be found if we expand the scope of comparison beyond the cardinal verbal categories (aspect, tense, and mood or modality) and take a look over other linguistic means.
1. Introduction The present paper is an attempt at demonstrating an affinity between aspect and modality (the A(spect)-M(odality) Link (AML) as proposed in the introduction by Abraham and Leiss (in this volume) in Japanese. The first step in discovering this affinity is to search for expressions of epistemic modality. As the constellation of the Japanese verbal categories differs markedly from that of European languages, a simple comparison between the verbal categories in these languages does not appear to be helpful.1
. As Narrog (in this volume) points out, in Japanese “both deontic and epistemic modalities are basically unrestricted in their interaction with perfective and imperfective aspectuality”, as
Shin Tanaka
Indeed, we find a pronounced modality expression – albeit not as an expression in the predicate, but in an unlikely domain for the expression of modality, as a particle (cf. chapter 3, illustration (4)). We will see that the modality expressed with the discourse particle wa in Japanese is very similar to the modality meanings rendered through modals in European languages. The sentence with wa shows interesting phenomena. On one hand, it has a marked affinity with stative or durative predicates, an insight long and well-established in Japanese linguistics. On the other hand, it seems that the development of the wasentence is counter-directional to the grammaticalization of modality, which is often assumed to develop from deontic to epistemic usages (e.g., Traugott 1995, 2003).
2. E valuating sentence (Handan-bun): An expression of the unmarked epistemic modality Let us first see what modality in the “evaluating sentence” is about. The particle wa is almost always used in a matrix sentence and marks the sentence topic. (1) Kai-wa/?ga yakyu-wo shi-teiru. Kai-top baseball-acc do-prog ‘Kai is playing Baseball.’ (full predication) (2) Kai-ga/??wa yakyu-wo shi-teiru harappa Kai-nom baseball-acc do-prog field ‘the field where Kai is playing baseball’ (not full predication, rather DP)
the following examples of Narrog’s (in this volume) (with some rearrangements of mine: ST) show: (i)
Perfective ASP + deontic M: Kimi-wa sore-wo haya-ku wasure-tesimaw-anakerebanaranai you-top that-acc quick-adv forget-prf-deo ‘You must forget that quickly’ (deontic)
(ii)
Perfective ASP + epistemic M: Kimi-wa sore-wo haya-ku wasure-tesimau-darou you-top that-acc quick-adv forget-prf-epi ‘You'll surely forget that quickly’ (epistemic)
Though we can observe some correlations between aspect and modality in Japanese, too, the paraphrastic expressions for the modality in Japanese are highly differentiated semantically and can be freely combined. Although it is certainly worthwhile investigating the modal expressions with respect to the Aspect-Modality Link, we mainly intend to deal with the phenomenon outside the predicate area in this paper.
The Aspect-Modality Link in Japanese: The case of the evaluating sentence
The particles wa as topic and ga as nominative case marker constitute a minimal pair expressing the same event. The difference of the particles consists not in the propositional content, but in the speaker’s attitude to the proposition: Using the particle wa as in (1) above, the speaker expresses a statement with regard to Kai, while the sentence with ga sounds odd as an independent assertion. The latter can only be considered to be a proper main clause if, and only if, it gets a contrastive accent on Kai in the sense of an English cleft: ‘‘It is Kai who is playing baseball’’. On the other hand, the sentence with ga would be fine as a subordinate clause, while a sentence with wa in a subordinate clause is possible only with a special focus on the topicalized noun. In the relevant literature, the sentence with wa (1), is often termed as handan-bun (‘‘evaluating sentence’’) enunciating the speaker’s judgment, while the ga-sentence, gensho-bun (‘‘descriptive sentence’’), is used for an objective (intersubjectively verifiable) description of an event. Table 1 surveys the terminology and conceptualization of this. Table 1. Sentence types in Japanese 1: Evaluating sentence and descriptive sentence Ssentence type
Morphology
evaluating sentence discourse-topic particle (handan-bun) (thema) wa descriptive sentence case particles ga, ni, wo (gensho-bun)
Semantics expression for subjective judgment expression for objective description
The speaker’s attitude expressed by the Japanese evaluating sentence with wa is a most unmarked modality, which can be compared, among other things, to the indicative in European languages: In both modality expressions, handan-bun and indicative, it is the speaker’s absolute factivity judgment that is encoded. The difference is that the Japanese asserting modality expressed through the evaluating sentence has an essentially more strongly verifiable asserting power than that of the (Indo-)European indicative. While the finite ending of the indicative mood is a passive component of an assertion marking the relation between the subject and the predicate as a fact, the Japanese particle wa plays a much more interactive role: A relation between the discourse-functional topic (thema) and the corresponding predicative component is first configurated in this very sentence with wa – without wa, the sentence would be without an acceptable reading. Thus, we can often come across spontaneous relations with wa that are not intended in the predicate valence, neither syntactically nor semantically. These so-called “non-argument topics” are very common. See (3).
Shin Tanaka
(3) Watashi-no-musume-wa otokonoko-desu. I-gen-daughter-top boy-copula literally: ‘My daughter is a boy.’
(from Ikegami 2000: 34f.2)
This sentence would be utter nonsense without an appropriate context. However, in the right situation it can be used as a natural sentence under the following premises: Two old men are talking about their grandchildren. In response to the comment made by one of them about the child of his own daughter, the other uses sentence (3). In this example, we can observe that the relation between the topic and its predicate emerges through the particle wa. The speaker can create a new relation in the best of shared possible worlds. The different strengths of assertive power of the Japanese evaluating sentence and the European indicative are reflected in their different distributions. As we have seen in (1) and (2), the Japanese topic can in principle be used in a main clause, where the speakers’ attitude toward the proposition is expressed. In contrast, the affinity with the main clause of the (Indo-)European indicative is not as significant: The finite ending is not restricted only to the matrix sentence, but can be used in the subordinate sentence as well. Yet, we can observe a gradual transition of the main clause characteristics: The more independent a sentence, the more likely it is built with a finite predicate.
3. Expressing the speaker’s intended modality through the particle? As is common, the most unmarked modality in Japanese, the modality of assertion, is expressed through the particle wa. But we may ask: How can it be possible that a discourse-functional particle, of all linguistic devices, expresses the modality of assertion?3 As modality is a canonical verbal category in the same way as are tense and aspect, it is marked on the verb. The verbal mood is manifested either synthetically by verbal inflection or analytically as a modal of some category. Only modal adverbs,
. This example, originating from an essay of Kindaichi Haruhiko, a famous Japanese philologist, shows the “peculiarity” of wa-sentence with its apparent violation of the semantic constraint (with respect to the option masculine – feminine). This illustration clearly demonstrates the valence anomaly, since it violates the prototypical relation “male – female”. Beyond that, this is an illustration widely known in Japanese linguistic circles since referring to an episode referred to by Kindaichi (one of the most well-known Japanologists). Ikegami (2000) used this illustration in new contexts. . Our main thesis in this paper, that the evaluating sentence is an expression for the speaker’s modality, is not our finding, but has often been suggested by many Japanese linguists, among whom Tokieda (1950), Mikami (1972), Masuoka (1991), and many others.
The Aspect-Modality Link in Japanese: The case of the evaluating sentence
which describe the speaker’s modality as part of the proposition, are realized outside of the predicate area. Although we know a series of modal particles in German, they do not convey the modality of the sentence by themselves: The modal particles (MP), often called “nuancing particles” (discourse particles) in Japanese linguistics, serve to modify the underlying modality of the sentence, best observed in the affinity of the modal particles to a certain sentence mood such as a question or a commissive. (4) a.
Spielt er denn Baseball? plays he mp baseball ‘Does he play baseball?’ (question)
b. *Er spielt denn Baseball. he plays mp baseball ‘He plays baseball.’ (declarative) c. *Spiel denn Basketball! play.imp mp basketball ‘Spiel Basketball!’ (imperative)
In (4), we have the modal particle denn, which expresses a slight feeling of doubt or surprise of the speaker as to the very legitimacy of the question act as such. It cannot be used in an affirmative declarative or commissive or imperative sentence, but only in an interrogative sentence, as shown in (4a–c). Unlike German modal particles, modality in Japanese is fully expressed by means of the discourse-functional particle wa. How is this strong assertive modality brought about by the discourse particle? Or, in other words: What is the linking property between discourse thematicity and modal (un)certainty? We suggest that what lies behind discourse-functional, thematic wa is the deictic character of the topic particle that yields the speaker’s epistemic attitude towards the proposition. According to Diewald (1999), deixis is the source of the grammaticalization of epistemic modals. Epistemicity, the key concept in our discussion, comes about if a change of the semiotic sign class takes place, a change in which originally lexical signs pass over into the class of deictic signs.4 Motivated by this concept of
. Diewald (1999) considers the grammaticalization of the modal verbs as “ein[en] Wechsel der semiotischen Zeichenklasse, bei dem ursprünglich lexikalische Zeichen in die Klasse der (grammatischen) deiktischen Zeichen übertreten (‘‘a change in which originally lexical signs pass over into the class of deictic signs’)” (Diewald 1999: 14). The epistemic usage of modals is “deictic” in so far as “das Modalverb eine sprecherbasierte Faktizitätsbewertung zum Ausdruck bringt (‘‘the modal verb expresses the speaker’s factivity evaluation’’)”, while the deontic use of the modal verb “einen Zustand des Satzsubjekts darstellt, wobei das Modalverb Bestandteil der dargestellten Szene ist (‘‘represents a state of the sentence subject, whereby the modal verb is a part of the described scene’’)” (ibid.).
Shin Tanaka
what causes epistemicity, Diewald (1999) gives names for the uses of the modals: Epistemic modality is termed deictic modality, and the deontic/permissive/voluntative usage non-deictic modality. We now see that the epistemicity of the Japanese evaluating sentence and of the German modals can be reduced to a common denominator, namely that of deixis. The first question we must ask is what is the specific deictic character of a topic expression like the Japanese topic particle. To avoid confusion over the definition of deixis, we will first provide a general summary of this feature, which should be sufficiently precise for the further discussion below: Deixis is here defined as a term for the relation between the “origo”5 and any object talked about. Thereby, the topic can be understood as a “clipboard” between the origo and the object. The idea is illustrated in (5). (5) Topic as a “clipboard” between the origo and the referred object ORIGO → (TOPIC) → PREDICATE (OBJECT) a.
(Heute) regnet es. (kyou-wa) ame-da ‘today it is raining’
b. (watashi-no-musume-wa) otokonoko-desu ‘my daughter is a boy’ c.
Ich nehme ein Aalgericht. (watashi-wa) unagi-da ‘I take eel.’
An event is described from the perspective of the discourse situation, and the speaker is at the center of this situation. The speaker depicts a scene that is just taking place in front of him: e.g., It is raining. In that case, i.e., (5a), we can say that ame-da (‘‘rain-is’’) is a sentence without any topic. The speaker presupposes that it is obvious to his discourse partner (hearer) where and when it is raining and it is something that he need not elaborate. The speaker can continue without mentioning any topics or guidelines for the hearer to reconstruct the scene. But after some time the hearer may lose the thread of the conversation. In order to avoid this slip, the speaker introduces a frame that diverts the hearer’s attention to a certain aspect of the situation. This frame is selected by the speaker from the discourse situation with the goal of helping the hearer pick up and complete the discourse thread. The selection of the topic is entirely within the speaker’s discretion so that an apparently nonsensical relation like (5b) is
. The origo, firstly acknowledged in relevance and introduced into the linguistic public by Karl Bühler (1934), is the reference point on which a deictic relationship is based. In most deictic systems, the origo identifies with the current speaker (or some property thereof).
The Aspect-Modality Link in Japanese: The case of the evaluating sentence
ossible as long as the speaker thinks that the hearer is able to reconstruct the relation p intended. As example (5c) shows, the origo can be formally expressed as itself, so that the expression for the origo, in this example ich resp. watashi, is encoded linguistically. In such a case, the first person is conceptualized as the subject as well as the object of the speech act at the same time. The topic, as understood as a clipboard between the origo and the referred object, is a linguistic means to signal to the hearer the perspective from which the speaker is observing the scene. This concept of the topic substantially coincides with the definition of deixis by Ehlich (1982). (6) Deixis definition by Ehlich (1982, English original): The deictic procedure is a linguistic instrument for achieving focusing of the hearer’s attention towards a specific item which is part of the respective deictic space (deiktischer Raum). The deictic procedure is performed by means of deictic expressions. (Ehlich 1982: 325)
Performing the deictic procedure, the speaker draws to the hearer’s attention an entity in the deictic field. Thus, the hearer is signaled that there is a new entity referred to which functions as the center of interest in the ensuing discourse.6 According to Diewald (1991), the indicative mood, which we compared with the assertive modality of the evaluating sentence above, is also a kind of deictic expression, a weak deixis, into which all the verbal finite endings are classified. The weak deixis fulfils only half the function of the original deictic performance: On the one hand, the deixis binds a sign to the origo, and on the other hand, it binds the sign to the referred object. The weak deixis has only the origo-binding function. Contrary to the weak deixis of finiteness, all modals have full-range deixis: They express the assessment of the factivity about the proposition not only passively, but the modals profile the relation between the origo and the proposition. As to this process and result, the epistemic function of the modals is similar to that of the Japanese evaluating sentence. Just like in the Japanese evaluating sentence, there is no argument relation between the epistemicizing subject and the predicate of the sentence containing an epistemic modal in German. Diewald (1999) depicts the process with the relational structure of epistemic modality usage as follows.
. A (deictic) explicit topic signals that the center of interest has changed, while an implicit topic, e.g., zero-pronouns in Japanese, is an index for the continued topic: the old center of interest is then continued.
Shin Tanaka
(7)
Er he
kann sich getäuscht haben. may erred have source of modality (= [+ origo]) modal verb kann (proposition) er hat sich getäuscht
Figure 1. Pattern of the deictic usage of modals (Diewald 1999: 78).
This scheme is very similar to that for the topicalizing process both in German and Japanese. In both processes, there are two propositions: One is an explicit proposition (er hat sich getäuscht ‘‘he has erred’’), and the other is the covert one whose subject corresponds to the origo (‘‘I consider it possible that …’’). Both of the epistemic expressions, viz. the Japanese evaluating sentence and the German modal sentence, are very similar to each other with the exception of the degree of factivity.7 However, it is important that there be no thematic relation between the two (explicit and implicit) propositions.
4. P redicate types according to sentence types: The epistemicity-imperfectivity affinity We have argued above that the Japanese evaluating sentence is a modality expression corresponding to the German modal verb sentence with a difference in factivity. Now, how does the Japanese modality expression behave with regard to aspectual characteristics of its predicate? Can we observe an affinity between epistemicity and imperfectivity vs. root modality and perfectivity in Japanese, too – just as in German and other Germanic languages? The Japanese evaluating sentence, an epistemic modality expression, seems in fact to have a significant preference for durative predicates – or, maybe even more than that: The Japanese sentence shows a strong affinity with a certain kind of predicate with respect to the sentence type.8
. In other words, the Japanese evaluating sentence expresses the unlimited speaker’s factivity assessment, while the German modals have different factivity evaluations with respect to each modal meaning (probability, possibility, etc.). . Keep in mind that it is our goal to show that Japanese, taken to be void of any AM-Link in all the grammatical literature, the very AM-Link may turn out to be the fundamental building structure of the Japanese clause. We have argued that this manifests itself in one of the most well-known clausal classifications, i.e., that by Sakuma (1940).
The Aspect-Modality Link in Japanese: The case of the evaluating sentence
Let us now consider Sakuma’s (1940) classification of sentence types which illustrates exactly this affinity between sentence type and predicate type. Table 2. Sentence type classification according to Sakuma (1940) Sentence type
Type of predicates Pattern
declarative narrative sentence (MONOGATARI-BUN) sentence (IITATE-BUN) evaluating property description sentence (SEIJO-KITEI-NO-BUN) (SHINASADA evaluating sentence ME-BUN) (HANDAN-SOTEI-NO-BUN)
verbal … ga … suru predicate adjectival … wa (how) da… predicate nominal wa (what) da predicate
Sakuma (1940), a Gestalt psychologist, who introduced new perspectives to Japanese linguistics of the time, classified the declarative sentence roughly into two groups: the narrative sentence and the evaluating sentence (our dichotomy of Handan-bun and Gensho-bun can be traced back to this classification of Sakuma’s 1940). In this classification, he referred to typical Japanese sentence patterns as a starting point. He fathomed out the differences between the predicate types and detected certain affinities: The narrative sentence, what we call a descriptive sentence, mainly uses a verb as a predicate to express an activity, while the other sentence type, the evaluating sentence, is mostly combined with adjectival or nominal predicates – i.e., states or property description. Sakuma’s (1940) classification supports the initial hypothesis about the epistemicity – imperfectivity affinity, but does not correspond to the actual usages of the wa-sentence. As we have seen in example (1) above, the wa-sentence does allow a verbal predicate, although Japanese native speakers are not aware that there is any restriction on the usage of wa at all. Nowadays the construction with wa is so highly grammaticalized as a canonical sentence pattern that it can be used without any constraints. Kinsui (1995) reports that wa with a verbal predicate was only rarely found in the early stages of Japanese. He showed with a statistic from esopo-ga-shougai-nomonogatariryaku [Esopo’s short biography] (1593) that the subject noun was seldom marked with wa. In fact, in most cases, the subject appeared without any particle. Table 3. Statistics of the wa-usage in Esopo’s short biography (1593) Without particle
102
ga/no (= nominative)
wa
mo (= also)
Others
19
15
7
1
As can be seen from the statistics in Table 3, the narrative -wa, which is eminently common today, was used very rarely in the 16th century. According to Kinsui (1995) this type of wa still sounds somewhat rigid in spoken language today, an intuition that I am willing to support off-the-cuff.
Shin Tanaka
The restriction of the evaluating sentence to the durative predicate is still effective today, especially if we have a non-argument relation in the construction. See (7)–(8) below. (7) ??[ano-kaisha-wa,] [shain-ga Ichiro-wo but-ta.] that-firm-top employee-nom Ichiro-acc hit-perf ‘In that firm, there is an employee who hit Ichiro.’ (8) ??[Hanako-wa,] [musuko-ga kinou Tennis-wo shi-ta] Hanako-top son-nom yesterday tennis-acc do-perf ‘As for Hanako, her son played tennis yesterday.’
The evaluating sentence with a non-argument topic is very bad if it contains an active verb as in (7) and (8). In (7) and (8), the non-argument topic satisfies the pragmatic condition that there must be a part-whole relation between the topic and an element in the remaining proposition (cf. Tanaka 2004). However, the sentences sound odd and are hardly acceptable. The same constellation of topic and argument is possible if a property description is made in the sentence. In (7b) and (8b) below, the comment sentences express an important property of the topics: In (7b), the fact that the company’s employees are violent is a relevant characterization of the firm concerned. The same is true for (8b): The handsomeness of her son can be interpreted as a very important property of Hanako’s. (7b) [Ano-kaisha-wa,] [shain-ga bouryokuteki-da.] that-firm-top employee-nom violent-copula ‘In that firm, employees are violent.’ (8b) Hanako-wa, musuko-ga handsome-da Hanako-top son-nom handsome-copula ‘As for Hanako, her son is a handsome boy.’
The predication with an active verb can also be construed as property description. (7c) and (8c) below show that it is not the verb that determines the acceptability of the evaluating sentence, but the function of the verb: In (7c), the action of killing someone is characteristic enough to describe of a firm. In (8c), the son of Hanako does not merely play tennis, but he must be the best tennis player in the world, a property which characterizes not only himself, but his mother, too. (7c) [Ano-kaisha-wa] [shain-ga hito-wo koroshi-ta.] that-firm-top employee-nom someone-acc kill-perf ‘In that firm, an employee killed someone.’ (8c) [Hanako-wa,] [musuko-ga Wimbledon-de yuusho-shi-ta.] Hanako-top son-nom Wimbledon-lok win-do-perf ‘As for Hanako, her son won Wimbledon.’
The Aspect-Modality Link in Japanese: The case of the evaluating sentence
As the examples above illustrate, the wa-evaluating sentence is used mainly for characterization even today. Sakuma’s (1940) sentence classification has not yet lost its validity. At this point we can conclude: The aspect-modality link is observed, in the inceptive sense, in Japanese, too. The evaluating sentence, an epistemic expression, has a strong affinity with imperfectivity.
5. E valuating sentence with a verbal predicate: Emergence of the deontic meaning? As we have seen, the evaluating sentence is not fully acceptable with an activity predicate. Now we want to take a closer look at the verbal characteristics of the predicate. We have an acceptability difference according to the predicate types: The perfective predicate is incompatible with the evaluating sentence, while, by contrast, the durative or the imperfective predicate is fully compatible with the evaluating sentence. (9) a. Kai-wa gakusei-da. Kai-top student-copula ‘Kai is a student.’ b. Kai-wa yakyu-wo shi-teiru. Kai-top Baseball-acc do-prog ‘Kai is playing baseball.’ c. ?Kai-wa yakyu-wo suru. Kai-top Baseball-acc do ‘Kai plays Baseball.’ d. ?Kai-wa mado-wo shimeru. Kai-top window-acc close ‘Kai closes the window.’
In (9a), we have a prototypical evaluating sentence with a nominal predicate. (9b), which is a copy of (1) at the beginning of the paper, is perfectly acceptable, although the sentence is formed with a verbal predicate. It is important to note, however, that the verb appears in the progressive form. By contrast, (9c) and (9d) with perfective predicates sound strange. Sentences like (9c), wa-sentences with a non-progressive form, can often be found in textbook Japanese, but they would no doubt be odd in daily usage. If at all, such sentences would probably be found only as stage directions in a play. The same sentences would be fully acceptable if they were in the negative. (9c.1) Kai-wa yakyu-wo shi-nai. Kai-top Baseball-acc do-neg ‘Kai doesn’t play Baseball.’
Shin Tanaka
(9d.1) Kai-wa mado-wo shime-nai. Kai-top window-acc close-neg ‘Kai doesn’t close windows.’
The negation in these sentences makes a habit of an act encoded with the verb, and the habit is to be interpreted as a property of Kai.9 In Japanese, proper names can often be used instead of the first or the second personal pronouns in Indo-European.10 (9c) and (9d) would then be read differently: Kai as the first or the second person. If the subject of the evaluating sentence with an active verb is in the first or the second person, we get a specific connotation: an intention (1st person) or a request (2nd person). (9c.2) Kai-wa/boku-wa yakyu-wo suru. Kai-top (I-top) Baseball-acc do ‘I’m going to play Baseball.’ (Kai as the first person (usual only for children)) (9d.2) Kai-wa/omae-wa mado-wo akeru. Kai-top (you-top) window-acc open ‘Kai, open a window!’ (Kai as the second person)
The resulting specific connotation is similar to the meaning of the deontic usage of the modals. Such a connotation does not arise with the stative predicate, even if the subject is in the 1st or 2nd person. (10) a.
boku-wa gakusei-da. I-top student-copula ‘I am just a student.’
b. omae-wa gakusei-da. you-top student-copula ‘You are just a student.’
. The negative marker in Japanese, nai, shows the adjective conjugation and can be treated as an adjective. Thus, it is of no surprise that the odd sentence with a perfective verb such as in (9c) sounds better with the negation (9c.1). Imperfectivity of negation in Japanese can be inferred from the fact that negation in Japanese does not come in the form of an auxiliary verb, but an auxiliary adjective. See (iii)–(iv) below.
(iii) (iv)
Kai plays tennis. It is not true that Kai plays tennis.
That nai is indeed adjectival as well as a syntactic category is expressed by its morphological adjectival declension and the fact that it governs alternating case with one and the same verb. . A proper name for the first person is usual only for children.
The Aspect-Modality Link in Japanese: The case of the evaluating sentence
This shows us that in the typical evaluating sentence, the speaker’s modality is so evident that the deontic connotation does not occur. The more marked the sentence, the more marked is its resulting interpretation.
6. Discussion 6.1 A reversal of grammaticalization: From subjectivity (origo-related) to objectivity (subject-related)? Where does the deontic meaning, shown in (9c.2) and (9d.2), come from? We suggest that it is the strong assertive modality of the evaluating sentence that yields the root meaning in the sentence with an active verb in the 1st or 2nd person. Diewald (1999) proposed a relational template underlying all usages of modals. starting point root usage
epistemic usage
path
origin of modality (directive) proposition Die Kinder können/müssen “nein” sagen. Someone allows/commands die Kinder sagen “nein”
target subject “die Kinder”
origo (directive) factivity value proposition Das kann/muss ja noch kommen. The speaker allows an event to have/assigns it a factivity value.
Figure 2. Basic pattern of modals (adapted from Diewald 1999: 121ff., 168ff.).
In the course of the development from root to epistemic usage, the template remains constant. What is changed is mainly the origin of the modality from which the directive comes: in epistemic usage, the starting point of the directive shifts to the origo, the center of epistemicity. The movement toward the origo is often called “subjectification”. Traugott (1996) suggests that this subjectification is a general tendency underlying all grammaticalization phenomena. non-subjective
>
subjective
>
intersubjective
Figure 3. General line of diachronic emergence (Traugott 2003: 134).
Supposing the movement toward the origo is equal to the concept of subjectification, we could speak of “subjectification” to describe the development of the German modals: In epistemic usage, the modal meaning is strongly origo-centered as Diewald (1999) has shown. The estimation of the speaker (origo) is now the focus of the assertion. However, notice that our observation of the Japanese data shows a reversal of this development: an origo-centered construction, the evaluating sentence, abruptly changes to acquire an objective, e.g., a deontic root meaning. In this case, we should speak of an “objectification”, since the strong origo-centered estimation is presented as if it would be a fact.
Shin Tanaka
Epistemic meaning (prototypical usage)
Root meaning (deontic/ volitive; with an activity verb)
starting point Kai-wa gakusei-da. ‘Kai is a student.’ origo (I)
path
assertion +
factivity value
(consider)
(as true)
target
proposition (Kai is a student)
The speaker assigns a positive factivity value to an issue (‘Kai is a student’). Kai (2ndperson)-wa, yakyu-wo suru. ‘Kai is going to play baseball.’ origin of modality (assertion=fact) proposition (it is certain) (Kai plays baseball)
subject (Kai (you))
The assertion ‘Kai plays baseball’ stands firm for Kai (you) as a determined fact.
Figure 4. Basic pattern of the evaluating sentence.
In the Japanese evaluating sentence, the development moves away from the origo. The evaluating sentence, originally an epistemic sentence, cannot keep its epistemic meaning if an activity verb without durativity occurs in the predicate, because the verb does not provide any present reference. As the strong assertive power of the evaluating sentence determines the content of the proposition as a fact, the addressee in the second person is compelled to realize the content of the proposition. If the subject in the evaluating sentence with an activity verb is the first person, the asserted fact becomes a command to be obeyed by himself. Thus, a volitive11 meaning arises.
6.2 E merging epistemicity/deonticity: The discrepancy between form and referent The key concept that brings about the new connotation, the deontic or volitive meaning in the Japanese evaluating sentence, is that of predicate characteristics. The activity verb, being perfective in its bare form – i.e., not expressing a continuing state of an event –, has no present time reference. Here we have a discrepancy between the form
. In the case that the addressee is likewise the speaker – i.e., if the first person in the assertive sentence is equivalent with the hearer, or if the first person acts in the declarative with an action predicate, the expressed fact turns out as a requirement which he is determined to satisfy. This yields the volitive meaning. It may be an imperative only to the extent that one orders oneself to execute the propositional content (Kai spielt Baseball ‘‘Kai plays baseball’’). The action to give an order to oneself is interpreted as a volitive act.
The Aspect-Modality Link in Japanese: The case of the evaluating sentence
(future reference through perfectivity in the present tense) and the content (present reference). This results in a new modal meaning of the construction. Refuting Traugott’s Subjectification Hypothesis as too opaque, Abraham (2005) proposes the grammaticalization of epistemic usage to be based on two principles, i.e., the Modal Aspect Hypothesis and the Marking and Optimizing Hypothesis. As these hypotheses are the central concerns of our discussion in this volume, we will not go into this problem any further. However, Abraham’s (2005) thesis seems to be a better match for the phenomena of the Japanese evaluating sentence than Traugott’s notion of Subjectification. In the case of the Japanese evaluating sentence, there has been a “subjective” usage of the construction before new connotations, deonticity or volitivity, have emerged. Notice that the new emergent usages were not “subjective” (epistemic), but “objective” insofar as it was legitimate to assume that the root (deontic or the volitive) meanings entail a control reading: The sentence subject controls the modals as well as the depending infinitive. As to the emergence of the root modality (deonticity or the volitionality), the Marking and Optimizing Hypothesis is a more successful explanation: The mismatch between form (future reference with a present perfective verb) and function (estimating the factivity for the ongoing scene) exerts pressure on the addressee to reinterpret the sentence as a directive. Although Abraham (2005) argues that the emergence of the epistemic meaning is motivated syntactically – in other words, the syntactic structure provides the direction of the change in meaning12 –, the trigger that yields the semantic changes (epistemicization and root modalizing/deontization) is the same: The sub-optimal tense marking is a result of the aspectual differences (perfective vs. imperfective). As to a syntactic explanation for the semantic change of the Japanese evaluating sentence, we would need a further study which reaches far beyond our present goals.
7. A further perspective: Another realization of the modality in Japanese and A-M Link We have seen that the evaluating sentence with epistemic modality has a strong affinity with imperfectivity. Thus, we can argue that the Aspect-Modality Link exists in Japanese, too. So far we have evidence to support that the A-M Link is a stable linguistic mechanism most probably being observed cross-linguistically.
. In other words, since the tense/aspect form is not employed optimally, another modality function at the higher level of the syntactic clausal structure (epistemicity) is activated (Abraham 2005: 6).
Shin Tanaka
As further evidence for the A-M Link in Japanese, we should like to point out a phenomenon which deserves detailed investigation: the verbal conjugation paradigm. If the evaluating sentence with the particle wa is a phenomenon outside of the predicate, the paradigm of conjugation is at the core of the predicate. Interestingly, the A-M Link is observed both within and outside the predication, but not in the analytic aspectual paraphrases like –nebanaranai (deontic ‘‘must’’) or –chigainai (epistemic ‘‘must’’), which are well-developed in modern Japanese.13 Let us explain that in some detail. In Japanese a verb does not inflect or conjugate for person, number, tense, or mood as in the European languages. Rather, the verb changes depending on what type of element comes after it. For example, if the sentence ends with the verb, the verb takes the ending form (Shushi-kei); if the verb is followed by further verbal attribution, such as auxiliaries, the verbs appear in the form of verbal attribution (Renyou-kei). The conjugation paradigm in Old Japanese14 can be summarized as follows. The names of the conjugation forms expressing the meanings or characteristics15 of the following element were invented by philological researchers in the 18th century (in the Edo period, the time at which Japan closed its borders and had almost no influences from foreign, especially western grammars). Although modern Japanese speakers use almost the same names for the conjugation forms of modern Japanese, the names (imperfective form, perfective form, etc.) have lost their rationale and are now considered a mere label that has little to do with the function of each form. The conjugation lines are usually taken as phonotactic changes. Tokieda (1950) therefore suggested that the conjugation forms should be identified by numbers: For example, the Mizen-kei (imperfective form) should be the first form, the Renyou-kei (form of verbal attribution) the second form, and so on (cf. Tokieda 1950: 92). However, following the insight of Japanese philologists in the Edo period, we would like to argue that every single verb form had its own function and still maintains
. Narrog (in this volume) shows some A-M affinities to be observed for modal expressions in Japanese. But these affinities are, as demonstrated by Narrog (in this volume), rather peripheral. . Here, we take the paradigm of verbal conjugation in Old Japanese, not that in Modern Japanese. See, below the following table, for a brief explanation. The conjugational paradigm of Modern J apanese is far from complete: In some spots there is no longer any noticeable coherence. . The conjugational paradigm was not a closed, unique schema, but, much rather, an inhomogeneous mixture of both semantic and morpho-syntactic references to properties of the ensuing elements. There were inflectional series formed according to semantic patterns, whereas others followed syntactic regularities. The first type consists of the Mizen- und Izen forms as well as the Meirei-form. The second type is made up by the Renyou-, Rentai- und Shushi-forms. In the case of the Renyou form, there is a semantic affinity with perfectivity.
The Aspect-Modality Link in Japanese: The case of the evaluating sentence
Table 4. Overview of verbal conjugation with combination forms in old Japanese (Heian-period about 1000 A.D.) Conjugation forms
Example saku (‘bloom’)
Mizen-kei saka- (imperfective form) Renyou-kei saki- (form of verbal attribution) Shushi-kei saku (ending form) Rentai-kei saku- (form of nominal attribution) Izen-kei sake- (perfective form) Meirei-kei sake (imperative form)
Combination forms (examples) negation (saka-zu), guess/will (saka-mu), conditional-hypothetical (saka-ba), passive (saka-ru), etc. attribution to (auxiliary)verb, adjective (saki-midaru: ‘run riot’), perfective (saki-nu), past (saki-keri), etc. ending (saku), potentiality, deonticity /possiblity (saku-beshi) connection to a nominal element (saku-toki: ‘blooming period’) perfective (sake-ri), determinative conditional (sake-ba) imperative (sake: ‘bloom!’)
that partly in modern Japanese, even if this is hardly noticeable to native speakers of modern Japanese. Among the eloquent names of the conjunction forms, there are those which concern us the most: the imperfective (Mizen-kei) and the perfective forms (Izen-kei). If we take the meaning of the name seriously, we have a constellation quite similar to the Slavic languages: Each verb has two aspectual forms on the basis of one simple verb stem, perfective and imperfective. Interestingly, these forms show their own affinities with certain semantics: The imperfective form is connected with negation, estimation, hypothetical condition, or passive expressions, whereas the perfective form takes perfective auxiliaries or determinative conditional expressions. Was the Japanese verb conjugation originally an aspectual system? Did the imperfective form of the verb saka (‘‘bloom’’) express an imperfective state as opposed to the perfective (sake) defining a perfective event? Although this possibility should be investigated further, we have now progressed sufficiently to be able to think that the verbal conjugation in Japanese is not an aspect system, but a system of mood similar to the European ones, as suggested by Onoue (2001, 1997). Onoue (2001) shows that the imperfective form (Mizen-kei) in Old Japanese behaved like the Indo-European irrealis mood, while the ending form (Shushi-kei) expressed the realis just as the Indo-European indicative does. The different modal meanings of the imperfective and the perfective forms can best be seen in their conditional usages. See (11a, b).
Shin Tanaka
(11) a. b.
saka-ba (Mizen-kei hypothetical conditional) ‘if (it) were to bloom’ sake-ba (Mizen-kei determinative conditional) ‘as it blooms’
In (11), we have a minimal pair of conditionals with the imperfective and the perfective form, respectively. If the conditional is built with the Mizen-kei, it brings about a hypothetical meaning, as we observe in (11a). On the other hand, a conditional with the Izen-kei results in the determinative conditional: An event, blooming, is depicted as a fact so that it is taken as a cause for the following event. Onoue (1997) summarizes the meanings of the Mizen-kei in contrast with the ending form as follows in Figure 5.
Mizen-kei imperfective form + α Shushi-kei ending form + α
Old Japanese irrealis mood
Modern Japanese
realis mood
mood of event construction [irrealis + realis]
Figure 5. Meanings of conjugation: ending form and imperfective form (from Onoue 1997: 74).
In today’s Japanese this role allocation by way of verbal conjugation has been lost. In modern Japanese, the mood expressed with conjugation forms is neutralized and replaced with the different modal expressions agglutinated successively to the end of the predicate. If we accept Onoue’s (1997) idea and rely on the linguistic meaning put forward by Japanese philologists in the 18th century, we have another proof of the validity of the A-M Link in Japanese. The Mizen-kei, realization of the irrealis mood, was named after the characteristics of its following elements which have a common property: Mizen (imperfectivity). It is legitimate to assume that this kind of correlation, the A-M Link, was widely observed in Old Japanese. However, this should be further corroborated in a future study.
8. Conclusion In the present paper, we have noticed that the A-M Link is observed in Japanese, too. Yet, a direct comparison between verbal expressions, modal verbs, and modal paraphrases does not show a pronounced affinity. Rather, we should search elsewhere for occurrences of the A-M Link: For one thing, we were able to find a correlation between the epistemicity and the imperfectivity in the evaluating sentence, assuming we can consider the evaluating clause category as an epistemic expression. Furthermore,
The Aspect-Modality Link in Japanese: The case of the evaluating sentence
the verbal conjugation, a highly verbal phenomenon, shows the salient A-M Link, if we assume that the conjugation paradigm, above all other inflection paradigms, stands for modal differentiation. Take heed, however, that the A-M Link can be found in an “exotic” language like Japanese, more often than not, only if we extend our observation to an area outside of the verbal categories.
References Abraham, Werner. 1991. Modalverben in der Germania. In Eijiro Iwasaki et al. (Eds), Begegnung mit dem “Fremden”. Grenzen – Traditionen – Vergleiche. Akten des VIII. Internationalen Germanisten-Kongresses in Tokyo 1990, Vol. 4 (pp. 109–118). München: iudicium. Abraham, Werner. 2005. An intersubjective note on the notion of ‘Subjectification’. In Hans Broekhuis, Henk C. van Riemsdijk et al. (Eds), Organizing grammar: Linguistic studies in honor of Henk van Riemsdijk (pp. 1–16). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. [Studies in Generative Grammar 62]. Bühler, Karl. 1934. Sprachtheorie: Die Darstellungsfunktion der Sprache. Jena: Fischer. Diewald, Gabriele. 1991. Deixis und Textsorten im Deutschen. Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Reihe germanistische Linguistik 118]. Diewald, Gabriele. 1999. Die Modalverben im Deutschen. Grammatikalisierung und Polyfunktionalität. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Ehlich, Konrad. 1982. Anaphora and Deixis: Same, similar, or different? In Robert J. Jarvella et al. (Eds), Speech, place, and action (pp. 315–338). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Ikegami, Yoshihiko. 2000. Nihongoron-e-no-Shoutai (Introduction to discourse on Japanese). Tokyo: Taishukan. Kinsui, Satoshi. 1995. Katari-no-wa-‘ni-kansuru Oboegaki (Memorandum for narrative wa). In Takashi Masuoka et al. (Eds), Nihonogo-no Shudai-to-Toritate (Topic and profilization in Japanese) (pp. 71–80). Tokyo: Kuroshio. Masuoka, Takashi. 1991. Modality-no-Bunpou (Grammar of the modality). Tokyo: Kuroshio. Mikami, Akira. 1972. Gendai-Gohou-Josetsu. Syntax-no-kokoromi (Preliminary study on modern language usage. An attempt for syntax). Tokyo: Kuroshio. Onoue, Keisuke. 1997. Modality-wo-megutte – Kokugo-gaku-to Ninchi-gengogaku-no Taiwa (Focusing on modality – A dialogue between Japanese philology and Cognitive Linguistics). Gekkan-Gengo, 26/13, 70–83. Onoue, Keisuke. 2001. Bunpou-to-Imi I (Grammar and Meaning I). Tokyo: Kuroshio. Sakuma, Kanae. 1940. Gendai-Nihongo-Gohou-no-Kenkyu (Studies on the modern usage of Japanese). Tokyo: Kouseikaku. Tanaka, Shin. 2004. Eine sprachliche Isomorphie: Grammatikalisierung der Referenzherstellung. Neue Beiträge zur Germanistik, 3 (2), 83–94. Tokieda, Motoki. 1950. Nihon-Bunpo. Kougo-hen (Japanese Grammar. Spoken Language). Tokyo: Iwanami. Traugott, Elizabeth. 1995. Subjectification in grammaticalization. In Dieter Stein & Susan Wright (Eds), Subjectivity and subjectivisation. Linguistic perspectives (pp. 31–54). Cambridge: CUP. Traugott, Elizabeth. 2003. From Subjectification to intersubjectification. In Raymond Hickey (Ed.), Motives for language change (pp. 124–142). Cambridge: CUP.
Amerindian
The Lakota aspect/modality markers -kinica and tkhá Regina Pustet LMU Munich
Developments of aspectual out of modal grammemes do not appear to be sufficiently documented in the extant literature on grammaticalization. The Native American language Lakota is equipped with two grammatical elements which encode both aspectual and modal concepts: -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’ and the highly polysemous tkhá ‘‘proximative, past completive, past counterfactual, past obligative, past suppositive’’. This study investigates the diachronic connections between the various meanings of these grammemes, in particular, with regard to evidence for direct grammaticalization links between their aspectual and modal meanings.
1. Introduction1 From a cross-linguistic point of view,2 the grammatical macro-categories which are most likely to materialize as part of verbal morphosyntax are tense, aspect, modality, and person, although, of course, any of these categories may be absent from the grammatical system of individual languages. At the diachronic level, tense and aspect are closely connected since temporal categories tend to arise out of aspectual ones, and, occasionally, vice versa. The languages of Europe provide a large body of data in this respect (e.g., Dahl 2000), but the phenomenon can be observed in other areas as well (e.g., Bache et al. 1994; Bybee & Dahl 1989; Bybee et al. 1994; Heine 1993; Hopper 1982; Tedeschi & Zaenen 1981). Examples include developments from . I am indebted to the Lakota native speakers Della Bad Wound, Dellmarie Bradfield, †Neva Standing Bear, and Dorothy Rose Wilson for sharing their time and knowledge of the Lakota language to make the research presented in this paper possible. . Abbreviations used in this article: 1 – first person, ag – agent, cau – causative, cnt – continuative, def – definite, dem.d – distal demonstrative, dir – directional, fut – future, int – intentional, loc – locative, neg – negative, obl – obligative, pat – patient, pl – plural, prf – perfective, prx – proximative, pst – past, pst+a/ m – past + aspect/modality, rfl – reflexive, sg – singular, st – part of stem, sup – suppositive.
Regina Pustet
progressive aspect into present tense (e.g., Bybee et al. 1994: 140ff.), or from anterior tense to perfective aspect (Bybee et al. 1994: 81ff.). Similar diachronic links are known to exist between tense and modality: for instance, future tense markers may develop into markers of imperative modality (e.g., Bybee et al. 1991: 28); markers for intentional modality may develop into future tense markers (e.g., Bybee et al. 1991: 22ff.; Bybee et al. 1994: 230ff.). It does not seem too far-fetched to surmise that analogous connections might hold between modality and aspect as well. However, the relevant literature on language change and grammaticalization, so far, does not present clear cases of direct historical links between the grammatical categories of modality and aspect. That such connections do indeed exist will be demonstrated in this paper, which deals with the genesis and subsequent development of the elements -kinica and tkhá in the Native American language Lakota (Siouan language family, Central North America), both of which function to encode aspectual and modal categories. It may be a coincidence that both of these elements, as part of their semantic inventory, express the concept “almost”, which is commonly referred to by the terms “proximative” (e.g., Heine 1994; Kuteva 1998) or “approximative” (e.g., Pons & Schwenter 2005). Uses of the proximative, in English as well as in Lakota, include a variety of semantic domains, such as quantification (she is almost six foot tall), adjectival gradation (it is almost dark), and verbal modification (I almost fell asleep). The alternative term “prospective (aspect)” (e.g., Cinque 1999: 99; Comrie 1976: 64; Frawley 1992: 322) designates the latter function of verbal modification by “almost” and equivalent concepts. It is not employed in the context of quantification and adjectival gradation.
2. The Lakota data Lakota is moderately rich in both aspectual and modal categories. The aspectual system is not ancient. Frequently, the diachronic sources of the grammatical elements in question are still transparent, which indicates a younger age. The most thoroughly grammaticalized of the aspect markers is -hą “progressive, continuative”, which derives from the verb há ‘‘to stand’’. Virtually any verb whose seä mantic content is compatible with the notion of progressivity/continuativity can be used with the progressive/continuative marker -hą (for details, cf. Pustet et al., 2006). In addition, several verbs, mainly motion verbs, are in the process of grammaticalizing into aspectual auxiliaries (cf. Pustet 2004). The lexical compatibility of these auxiliaries still is quite restricted, and unlike -hą “progressive/continuative”, they must be categorized as free elements rather than as affixes. The domain of modality in Lakota grammar comprises the following major elements: the highly grammaticalized negation marker -s˚ni “not”, which should be
The Lakota aspect/modality markers -kinica and tkhá
compatible with any lexical item in Lakota, including nouns; auxiliaries like hécha “must, should (deontic meaning only)” and iyécheca “must, should (deontic meaning only)”; sentence-final particles which mark the illocutive status of sentences, i.e., statements, commands, and questions. The intentional/obligative marker -kta ‘‘to want to, should (deontic meaning only)’’ also codes the temporal category of future tense and is, in fact, encountered in that function more often than in modal function. Its lexical compatibility rate is about as high as that of -s˚ni ‘‘not’’. When an innovative grammatical element is developing out of a preexisting grammeme or lexeme, the emergent meaning usually surfaces in a limited number of contexts at first, and then gradually spreads over an increasing number of contexts. In Lakota, such “leaking” of modality markers into the aspectual domain can be observed with the elements -kinica ‘‘almost, to be about to, to be on the verge of, to want to, to intend to, to feel like doing X, to have the urge to’’ and tkhá ‘‘used to X but no more, would have, should have, almost Xed but then didn’t X, was about to X and then didn’t X, was on the verge of X and then didn’t X, I assumed X but apparently X is incorrect’’. In what follows, the structural and semantic characteristics of these markers, as well as their diachronic source and development, will be discussed. This background is vital for confronting the general theoretical issues dealt with in section 3, which focus on the possible existence of diachronic links between modality and aspect in general, and more specifically, in Lakota. As it turns out, the only aspectual meaning that can be assigned to the markers -kinica and tkhá is that of proximative. The proximative in verb-modifying function, also known as prospective, has been categorized as an aspect (e.g., Cinque 1999: 99; Comrie 1976: 64; Heine 1994; Kuteva 1998), and so far, the assignment of the proximative to the domain of aspect has not been challenged. Of course, the ultimate answer to the question of whether the Lakota data can be taken as evidence for a direct diachronic connection between modality and aspect hinges crucially on the plausibility of the interpretation of the proximative as an aspect. Such an interpretation is supported by the analysis presented in section 3. It is important to note that the definitions of aspect and modality – and of their subcategories – used in the present investigation follow the terminological guidelines provided by language typology and cross-linguistic approaches to language description. This terminology often diverges from the definitions employed in the study of Indo-European languages. The framework adopted for the purpose of this paper defines the distinction between perfective and imperfective aspect in terms of the notion of boundedness (Langacker 1987: 81). Perfective aspect, which comprises subcategories such as ingressive, completive, terminative, and resultative (Comrie 1976: 16ff.) establishes reference to the boundaries of an event, i.e., to the points of incipience and/or termination. Imperfective aspect, on the other hand, “blots out” event boundaries and exclusively features the time span
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etween incipience and termination of an event. Subcategories of imperfective aspect are b progressive, durative, and habitual (Comrie 1976: 24ff.). The distinction between epistemic and deontic modality has been captured by means of notions such as actuality vs. non-actuality (Chung & Timberlake 1985: 242ff.) – i.e., occurrence vs. non-occurrence in reality –, or involvement vs. noninvolvement (Palmer 2001: 18) of the speaker’s attitude. Epistemic modality comprises concepts such as evidentiality, judgment, assumption, interrogative, and declarative, while the domain of deontic modality subsumes notions such as imperative, optative, permission, intentionality, obligation, and ability (Chung & Timberlake 1985: 241ff.; Palmer 2001; Van der Auwera & Plungian 1998).
2.1 -kinica “proximative, intentional” -kinica “proximative, intentional: almost, to be about to, to be on the verge of, to want to, to intend to, to feel like doing X, to have the urge to” is part of a special group of grammemes which will be referred to as “verboids” in Pustet (in prep.). Verboids are defined as verb-affix hybrids in that (a) they do not carry independent stress and thus, constitute suffixes rather than independent elements; and in that (b) they are, just like genuine verbs, preceded by person markers. (1) gle-wá-kinica go home-1sg.ag-prx/int ‘I am about to go home, I am on the verge of going home, I want/intend/have the urge to go home, I feel like going home’
The rules of person affixation in Lakota require that person markers in basic transitive and intransitive predicates never figure as suffixes. Rather, they are either prefixed to (cf. (2)) or infixed into (cf. (3)) the verb stem. (2) wa-glé 1sg.ag-go home ‘I go home’ (verb stem: glé ‘to go home’) (3) ma-wá-ni st-1sg.ag-walk ‘I am walking’ (verb stem: máni ‘to walk’)
Consequently, in an example like (1), the first person singular agent affix wa- must be interpreted as prefixed to the verboid -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’, rather than as suffixed to the verb glé “to go home”. However, double person marking on both -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’ and the carrier verb is possible, though less common than person marking on the verboid alone.
The Lakota aspect/modality markers -kinica and tkhá
(4) wa-glé-wa-kinica 1sg.ag-go home-1sg.ag-int ‘I am about to go home, I am on the verge of going home, I want/intend/have the urge to go home, I feel like going home’
Unlike its diachronic source, the verb níca ‘‘to lack, need, be destitute of ’’ (cf. (18)), -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’ does not occur as an independent verb which governs nominal objects. In addition to its affixal status, this is the main reason why -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’ has to be regarded as a grammatical item, rather than as a full verb. The lexical productivity of -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’ is rather high. Examples (5) to (9) present only a small selection of verb types which can be combined with this element. The compatibility range covers transitives, active intransitives, and stative intransitives. Most adjectives are rejected in combination with -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’; but cf. (9). (5) yúte-kinica eat-prx/int ‘he/she is about to eat it, wants to eat it’ (6) nah˚’ų´-kinica hear-prx/int ‘he/she is almost hearing it, wants to hear it’ (7) nųwé-kinica swim-prx/int ‘he/she is almost swimming, wants to swim’ (8) i˚sιtíme-kinica sleep-prx/int ‘he/she is almost sleeping, wants to sleep’ (9) théca-kinica young-int ‘he/she wants to be young’
2.1.1 Meaning and function The numerous translations of -kinica can be subsumed under the two grammatical categories of proximative and intentional. Proximative translations include ‘‘almost’’, ‘‘to be about to’’, ‘‘to be on the verge of ’’; intentional readings are ‘‘to want’’, ‘‘to intend’’, ‘‘to feel like doing X’’, ‘‘to have the urge to’’. The category of proximative, a relatively recent discovery in descriptive linguistics (established in Heine 1992, 1994), indicates that a state of affairs is imminent, but has not reached the point of instantiation in reality yet.
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-kinica “intentional”:
(10) Denver ektá ye-kínica Denver dir go-int ‘he/she feels the urge to/wants to go to Denver’ (11) mní ki iyópsil-wa-kinica water def jump into-1sg.ag-int ‘I feel the urge to/want to jump into the water’
-kinica “proximative”:
(12) chéye-kinica cry-prx ‘he/she is about to cry, on the verge of crying, almost crying’ (13) ps˚á-kinica sneeze-prx ‘he/she is about to sneeze’
In examples (10–13), in principle, both proximative and intentional readings are possible, although only one type of translation is provided for each example. In pinpointing the proximative meaning of -kinica, it is important to note that this element does not carry any implication whatsoever as to whether the state of affairs at issue ever reaches the point of instantiation in reality or not. For an in-depth analysis of the English proximative marker almost, which corresponds closely to Lakota -kinica ‘‘proximative’’, cf. Ziegeler (2000). Thus, the extra-linguistic referents of the events featured in the Lakota examples (12) and (13) above may either end up crying or sneezing, or they may not. Intentional readings of -kinica, as in (10) and (11), are also ambiguous in this respect. Examples (14) and (15) vs. (16) and (17), in which the added context limits the interpretation of -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’ with respect to the ultimate (non-)realization of the event in question, illustrate the difference. (14) mas’óphiye-ta ye-kínica cha y˛í-kth˚ci store-dir go-int so go-try ‘he/she wants to go to the store so he/she is trying to’ (15) mní ki iyópsil-wa-kinica cha iyó-wa-psice water def jump into-1sg.ag-int so st-1sg.ag-jump into ‘I wanted to jump into the water, so I jumped’ (16) héchų-kinica éyas˚ echų´-s˚ni do that-prx/int but do-neg ‘he/she wanted/was about to do that but he/she didn’t do it’ (17) ble-wá-kinica éyas˚ ibláble-s˚ni 1sg.ag.go-1sg.ag-prx/int but 1sg.ag.go-neg ‘I wanted/was about to go but I didn’t go’
The Lakota aspect/modality markers -kinica and tkhá
Another important feature in the semantic makeup of -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’ is non-specification of tense. Thus, in all the examples given so far, both a present tense and a past tense interpretation is possible, as far as the context permits such a choice. Lakota is not equipped with separate morphological markers for past vs. present tense. For both categories, zero marking is used, as in examples (1) to (17) above.
2.1.2 Diachronic considerations The grammaticalization source of -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’ is the verb níca ‘‘to lack, need, be destitute of ’’. At least the extant synchronic data on Lakota do not point to alternative sources. (18) wóyute níce3 food lack/need ‘he/she doesn’t have food, needs food’
The prefix ki-, which appears as the second morphological component of -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’, can either be analyzed as a possessive marker (thus: ‘‘A lacks/ needs B’s’’), or as the fientive marker ki- (thus: ‘‘to come to lack/need’’). It is extremely difficult to decide which ki-prefix is involved here. However, tracing -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’ back to the verb níca ‘‘to lack, need, be destitute of ’’ should be uncontroversial. Working via semantic induction then, the intentional/purpose meaning must have arisen from the base verb níca ‘‘to lack, need, be destitute of ’’ as a first step in the grammaticalization of -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’. The most probable developmental chain, in this case, is ‘‘to lack, to need, be destitute of ’’ > ‘‘to feel the urge to’’ > ‘‘to want/intend’’ > ‘‘almost’’, ‘‘to be about to’’, ‘‘to be on the verge of ’’. Since a direct semantic leap from ‘‘to lack, to need, be destitute of ’’ to the proximative meanings is implausible, the latter must have developed from the intentional meanings. This analysis is supported by analogous grammaticalization channels for proximatives in African languages and other languages. Proximatives have been shown to originate in verbs of intention and volition such as ‘‘to want’’, ‘‘to like’’, ‘‘to love’’, ‘‘to desire’’ (Heine & Kuteva 2002: 311ff.). Romaine (1999) provides a very detailed analysis of the grammaticalization of the Tok Pisin verb laik ‘‘to want, like, desire’’ into a proximative marker. The only difference between these grammaticalization processes and the case of -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’ lies in the fact that this element, upon entering the intentional “phase” in its semantic development, had already attained the status of a grammatical item, while the semantically analogous sources quoted in Heine & Kuteva (2002) are still lexical items, i.e., full verbs.
. The stem-final [a] of a large group of Lakota verbs is realized as [e] in many morphosyntactic contexts. Thus: níca > níce.
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-kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’ is often shortened to -kinil. One of the Lakota native speakers interviewed for the present study commented that structural reduction is concomitant with a meaning distinction to the effect that the original form has both proximative and intentional readings, while the shortened form tends to be interpreted as proximative only. (19) psil-kínica náz˚˛i jump-prx/int stand ‘he/she is about to/wants to jump’ (20) psil-kínil náz˚˛i jump-prx stand ‘he/she is about to jump, ??wants to jump’
Since shortening is a symptom of increasing grammaticalization (e.g., Heine et al. 1991; Bybee 2001), one may feel tempted to conclude, in line with the native speaker’s intuition and also with what has been claimed above on semantic grounds, that the directionality of semantic change for -kinica is from an intentional to a proximative meaning. However, as a matter of fact, the reduction of -kinica to -kinil is not due to grammaticalization, but rather, to language-specific phonological processes. In contrast to -kinica-configurations, -kinil-compounds never occur as independent verb forms or predicates. They are always part of serial verb strings, as in (20), while -kinica-compounds are used both inside and outside of serial strings. (21) psil-kínica jump-prx/int ‘he/she is about to jump, wants to jump’ (22) *psil-kínil jump-prx/int
In serial verb strings, further, verbs ending in a syllable aP+A, in which aP stands for ‘‘alveolar plosive/affricate’’, and A for a low central vowel with certain morphonological properties which will not be explicated further here, that syllable is optionally reduced to the lateral /l/. This process can be observed in examples (19) and (20), which can be interpreted as a serial verb strings as well – here the verb psíca ‘‘to jump’’ is reduced to psil ‘‘to jump’’. Thus, occurrence of the shortened form -kinil can be attributed to general rules of Lakota morphonology effective in serial verb constructions.
2.2 t khá ‘‘past tense with various aspectual and/or modal meaning components’’ The element tkhá ‘‘past + aspectual and/or modal meaning component’’ follows the predicate. It carries independent stress and thus cannot be classed as an affix.
The Lakota aspect/modality markers -kinica and tkhá
(23) echámų tkhá 1sg.ag.do pst+a/m ‘I used to do it but I don’t do it any more, I would/should have done it, I almost did it’
In all contexts investigated, tkhá ‘‘past completive’’ can be shortened to khá. This element appears to be maximally productive with respect to lexical compatibility and is, therefore, highly grammaticalized. None of the predicate types that were tested for compatibility with tkhá was rejected by Lakota native speakers. Lexical compatibility of tkhá includes all verb types, as well as adjectives and nouns.
2.2.1 Meaning and function The simplifying gloss ‘‘past + aspectual and/or modal meaning component’’ has been devised in an attempt to cover the full range of meanings of the highly polysemous element tkhá by a single and easily manageable term. tkhá codes the following meanings: a. ‘used to X but no more’ b. ‘would have’ c. ‘should have’ d. ‘almost Xed but then didn’t X’, ‘was about to X and then didn’t X’, ‘was on the verge of X and then didn’t X’ e. ‘I assumed X but apparently X is incorrect’, ‘I assumed X but I don’t assume X any more’ The reading ‘‘used to X but no more’’, which can be paraphrased more explicitly by ‘‘X was true but X stopped before the moment of utterance’’, is documented in examples such as (24) to (29). (24) ehá ni ithókamna is˚támaza kithu´ wa-’ú tkhá ä ä a while ago before glasses wear 1sg.ag-cnt used to ‘before that, I used to wear glasses all the time’ (25) mas’óphiye él wówas˚i echámu tkhá ä store loc work 1sg.ag.do used to ‘I used to work at the store’ (26) eháni lél thí tkhá ä back then there live used to ‘back then he/she used to live there’ (27) chépa tkhá fat used to ‘he/she used to be fat’ (28) lé ˚sų´kawakhá ki lúzaha tkhá ä ä dem.p horse def fast used to ‘this horse used to be fast’
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(29) hé tháwa tkhá dem.d his/hers used to ‘that used to be his/hers’
This variant of tkhá profiles a state of affairs as holding in the past but as terminated prior the moment of utterance, and it can thus be categorized as a simple past completive with no additional semantic connotations. The English translation used to, although convenient, is somewhat misleading in that it implies a relatively remote past. Examples (30) and (31), however, show that the termination of the state of affairs in question may be quite recent: (30) hél yáká tkhá there sit used to ‘he/she was sitting there (a few minutes ago, but now he/she is gone)’ (31) h˚tál’eh osní tkhá yesterday cold used to ‘yesterday it was cold (but not any more)’
Moreover, unlike completive tkhá ‘‘used to but no more’’, English used to has to be interpreted as a past tense with no aspectual meaning components (Comrie 1985: 24). A past tense is basically defined as encoding a state of affairs that took place before the moment of utterance, i.e., as starting before the moment of utterance and reaching the point of completion before the moment of utterance. However, there are real-life situations in which something that has begun before the moment of utterance extends into the present, as the action of walking, referred to in (32) I have walked 10 miles and I’m still walking.
The English past tense marker used to, on the other hand, can be analyzed as strongly, however not exclusively, implying completion of an event before the moment of utterance (cf. Comrie 1985: 24). So normally (33) I used to live in San Francisco.
will be taken to mean that I do not live in San Francisco any more, even though it is possible to say: (34) I used to live in San Francisco and I still live there.
Now, tkhá ‘‘used to X but no more’’ contrasts semantically with English used to in that tkhá, in any case, implies completion of the event at issue prior to the moment of utterance. Consequently, an in-depth semantic analysis of tkhá ‘‘used to X but no more’’ requires specification of this element as [+COMPLETIVE]. However, younger speakers of Lakota consider examples like (35) and (36) grammatical – on the basis of the second predicate, the event featured in the first predicate is to be interpreted as
The Lakota aspect/modality markers -kinica and tkhá
non-completed here. Such examples put the innovative semantic version of tkhá ‘‘used to’’ completely on a par with English used to. (35) mas’óphiye él wówas˚i echámu tkhá na nahá ci hél ä ä store loc work 1sg.ag.do used to and still there wówas˚i echámų work 1sg.ag.do ‘I used to work at the store, and I’m still working there’ (36) eháni lél thí tkhá na nahá ci lél thí ä ä long ago here live used to and still here live ‘he/she used to live here long ago, and still lives here’
Additional glosses for tkhá include ‘‘would have’’ and ‘‘should have’’. These readings involve a unifying structural feature, namely, optional presence of the suffix -kta, which expresses the notions of future (‘‘will’’), intentional (‘‘to want to’’ etc.), and mild obligation (‘‘should’’). (37) ophé-wa-thu(-kta) tkhá ä st-1sg.ag-buy(-fut/int/obl) should/would have ‘I should/would have bought it’ (38) yi(-kta) tkhá ä go(-fut/int/obl) should/would have ‘he/she should/would have gone’
Unlike Indo-European languages, Lakota does not distinguish the three major tense levels of present, past, and future. Rather, there is a structural contrast between the zero-marked categories past and present, on the one hand, and future, on the other. Future is coded by means of the suffix -kta. In statistical terms, presence of -kta ‘‘future, intentional’’ is the rule when tkhá is translated by ‘‘should have’’, while -kta is usually absent when tkhá is to be rendered by ‘‘would have’’. The English gloss ‘‘should have’’ entails the question of whether this modal meaning of tkhá is to be interpreted as deontic or epistemic, in analogy to the modal contrast observed with should have in English: (39) He should have told me that. (deontic, mild obligation) (40) He should have arrived by now. (epistemic, assumption)
In the body of data at hand, a deontic interpretation is appropriate for tkhá ‘‘should have’’ in most cases, although occasionally, epistemic translations were given by Lakota native speakers. (41) htál’ehá osní-kta tkhá ä yesterday cold-fut/int/obl should have ‘yesterday it was supposed to be cold (but it wasn’t)’
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Note that in the above examples, (-kta) tkhá cannot be rendered by the English present tense modals should and would. In any case, a past tense translation is required. The addition of time adverbials, which results in different grammaticality judgments, brings this out clearly. (42) yá okíhi hátąnas˚ tál’ehá yá tkhá ä ä go can if yesterday go would have ‘if he/she had been able to, he/she would have gone yesterday’ (43) *yá okíhi hátąnas˚ hihani ki yi-kta tkhá ä ä ä go can if tomorrow def go-fut would ‘if he/she could, he/she would go tomorrow’
Thus, suitable categorial labels for tkhá ‘‘would have’’ and tkhá ‘‘should have’’ are past counterfactual and past counterfactual obligative, respectively. “Counterfactual” is defined as designating states of affairs which have not occurred or are not occurring, although they may potentially occur (Chung & Timberlake 1985: 243). Another modal meaning variant of tkhá can be rendered by ‘‘I assumed X but apparently X is incorrect’’, or ‘‘I assumed X but I don’t assume X any more’’: (44) eháni hé iyáya tkhá ä already dem.d leave pst.prf.sup ‘I thought he had already left (but apparently he hasn’t)’ (45) ógle ki púza tkhá shirt def dry pst.prf.sup ‘I thought the shirt was dry (but apparently it isn’t)’ (46) eháni hé t’á tkhá ä already dem.d die pst.prf.sup ‘I thought he had died already (but apparently he hasn’t)’
By using tkhá ‘‘I assumed X but apparently X is incorrect’’, the speaker evaluates a given proposition as an incorrect assumption on his/her part. Since a subjective judgment is imposed on the utterance this way, the latter conveys an epistemic meaning. Only a judgment by a first person, rather than by second or third persons, is involved here (for examples of the full spectrum of first, second and third persons as sources of epistemicity, cf. Abraham & Leiss, this volume). When uttering a predication containing tkhá ‘‘I assumed X but apparently X is incorrect’’, the speaker acknowledges, in the face of evidence refuting the proposition in question, that he/she no longer holds the assumption at issue. tkhá ‘‘I assumed X but apparently X is incorrect’’ thus also embodies both the aspectual notion of perfectivity (completion) and the temporal notion of pastness, and it will be referred to as ‘‘past perfective suppositive’’. However, adding a feature such as [+COUNTERFACTUAL] to this semantic profile, which would highlight the fact that the previously held assumption is negated, is worth considering.
The Lakota aspect/modality markers -kinica and tkhá
Last but not least, tkhá has developed an aspectual meaning which is semantically very close to -kinica ‘‘proximative’’: (47) yá tkhá go pst.prf.prx ‘he/she almost went’ (48) ophé-wa-thų tkhá st-1sg.ag-buy pst.prf.prx ‘I almost bought it’ (49) hé mathó ki oyúspa-pi tkhá dem.d bear def catch-pl pst.prf.prx ‘they almost caught that bear’ (50) bló i-wá- ’a na napé ˚spą-míc’i-ya tkhá ä potato st-1sg.ag-cook and hand burned-1sg.rfl-cau pst.prf.prx ‘I was cooking potatoes and I almost burned my hands’
tkhá ‘‘almost Xed but then didn’t X, was about to X and then didn’t X, was on the verge of X and then didn’t X’’ indicates that a state of affairs was close to instantiation in reality but never reached the point of realization. Unlike -kinica ‘‘proximative’’, this version of tkhá indicates that the situation that potentially leads to the realization of the state of affairs in question is terminated before the latter takes place. -kinica ‘‘proximative’’ does not impose such a semantic limitation; with -kinica ‘‘proximative’’, that state of affairs may or may not be instantiated in reality. tkhá ‘‘almost Xed but then didn’t X, etc.’ fits the characterization of Kuteva’s (1998) ANA (“action narrowly averted”) gram in every detail. Because this grammatical category must be assigned to the overarching tense-aspect-modality grid generally used in the cross-linguistic description of verbal morphosyntax (cf. section 3.2), ANA will henceforth be referred to as ‘‘past completive proximative’’. A possible terminological alternative for ANA is “avertive” (cf. Heine & Kuteva 2002; Malchukov 2004: 194). However, “avertive” appears less appropriate here, since this term implies a high degree of control, which is not part of the semantics of tkhá ‘‘almost Xed but then didn’t X, etc.’’. Examples (51) and (52) underscore the observation that tkhá ‘‘past completive proximative’’ implies termination of the situation which potentially entails the featured state of affairs prior to its realization: in contexts in which the prospective event does take place after all, tkhá ‘‘past completive proximative’’ is ungrammatical. (51) Joe pahá alí tkhá. *waná pahá ektá náz˚.i Joe hill climb pst.prf.prx now hill loc stand ‘Joe almost climbed the hill. *Now he is standing on the hill.’ (52) bébela is˚t ma tkhá. baby sleep pst.prf.prx ‘The baby almost fell asleep.
*nakés˚ is˚t me. finally sleep *It finally fell asleep.’
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Given the presence of this terminative meaning component in the semantic profile of tkhá ‘‘past completive proximative’’, this element satisfies the definition of perfective aspect provided in section 2. For a more detailed justification of the classification of this element as an aspect marker, cf. section 3.
2.2.2 Diachronic considerations Since all of the numerous meanings of tkhá ‘‘past + aspectual and/or modal meaning component’’ listed above are still in use in today’s language, the grammaticalization processes which created these meanings cannot be traced by illuminating successive meaning changes via a diachronic step-by-step procedure. However, the synchronic data are sufficiently clear to allow reconstruction of the historical facts. The lexical source of all meanings of tkhá ‘‘past + aspectual and/or modal meaning component’’ is the conjunction tkhá ‘‘but’’. Aspectual/modal tkhá arose via ellipsis of the clause which follows the conjunction tkhá ‘‘but’’. According to Buechel (1970: 492), tkhá ‘‘but’’ derives from tukhá ‘‘but’’, which still occurs in fossilized idioms (Buechel 1970: 501). The phonetically more complex form tukhá cannot be used in lieu of tkhá or khá when the aspectual/modal concepts dealt with in section 2.2.1 are to be encoded. In diachronic change, linguistic items, sooner or later, are shortened – only in a negligible number of cases are they lengthened (e.g., Heine et al. 1991). Arguing deductively on the basis of this well-established claim in grammaticalization theory, loss of the vowel u suggests that the form tkhá is more recent than tukhá. Consequently, the aspectual/modal meanings conveyed by tkhá must be more recent than the ‘‘but’’meaning, which is the only meaning associated with the complex form tukhá. tkhá ‘‘past + aspectual and/or modal meaning component’’ must have been derived from t(u)khá ‘‘but’’, and not vice versa. As mentioned in section 2.2.1, tkhá ‘‘past completive’’ can be shortened to khá. This is also true for tkhá ‘‘but’’. However, Lakota native speakers report that reservation elders tend to use the form tkhá, rather than khá, for expressing the notions of ‘‘but’’ and the aspectual/modal concepts described in section 2.2.1. In trying to determine the temporal succession of the development of aspectual/ modal tkhá out of tkhá ‘‘but’’, some basic semantic considerations are in order. The past completive meaning ‘‘used to X but no more’’ differs from all the other meanings in that it implies that the state of affairs in question had been instantiated in reality at some point in time. All other meanings of aspectual/modal tkhá imply the opposite, i.e., non-instantiation in reality, or non-actuality alias counterfactuality. The dichotomy “actual vs. non-actual” (the terms are taken from Chung & Timberlake 1985: 241) also surfaces in the basic Lakota tense system, which merely comprises the categories -kta ‘‘future’’ vs. -Ø ‘‘present, past’’. -kta also expresses the modal concepts of intentionality and obligation. As has been claimed repeatedly in the relevant literature, future tense is distinguished from past and present in that it refers to events which have not taken
The Lakota aspect/modality markers -kinica and tkhá
place (yet) and are therefore non-actual. It is not surprising that the coding of the past completive counterfactual meaning ‘‘would have’’ and the past completive counterfactual obligative meaning ‘‘should have’’ by means of tkhá involves the non-actuality marker -kta as an optional structural component. Further, a semantic leap from an elliptical ‘‘but’’-construction to a -kta tkhá ‘‘would have’’ meaning is not difficult to imagine: (53)
echámu-kta tkhá [mázaska ma-níce] ä 1sg.ag.do-fut/int but money 1sg.pat-lack ‘I was going to/wanted to do it [but I didn’t have money]’ → ‘I would have done it’
The transitory stage of ellipsis of the ‘‘but’’-clause which led to the rise of the counterfactual meanings of (-kta) tkhá is documented in Boas & Deloria (1941: 112). Since Lakota does not distinguish between past and present grammatically, the form echámu-kta in (53) could, theoretically, be interpreted either as a present tense or ä as a past tense: ‘‘I will/want to do it’’ vs. ‘‘I was going/wanted to do it’’. Obviously, -kta tkhá ‘‘would have’’ has been derived from the past tense reading of -kta in examples like (53). One might wonder why a present counterfactual meaning ‘‘would’’ didn’t develop along with the past counterfactual meaning. The answer probably lies in the specific semantics of the main grammaticalization source of the element in question, namely, tkhá ‘‘but’’. The adversative conjunction ‘‘but’’, among other things, denotes concepts like vitiation, crossed intentions, and cancellation of events. A past counterfactual meaning ‘‘would have’’ is much more compatible with vitiation or cancellation of prospective states of affairs than a present counterfactual meaning ‘‘would’’ (e.g., ‘‘I would do it’’), which envisages the possibility of actualization, at least to a much higher degree than ‘‘would have’’ (e.g., ‘‘I would have done it’’). An analogous construction led to the rise of the past counterfactual obligative meaning ‘‘should have’’ of (-kta) tkhá: (54) echámų-kta tkhá [mázaska ma-níce] 1sg.ag.do-should (have) but money 1sg.pat-lack ‘I should have done it [but I didn’t have money]’
This development is fully transparent in that -kta by itself, in addition to future and intentional, denotes mild obligation, i.e., ‘‘should’’: (55) cha tuwá chet’ų´-ma-gla hátaha˚s hé yawá-kte ä ä ä so someone st-1sg.pat-doubt if dem.d read-obl ‘so if someone doubts me he/she should read it’ (56) wiwíla ki hé tuwéni héchel ígmuha yatk˛í-kte-s˚ni spring def dem.d nobody so sip drink-fut-neg ‘nobody is supposed to drink from a spring without using a vessel’
Regina Pustet
Obligation is part of the deontic subdomain of modality. Epistemic interpretations of English should are assumption and inference. However, Lakota -kta ‘‘should’’, by itself, does not convey the meaning of epistemic ‘‘should’’. Only the combination -kta tkhá expresses epistemic ‘‘should have’’, as in example (41). As a next step in diachronic development, omission of -kta apparently became possible in -kta tkhá ‘‘would/should have’’ constructions; the meanings ‘‘would have’’ and ‘‘should have’’ could, henceforth, be coded by tkhá alone. The most plausible scenario for the rise of tkhá ‘‘past completive suppositive: I assumed X but apparently X is incorrect, I assumed X but I don’t assume X any more’’ is that of a continuation of the grammaticalization channel that produced the epistemic version of -kta tkhá ‘‘should have’’. Unlike all other modal readings of (-kta) tkhá, tkhá ‘‘past completive suppositive: I assumed X but apparently X is incorrect, etc.’’ exclusively conveys an epistemic meaning. Given this, it is more than likely that the past completive suppositive arose via epistemic -kta tkhá ‘‘should have’’ (cf. (41)). The postulation of such a diachronic link is supported by the fact that parallel developments have taken place in other languages, for instance, in German. The German modal auxiliary sollen is the equivalent of English should in that it codes both mildly obligative and suppositive meanings. (57) er soll nicht rauchen he should not smoke ‘he shouldn’t smoke’ (deontic, mild obligative) (58) er soll sehr reich sein he supposed to very rich be ‘he is supposed to be very rich’ (epistemic, suppositive)
Interestingly, while the present tense form of sollen ‘‘should’’ expresses the notion of supposition based on hearsay, the past tense form sollte, apart from the past tense of mild obligatives, conveys the idea of supposition with the speaker as the epistemic person or source: (59) er sollte mittlerweile hier sein he should meantime here be ‘he should be here by now, I assume that he is here by now’
This epistemic meaning of sollte, in turn, is very close to the concept expressed by Lakota tkhá ‘‘past completive suppositive: I assumed X but apparently X is incorrect’’. In both cases, epistemicity is speaker-based. The difference lies in the fact that tkhá indicates that the assumption in question has turned out to be incorrect and, thus, is not being held any more. In sum, German sollte ‘‘suppositive’’ presumably developed out of sollen ‘‘mild obligative’’ just like Lakota tkhá ‘‘past completive suppositive’’ arose via -kta tkhá ‘‘past completive obligative’’. This parallelism is remarkable, but the fact
The Lakota aspect/modality markers -kinica and tkhá
that a certain development has occurred in language A is, of course, not to be taken as direct proof of the hypothesis that it has occurred in language B as well. As for the genesis of tkhá ‘‘past completive proximative: almost Xed but then didn’t X’’, this element and tkhá ‘‘pastcounterfactual: would have’’ are sufficiently close semantically to hypothesize that there is a direct diachronic link. Such a connection has been posited by Kuteva (1998: 142), who argues that past volition/intention markers may grammaticalize into counterfactual grammemes. These may, further, develop into past completive proximatives (or ANA grams, in her terminology). The fact that the past tense form of English will ‘‘intentional’’ gave rise to would ‘‘counterfactual’’ documents the first two positions in this grammaticalization chain. Ziegeler (2000: 1762, 2006: 164) supports Kuteva’s (1998) argumentation by quoting English examples in which the counterfactual markers would and would have “express proximity to an action which did not subsequently occur”, i.e., the category of past completive proximative, as in I would have gone with her, but I had too much work to do. In line with these findings, the Lakota data presented above show that the intentional marker -kta is, at least, involved as a morphological component in the grammaticalization of (-kta) tkhá ‘‘past counterfactual: would have’’. A development from (-kta) tkhá ‘‘past counterfactual’’ to tkhá ‘‘past completive proximative: almost Xed but then didn’t X’’ might, indeed, have taken place. However, given the fact that the focal morphological component of this grammeme is the element tkhá, which originally meant ‘‘but’’, an alternative analysis of the Lakota data is possible. tkhá ‘‘past completive proximative’’ may be the direct output of a configuration consisting of -kta ‘‘future/intentional’’ and tkhá ‘‘but’’ and would thus constitute an independent branch in the grammaticalization processes based on tkhá ‘‘but’’. The nearidentity of the semantic aggregate ‘‘was going to/wanted to but (something came in between)’’ and the concept of past completive proximative ‘‘almost Xed but then didn’t X’’ makes it seem advisable to identify the former as the grammaticalization source of the latter, rather than taking the analytical “detour” via the past counterfactual meaning. As stated at the beginning of this section, tkhá ‘‘past completive: used to X but no more’’ is distinct from all other semantic variants of aspectual/modal tkhá because the latter are non-actual. Instantiation of the state of affairs in question in reality does not occur. Therefore, direct historical links between these meanings of tkhá and tkhá ‘‘past completive’’ can be ruled out. Presumably, this meaning has been derived directly from tkhá ‘‘but’’, once again via elliptical clauses such as (60)
Jack chepa tkhá [waná chépe-s˚ni] Jack fat but now fat-neg ‘Jack was fat [but now he isn’t fat]’ → ‘Jack used to be fat (but not any more)’
Regina Pustet
(61)
.
eháni echų´-pi tkhá [waná echų´-pi-sni] long ago do-pl but now do-pl-neg ‘they did it [but now they don’t do it]’ → ‘they used to do it (but not any more)’
3. Discussion Turning now to the theoretical focus of the present investigation, the question about links between aspect and modality (Abraham & Leiss, this volume), another close look at the semantic properties of the grammemes described in section 2 is in order. The task of assigning the individual grammemes to macro-categories like aspect and modality is more challenging than one might expect.
3.1 - kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’: From deontic modality to perfective aspect As stated in section 2.1.2, -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’ originates in the verb níca ‘‘to lack, need, be destitute of ’’. After grammaticalizing into an intentional marker, the element assumed a proximative meaning as well. ‘‘Intentional’’ is a semantic concept that has to be assigned to the domain of deontic modality: “the speaker expresses intention or deliberation to realize the event” (Chung & Timberlake 1985: 247). Both the intentional and the proximative version of -kinica are neutral with respect to tense. Thus, -kinica cannot be classed as a tense marker. This is also true for -kinica-style proximatives found in other languages (Kuteva 1998: 129). According to Heine (1994) and Kuteva (1998), an aspectual interpretation of the category of proximative is more appropriate. Semantically equivalent markers, such as English to be about to, to be on the point of, nearly, almost are mentioned under the terminological heading of “prospective aspect” in Cinque (1999: 99), Comrie (1976: 64), Frawley (1992: 322). “Proximative” and “prospective” denote the same semantic category (Cinque 1999: 192). There appears to be a general consensus on the classification of the proximative alias prospective as an aspect in the literature. The main uncertainty regarding the status of the proximative in grammatical theory concerns its detailed justification as an aspectual category, including its position within the perfective vs. imperfective dichotomy, which is constitutive of the category of aspect in general. The following considerations aim at a clarification of these issues, which so far, have not been dealt with in sufficient detail in the extant literature. The standard definition of aspect characterizes the latter as a category that highlights the internal temporal structure of events (Comrie 1976: 3) on the basis of the notion of boundedness (Langacker 1987: 81). By featuring its boundaries, i.e., the points of incipience and termination, perfectivity views a state of affairs as bounded.
The Lakota aspect/modality markers -kinica and tkhá
If its boundaries are “blotted out” conceptually, a given state of affairs is being presented as non-bounded or imperfective. The crucial landmark in the semantic scenario described by the proximative is, obviously, the point of inception of a state of affairs. In the same vein, Heine (1994) and Kuteva (1998) argue that the most essential meaning component of the proximative is imminence: a proximative profiles the time span immediately preceding the point of inception of a given state of affairs (similarly, Nouwen 2006: 1; Ziegeler 2000: 1766f.). Complications regarding the unequivocal assignment of the proximative to the macro-category of aspect arise from the fact that the proximative does not include the point of inception in its semantic scope (cf. also Ziegeler 2006: 171–178). Actually, unlike traditional perfectives and imperfectives, the proximative does not include any temporal segment of the featured state of affairs in its semantic scope because that state of affairs is never instantiated in reality – or, put differently, the semantic makeup of the proximative contains a “negative polar component” (Nouwen 2006: 1). How, then, could a proximative establish reference to the internal temporal structure of an event? If it doesn’t, on what grounds can it be classed as an aspect? In this context, the possibility of analyzing the proximative as some kind of modal category must be considered. Like the counterfactual, the proximative features states of affairs which have not been instantiated in reality. But, in contrast to the counterfactual and its subcategories, the concept of proximative is so intimately connected with the aspectual landmark of point of incipience that aspectuality must be regarded as an indispensable feature in the semantic makeup of the proximative. In ontological terms, the occurrence of an event usually involves a preparatory phase of some sort, no matter how short it may be. The event ‘‘to run’’ is preceded by states of affairs such as tensing of the muscles, adjusting the body posture, etc. ‘‘To cut’’ presupposes the positioning of a knife or another suitable instrument on the surface of the object which is to be cut. The proximative features this preparatory phase, which takes place immediately prior to the actual event. If the standard definition of aspect as the description of the internal structure of events is broadened to capture events in their ontological totality, i.e., including the preparatory phase (and correspondingly, the phase following termination), the proximative can easily be fitted into the existing linguistic approaches to aspect. What type of aspect is expressed by the proximative? The temporal scope of the proximative is delimited by the initial boundary of a potentially occurring state of affairs. Since it profiles an event boundary, at least indirectly, the proximative can be classed as a subcategory of perfective aspect. The claim that the proximative presents states of affairs as bounded is substantiated by data from English and presumably many other languages in which proximative markers can be used in combination with quantifying predicates. The closest equivalent to the grammatical category of proximative in English are expressions such as almost, nearly, to be about to, to be on the verge of. In the tree is almost 10 foot tall,
Regina Pustet
almost sets an absolute upper height limit at 10 foot for the entity in question (Nouwen 2006; Sadock 1981). This upper height limit corresponds to the point of incipience in proximative predicates containing non-stative lexical nuclei. In contrast, the lower boundary of vertical extension in a predication like is almost 10 foot tall is anything but strictly defined and may vary from context to context (Sadock 1981: 259f.).4 However, the proximative exhibits perfective characteristics on yet another descriptive plane. The proximative profiles the short time period which immediately precedes the realization (or cancellation) of an impending state of affairs. Since Comrie (1976: 17) characterizes perfectivity as “indicating a short period of time”, it can be argued that the proximative is perfective on two counts. tkhá ‘‘past completive proximative: almost Xed but then didn’t X’’, further, has been analyzed as a semantically more specialized variant of the proximative in section 2.2.1. This element is to be regarded as perfective on three counts. Like -kinica ‘‘proximative’’, tkhá ‘‘past completive proximative’’ expresses short duration, and its conceptualization hinges crucially on the hypothetical point of incipience of an event. An additional perfective meaning component is imposed by the implied termination of the situation that potentially leads to the realization of this event. Figure 1 summarizes the grammaticalization path of -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’ according to the analysis proposed in section 2.2.2. ki- → POSSESSIVE or FIENTIVE + níca ‘‘to lack, need, be destitute of ’’
-kinica → INTENTIONAL: ‘‘to have the urge to’’, ‘‘to want to’’, ‘‘to intend to’’, ‘‘to feel like doing X’’
-kinica PROXIMATIVE: ‘‘almost’’, ‘‘to be about to’’, ‘‘to be on the verge of ’’
e.g., examples (14) to (17), (19)
e.g., examples (16), (17), (19)
Figure 1. Grammaticalization channel for -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’.
The developments observed here can be taken as an example of the transition from deontic modality (intentional) to perfective aspect (proximative), and thus, as proof for the existence of diachronic links between aspect and modality. This grammaticalization channel, as stated in section 1, has not yet been documented in this particular form. Similar cases which have been reported on in the extant literature, e.g., in
. While -kinica or the shortened form -kinil can be used with quantifiers, cases of quantifier modification by means of tkhá ‘‘almost’’ could not be documented.
The Lakota aspect/modality markers -kinica and tkhá
Heine & Kuteva (2002: 311ff.), differ from the Lakota case in that -kinica represents the intentional phase of the grammaticalization channel as a grammeme, rather than as a lexeme. -kinica ‘‘intentional’’ is a fully grammaticalized modal category. The elements listed in Heine & Kuteva (2002) as sources of proximatives, on the other hand, are regular verbs.
3.2 t khá ‘‘past + aspectual and/or modal meaning component’’: No evidence for diachronic aspect-modality links Most of the various meanings of aspectual/modal tkhá are directly, without intervening diachronic steps, derived from (-kta +) tkhá ‘‘(future/intentional/obligative +) but’’ (cf. section 2.2.2). The only secondary-level product of the grammaticalization processes initiated by this element is tkhá ‘‘past completive suppositive: I assumed X but apparently X is incorrect’’, which is semantically akin to the epistemic interpretation of (-kta) tkhá ‘‘should have’’, and thus, must have developed out of the latter. In determining whether aspectual/modal tkhá provides diachronic links between the grammatical categories of aspect and modality, obviously, only de-lexicalized meanings which occupy adjacent positions in a given grammaticalization chain are relevant. Since most of the grammatical meanings of tkhá probably developed independently out of (-kta +) tkhá ‘‘(future/intentional/obligative +) but’’, tkhá ‘‘I assumed X but apparently X is incorrect’’ being the only exception, only the genesis of the latter element is of interest in this context. The putative source grammeme has been identified as (-kta) tkhá ‘‘should have’’ in section 2.2.2. In the attempt to answer the question of whether this diachronic configuration can be interpreted as exemplifying a transition from an aspectual to a modal meaning, or vice versa, the problem is that the target element tkhá ‘‘past completive suppositive: I assumed X but apparently X is incorrect’’, in addition to tense, codes both aspectual and modal meanings. The same goes for the deontic and epistemic readings of the source grammeme (-kta) tkhá ‘‘past completive obligative/suppositive: should have’’, although the completive, i.e., perfective, meaning component of the ‘‘should have’’ reading is somewhat difficult to infer on the basis of the language data that could be obtained. But even if the feature [+completive] is innovative in tkhá ‘‘past completive suppositive: I assumed X but apparently X is incorrect’’, both the target and the source grammeme convey a modal meaning. This diachronic configuration, therefore, cannot be taken as another piece of evidence which proves that modal meanings may develop out of aspectual ones, or vice versa. The grammaticalization processes based on tkhá ‘‘but’’ are graphically represented in figure 2.
Regina Pustet a.
tkhá “but”
→
tkhá PAST COMPLETIVE: “used to X but no more” e.g., examples (24) to (31)
b.
-kta FUTURE/ INTENTIONAL/ OBLIGATIVE + tkhá “but”
→
(-kta) tkhá PAST COUNTERFACTUAL: “would have” e.g., examples (37), (38)
→
(-kta) tkhá PAST OBLIGATIVE/ SUPPOSITIVE: “should have”
e.g., examples (37), (38), (41) →
→
tkhá PAST COMPLETIVE SUPPOSITIVE: “I assumed X but apparently X is incorrect”, “I assumed X but I don’t assume X any more” e.g., examples (44) to (46)
tkhá PAST COMPLETIVE PROXIMATIVE: “almost Xed but then didn’t X”, “was about to X and then didn’t X”, “was on the verge of X and then didn’t X” e.g., examples (47) to (50)
Figure 2. Grammaticalization channels for tkhá ‘‘past + aspectual and/or modal meaning component’’.
4. Conclusions The commonality shared by the grammaticalization processes surrounding the Lakota aspect/modality markers -kinica and tkhá is that, in both cases, elements conveying an intentional meaning gave rise to proximative meanings: -kinica ‘‘intentional’’ develops into -kinica ‘‘proximative’’, and -kta tkhá ‘‘intentional + but’’ develops into tkhá ‘‘past completive proximative’’. Verbs of volition and intention have previously been established as sources for proximatives (Heine 1994; Kuteva 1998; Heine & Kuteva 2002: 335), as well as verbs meaning ‘‘to come to’’ and expressions meaning ‘‘near’’ (Heine & Kuteva 2002: 335). However, the development of the various modals and aspectuals dealt with in section 2.2,
The Lakota aspect/modality markers -kinica and tkhá
including a proximative, from the lexical source ‘‘but’’ seems to constitute a descriptive novelty, although at least the development of proximatives from ‘‘but’’ has been anticipated by Malchukov (2004: 194). Documented sources of past completive proximatives (alias avertives or ANA grams) are copulas, expressions for ‘‘near’’, and verbs denoting the concepts ‘‘to fail’’, ‘‘to love’’, and ‘‘to want’’ (Heine & Kuteva 2002: 328). While -kinica ‘‘intentional’’ gives rise to a general, contextually more or less neutral proximative marker which does not impose any semantic restrictions regarding subsequent actualization or non-actualization of a given state of affairs, grammaticalization of tkhá ‘‘but’’ results in a semantically more specialized type of proximative: tkhá ‘‘almost Xed but then didn’t X’’ has a terminative, and thus perfective, connotation and implies that the featured state of affairs is not instantiated in reality. The terminative meaning of tkhá ‘‘almost Xed but then didn’t X’’ can easily be inferred from the semantic profile of the adversative conjunction ‘‘but’’. ‘‘But’’ basically implies a contrast between two situations (Payne 1985: 6), manifestations of which may include an unexpected course of events, or else vitiation and cancellation of a prospective situation: in other words, its premature termination. It is not a coincidence that there are conspicuous collocational links between proximatives, especially past proximatives, and markers for ‘‘but’’. For instance, in English, “all past time reference uses of almost … can be appended with a conjoining clause introduced by but” (Ziegeler 2000: 1754; also cf. Ziegeler 2005; Ziegeler 2006: Ch. 4). (62) He almost didn’t make it, but there he was, sitting in the front row. (Ziegeler 2000: 1754)
Kuteva (1998: 122) reports that “the ANA [past completive proximative, R.P.] construction in Russian is always followed by […] the adversative conjunction no ‘but’”. In sum, even if direct diachronic aspect-modality links do not appear to be widespread, the Lakota data show that they may arise as the result of grammaticalization processes involving the aspectual category of proximative and the modal category of intentionality. Although connections of this sort could not be verified with sufficient certainty for the aspect/modality marker tkhá, the data on -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’ clearly indicate that modal meanings may originate in aspectual ones.
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Regina Pustet Bybee, Joan L. & Östen Dahl. 1989. The creation of tense and aspect systems in the languages of the world. Studies in Language, 13, 51–103. Bybee, Joan L., William Pagliuca & Revere Perkins. 1991. Back to the future. In Elizabeth Closs Traugott & Bernd Heine (Eds), Approaches to grammaticalization. Vol. 2 (pp. 17–58). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Typological studies in language 19.2]. Bybee, Joan L., William Pagliuca & Revere Perkins. 1994. The evolution of grammar. Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and functional heads: OUP. [Oxford studies in comparative syntax]. Chung, Sandra & Alan Timberlake. 1985. Tense, aspect, and mood. In Timothy Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description. Vol. III: Grammatical categories and the lexicon (pp. 202–258): CUP. Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect: CUP. Comrie, Bernard. 1985. Tense: CUP. Dahl, Östen (Ed.). 2000. Tense and aspect in the languages of Europe. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Empirical approaches to language typology 20, 6]. Frawley, William. 1992. Linguistic semantics. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Heine, Bernd. 1992. Grammaticalization chains. Studies in Language, 1, 335–68. Heine, Bernd. 1993. Auxiliaries. Cognitive forces and grammaticalization: OUP. Heine, Bernd. 1994. On the genesis of aspect in African languages: The proximative. Berkeley Lingustics Society, 20 (suppl.), 35–46. Heine, Bernd, Ulrike Claudi & Friederike Hünnemeyer. 1991. Grammaticalization. A conceptual framework. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Heine, Bernd & Tania Kuteva. 2002. World lexicon of grammaticalization: CUP. Hopper, Paul J. (Ed.). 1982. Tense-aspect: Between semantics and pragmatics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Typological studies in language 1]. Kuteva, Tania. 1998. On identifying an evasive gram: Action narrowly averted. Studies in Language, 22, 113–160. Langacker, Ronald. 1987. Nouns and verbs. Language, 63, 53–94. Malchukov, Andrej L. 2004. Towards a semantic typology of adversative and contrast marking. Journal of Semantics, 21, 177–98. Nouwen, Rick. 2006. Remarks on the polar orientation of almost. In Jeroen van de Weijer & Bettelou Los (Eds), Linguistics in the Netherlands 2006 (pp. 162–173). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Linguistics in the Netherlands 23]. (quoted from www.semanticsarchive.net). Palmer, Frank Robert. 2001. Mood and modality: CUP. [Cambridge textbooks in linguistics]. Payne, John R. 1985. Complex phrases and complex sentences. In Timothy Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description. Vol. 2: Complex constructions (pp. 3–43). Cambridge University Press. Pons Bordería, Salvador & Scott Schwenter. 2005. Polar meaning and ‘expletive’ negation in approximative adverbs: Spanish por poco (no). Journal of Historical Pragmatics, 6, 262–282. Pustet, Regina. 2004. Aspect marking in Lakota. Siouan and Caddoan Language Conference (SCLC), 24, Wayne, NE, USA, June 2004. Pustet, Regina. In prep. Lakota grammar. Pustet, Regina, Juliana Wijaya & Than Than Win forthcoming. Progressives in typological perspective. Languages in Contrast, 6, 177-227. Romaine, Suzanne. 1999. The grammaticalization of the proximative in Tok Pisin. Language, 75, 96–120.
The Lakota aspect/modality markers -kinica and tkhá
Sadock, Jerold 1981. Almost. In Peter Cole (Ed.), Radical pragmatics (pp. 257–71). New York, NY: Academic Press. Tedeschi, Philip & Annie Zaenen (Eds), 1981. Tense and aspect. New York, NY: Academic Press. Van der Auwera, Johan & Vladimir A. Plungian. 1998. Modality’s semantic map. Linguistic Typology, 2, 79–124. Ziegeler, Debra. 2000. What almost can reveal about counterfactual inferences. Journal of Pragmatics, 32, 1743–1776. Ziegeler, Debra. 2005. Modality, scales and proximatives. Paper presented at the 9th International Pragmatics Conference, Riva del Garda, Italy, July 2005. Ziegeler, Debra. 2006. Interfaces with English aspect. Diachronic and empirical studies. Amsterdam: John Benjamins [Studies in language companion series 82].
Creole
A note on modality and aspect in Saramaccan Heiko Narrog
Tohoku University This article provides a short overview over Saramaccan TMA marking and its modal system and discusses the interaction of modality and aspect. Saramaccan modal markers are stative themselves and therefore do not take durative marking. However, differences appear when modal markers take propositions with divergent temporal-aspectual properties. Especially, it is shown that the uses of the only Saramaccan modal marker which is polyfunctional between root and epistemicity, musu, can be distinguished by their selective properties. Specifically, the epistemic use associates exclusively with stative and durative propositions.
1. Preliminaries Saramaccan is a Creole language, spoken by a population of about 23,000 (Grimes 2000) mainly in Suriname. Although it enjoys high name recognition among the Creole languages of the world, currently no comprehensive description of it exists. It is also fair to say that most modern linguistic publications on Saramaccan grammar have been concerned with syntactic or phonological issues or with implications for Creole genesis, but rarely with semantics. The relative paucity of solid semantic description also applies to aspect and modality. This article briefly introduces mood and modality in Saramaccan and then investigates its interaction with aspect, as far as this is possible on the basis of the data available to the author. Word order in the language is strictly SVO. Morphologically, Saramaccan is mostly isolating, with a few agglutinative and fusional features. Saramaccan has a phonology split between pitch accent and tone (cf. Good 2004). One can distinguish a level high tone, which marks the accent in the case of pitch accent words, and a level low tone.
. The following abbreviations are used in the morpheme glosses: 1/2/3 – first/second/third person, cjn – conjunction, cop – copula, cpl – complementizer, det – determiner, epi – epistemic, fut – future, irr – irrealis; loc – locative, neg – negation, npu – non-punctual, obl – obligation, pl – plural, pot – potential, pst – past, que – question, sg – singular, vol – volition. . John McWhorter is planning a comprehensive grammar of the language. See also Jeff Good’s HP (http://lingweb.eva.mpg.de/montage/SMGrammar.html).
Heiko Narrog
However, minimal pairs of words only distinguished by tone are relatively rare. The level high tone is formally rendered in this paper by an accent on the accent-bearing vowel; e.g., /á/. Note that the transcription here basically follows the conventions in the Saramaccan-English word list (Rountree et al. 2000). However, open /ε/ is transcribed as 〈ε〉 instead of 〈ё〉 , and open / / as 〈 〉 instead of 〈ö〉. The most important lexifier languages of Saramaccan are English and Portuguese, which contribute to about a half and a third of the vocabulary, respectively. The rest of the vocabulary consists mainly of words of Dutch and African origin (cf. Arends 2002: 117f.; Bruyn 2002: 160–168). In fact, it is claimed that Saramaccan is the language with the highest proportion of substrate African vocabulary among all Creoles in the Americas (Bakker, Smith & Veenstra 1995: 169). The data used were all obtained through conventional elicitation, with the cooperation of a single native speaker of Saramaccan. Therefore, essentially the language system of an individual speaker is taken as the basis. It is well known that there are dialectal differences within Saramaccan, and, in addition, the language system of individual speakers may vary according to factors such as age and social background. It is therefore conceivable that different results would be obtained with different speakers.
2. TAM in Saramaccan Saramaccan has three pre-verbal tense-aspect-mood (TAM) auxiliaries, namely o, bi, and tá. In the 1970s and 1980s, Bickerton espoused the idea of the basic Creole TAM categories of “anterior”, “irrealis” and “nonpunctual”, which are part of a bioprogram, and therefore practically universal to human language. In this framework, o (presumably from English (E.) go) is identified with the “irrealis”, bi (from E. been or Portuguese (P.) vir “come”) with the “anterior”, and tá (from P. estar or E. stand) with the “nonpunctual” (cf. Bickerton 1981: 58, 280). However, Bickerton’s immensely influential view of TAM has later been criticized because of oversimplification, inaccuracy, and the use of idiosyncratic category labeling (e.g., Spears 1990: 137f.; Thiele 1991: 79, 93; Winford 2000a, b). It appears that under closer scrutiny no single Creole language neatly fits Bickerton’s hypotheses. Based on my own data and observations, I suggest the following view of the three Saramaccan TAM markers. Bi has two basic functions, namely as past tense (ex. (1)), and as counterfactual mood (ex. (2)).
. All example sentences except (3) and (26) were elicited by myself. For (3) and (26) I am indebted to John McWhorter’s Saramaccan sentence list.
A note on modality and aspect in Saramaccan
(1) Dí ndéti bi hánso. det night pst attractive ‘The night was beautiful.’ (2) Mi wense táa John bi dέ akí. 1sg wish cpl John pst be here ‘I wish John were here.’
Bickerton’s “anterior” label refers to the fact that non-stative verbs in Saramaccan (and other Creoles) can refer to past events also without bi tense marking. Bickerton thus chose a term that highlights temporal orientation relative to other events. On the other hand, at least the stative verbs need bi marking, and non-stative verbs as well frequently take bi in past contexts where a relative temporal orientation is not apparent. Singler (1990: 12) points out that purely relative tense is in fact rare even among Creoles, and Holm states, based on a extensive survey that “it is not the case that unmarked Creole stative verbs always correspond to the English present tense and that unmarked Creole non-stative verbs always correspond to the English past tense […]” (Holm 2000: 177). Tense is clearly an area where Bickerton is too undifferentiated and more investigation is needed. We follow Bruyn (2002: 179) here in labeling bi simply as “past”. Tá is indeed the “nonpunctual”, also variably labeled as “continuative” or “progressive”. It usually indicates the durativity of an event, and is therefore generally compatible with non-stative (ex. (3)) but not with stative predicates (ex. (4)). (3) De tá súku dí wómi. 3pl pst look for det man ‘They’re looking for that man.’ (4) ??Mi tá kέ bái dí wági. 1sg npu want buy det car ‘I am wanting to buy that car.’
Tá, however, besides the durative reading, also has a secondary frequentative reading (rendered, depending on context, as “always”, “often”, or “sometimes”). In this reading, tá can also combine with stative predicates, as long as it makes sense pragmatically (ex. (5)). (5) A tá m' n bέtε ée i wási dí wági. 3sg npu more better if 2sg wash det car ‘It is always better to wash the car.’
O, although traditionally labeled as “irrealis” has mainly future (posterior) and predictive functions, as in exs. (6) and (7): (6) Amánjan i o ábi fiká a wósu. tomorrow 2sg fut obl stay loc home ‘Tomorrow you’ll have to stay at home.’
Heiko Narrog
(7) Mi sábi taa a o ko. 1sg know cpl 3sg fut come ‘I’m sure he will come.’
I hesitate to assign the label “irrealis” to it, as it seems that in the protasis of conditional clauses bi and not o marks the hypothetical status of a proposition, while in the apodosis it is usually the combination bi o, rather than o alone (ex. (8)): (8) Ée i bi sá heépi mi, mi bi o if 2sg pst pot help 1sg 1sg pst fut sá féni wán m' n bέtε woóko. pot find one more better work ‘If you could help me, I would be able to find a better job.’
Thus, “future” is the most appropriate label for this marker. We therefore have a system with one aspect marker (tá), and two combined tense-mood markers (bi and o). The order of these three elements conforms to Bickerton’s claim, as it is indeed bi (TM) – o (TM) – tá (A), but with a slightly different interpretation from that of Bickerton who would have it as bi (T) – o (M) – tá (A). One point of interest that follows here is what happens when all three markers appear in one sequence. This is the case in the following example: (9) Ée ttjúba án bi tá kaí n' ú bi o tá pεέ n'n'. if rain 3sg-neg pst con fall then 1pl pst fut con play now ‘If it wasn’t raining, we would be playing games now.’
Apparently, it is the past-counterfactual bi which has the modal (counterfactual) function in this sequence, while o denotes posteriority. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the sequence of categories is not T-M-A (A-M-T in head-final languages), as postulated by Bickerton, but rather M-T-A (A-T-M in head-final languages), with mood outranking tense.
3. The modal system in Saramaccan Besides the fixed set TMA markers, Saramaccan has also developed a “modal system” in the sense of Palmer (2001), that is, a loose set of non-obligatory secondary modal
. Winford (2000a: 410a) comes to the same conclusion for the Sranan cognate o. . M-T-A is also pointed out for the related language Sranan by Bruyn (2002: 180) as the actual order of TMA. This order also accords with the cross-linguistic observations on morpheme ordering by Bybee (1985: 22, 35, 196f.).
A note on modality and aspect in Saramaccan
predicates. One distinguishes root (dynamic and deontic), and epistemic markers. Saramaccan does not have a set of forms specializing in evidentiality (cf. Narrog 2005). The (dynamic modal) marker for root possibility and ability is the verb sá(bi) (as in (10)), which has the two alternates sábi and sá, and is probably derived from the Portuguese saber “know (how to)”. Similar to English may, sá(bi) has also a root possibility meaning (ex. (11)). (10) Mέ sá féni. 1sg-neg pot find ‘I can’t find [it].’ (11) Ú sá kó-lúku únu tidé ? 1pl pot come-look 2pl today que ‘May we come and visit you today?’
For root necessity, at least three markers and constructions are available, namely musu (fu) (< E. must) for general necessity or obligation (ex. (12)), ábi (fu) (< E. have to) for a weak obligation (ex. (13)), and the copulative necessity a dέ fu (consisting of the copula dέ, derived from English there, in conjunction with the expletive subject a “it” and the preposition fu, “it is to”) (ex. (14)). There is also a common construction denoting an evaluation or a comparative evaluation. It consists of the expletive a “it”, the optional adverb m' n “more”, the adjectives búnu “good” or bέtε “better”, and the optional conditional clause marker ée “if ”, in any combination, resulting in “it [is] good/better if ” etc. (ex. (15)). (12) I musu háika andí dí máti fii táki dá-i. 2sg obl listen what det friend prep-2sg say give-2sg ‘You must listen to what your friends tell you!’ (13) Já ábi u kó a woóko. 2sg-neg obl cpl come loc work ‘You don’t have to come to work.’ (14) A dέ fii wási dí wági. 3sg cop prep-2sg wash det car ‘You got to wash the car.’ [literally: ‘it is to you to wash the car’]
. It is another point of critique leveled against Bickerton’s analysis that he appears to overlook other markers in creoles that have developed besides the canonical three items T-M-A set (cf. Winford 2000a: 436). . Note that musu is not an exact equivalent of E. must. It is semantically broader, its meaning being rendered both as “must” and “should”. It is subject to past marking bi musu “had to”, and it has developed a degrammaticalized lexical use as “force to” (cf. Narrog 2005: 44).
Heiko Narrog
(15) Bif ' i bái-εn, a m' n bέtε ée i pakiséi búnu. before you buy-it it more better if you think well (buy TV set) ‘Before you buy it, you’d better think about it well.’
In contrast to the rich root marking, only one construction specializing in epistemic judgments can be identified, namely a kandέ, which consists of the expletive pronoun a “it” and the verb kandέ “be possible/can be”, and denotes an epistemic possibility, that is, the evaluation of the speaker about the possibility of the realization of an event (ex. (16)). (16) A kandέ a o kó amánjan, ma mέ sábi túu. 3sg be possible 3sg fut come tomorrow but 1sg-neg know all ‘He might come tomorrow, but I don’t know.’
Besides this, Saramaccan also has verbs of perception and mental verbs which express an epistemic judgment. Similar to such verbs in English and other languages, these verbs express epistemicity from their lexical meanings, and they are therefore not clearly grammaticalized modal markers. The most distinct construction is sí kuma “see how”, a combination of sí “see” (< E. see) and kuma “like, just as” (< P. como). It expresses the belief of the speaker about a state of affairs or his/her impression (ex. (17)). Mέni táa “think that” (ex. (18)) is an example of a mental state verb. (17) Mi sí kuma a o gó dí líba dí tá kó dέ. 1sg see like 3sg fut go det month det con come there ‘It looks to me/I suppose that he will leave next month.’ (18) Mi bi mέni táa a o kó. 1sg pst think cpl 3sg fut come ‘I thought that she would come (but she didn’t).’
All of the forms introduced above are monofunctional, in the sense that there is no polysemy between epistemic and root modal markers. In Ndyuka, sá(bi)’s cognate sá has developed an epistemic function (cf. Huttar & Huttar 1994: 517f.), but not in Saramaccan. However, there is one exception to this rule of monofunctionality, namely musu (fu) “must”, which will be the focus of the next section.
4. Aspect and modality Distribution-wise, there are two possible kinds of interaction between (marked) aspect and modality. First, it is conceivable that aspect takes modality into its scope, and second, it is conceivable that a modal marker takes aspect into its scope.
A note on modality and aspect in Saramaccan
In Saramaccan, the first possibility is generally not available. With respect to the Saramaccan TMA set of markers bi-o-tá, it was already mentioned that their order and scope relationship is fixed, and aspect-marking tá is the lowest-ranking among them. Furthermore, as was stated above in section 2, the nonpunctual aspect in the durative reading does not combine with stative verbs. The pre-verbal modal markers are stative and do not allow the non-punctual marking in a durative sense. Here, examples for root musu and epistemic a kandέ are given (exs. (19), (20)): (19) *Mi tá musu wási dí wági. 1sg npu deo wash det car ‘I am musting wash the car.’ (20) *A tá kandέ a dέ alá. 3sg npu be possible 3sg be there ‘It is being possible that she is there.’
Only the mental state and perception verbs, which are not grammaticalized as modal markers, do not seem to be subject to this restriction. Presumably these verbs designate temporary states if modified by tá, as in ex. (21). (21) Mi tá sí kuma de gó a wósu. 1sg npu see like 3pl go loc home ‘It’s looking to me as if they have gone home.’
The focus of interest for the issues raised in this volume is the reverse case, namely, modal markers with propositions which have durative aspectual marking. The root modal markers do not allow this. They do allow tá in the proposition, but in this case tá generally can only have frequentative reading (ex. (22)). (22) Mi ábi fu tá wási dí wági. 1sg have cpl npu wash det car a. ‘I have to wash the car sometimes.’ b. ??‘I have to be washing the car.’
The mood markers bi and o, and the epistemic modal expressions are not subject to this restriction. They harmonize very well with stative and durative propositions (ex. (23); for the mood markers; cf. ex. (9) above): (23) Mi sí kuma de tá pεέ báli n'n'. 1sg see like they npu play ball now ‘I suppose they are playing football now.’ . It may be possible to construe pragmatically felicitous sentences with the frequentative reading similar to (5), in the sense of “sometimes must” or “sometimes is possible”, but since there are no apparent restrictions on the frequentative reading, this is not very revealing, and thus of no concern here.
Heiko Narrog
The most interesting case is the verb musu (f)u “must”, which has developed an epistemic sense besides its root sense and is thus the only polyfunctional (both root and epistemic) marker that Saramaccan has developed (at least in the variety I investigated). The dividing line between the root and the epistemic sense is tense-aspect. Specifically, the epistemic sense is restricted to predicates which are either lexically stative predicates or marked by tá in the durative sense (ex. (24)), and are not futureoriented: (24) A musu dέ alá tá pεέ báli. 3sg epi be there npu play ball (Where is John now?) ‘He must be in the park, playing football.’
With a non-stative predicate and without durative aspectual marking, the epistemic sense is impossible (ex. (25)): (25) A musu pεέ báli. 3sg epi play ball a. ‘He must play football [= he is forced or obliged to do it].’ b. #‘He must play football [= I suppose that he plays football].’
However, root musu can take a stative verb in the proposition if the proposition is future-oriented (ex. (26)). (26) Já musu taán akí m' n, i musu gó a wósu. 2sg-neg must stand here more 2sg must go loc home ‘You shouldn’t stand here anymore, you have to go home.’
Likewise, tá can also appear in the proposition of musu with a root sense, but then it receives the frequentative, and not the durative reading (ex. (27)): (27) Mi musu tá wási dí wági. 1sg must npu wash det car ‘I have to wash the car sometimes.’
The distinction of the root and epistemic sense thus takes place neatly along temporalaspectual lines.
5. Conclusion It has been shown in this paper that there is indeed a strong relationship between aspect and modality in Saramaccan. First, grammaticalized modal markers appear to . Winford remarks with respect to e, the Sranan counterpart of Saramaccan tá that “[t]he use of e to express habitual meaning is quite common with stative predicates, […] but this has been generally overlooked in the literature” (Winford 2000a: 426f.).
A note on modality and aspect in Saramaccan
be stative themselves and cannot be taken into the scope of the non-punctual aspect in its durative reading. Second, and even more importantly, root markers in principle only associate with non-stative and non-durative propositions (unless the stative propositions are future-oriented), while epistemic markers are not subject to such a constraint. Saramaccan has one root-epistemic polysemous modal marker, the uses of which distinguish themselves neatly along aspectual and temporal lines (futureoriented and non-durative for the root use, stative, durative and present-oriented for the epistemic use). One question that may deserve further investigation is the role of the frequentative reading. Frequentatives, although they are not core imperfectives like statives, duratives, continuatives, and progressives, are usually also associated with imperfectivity rather than perfectivity. In the case of Saramaccan tá, however, and its interaction with modality, the frequentative reading sides in its behavior with non-stative and nondurative verbs. It would be of some interest to see whether this is a language idiosyncrasy, or whether this holds cross-linguistically.
Acknowledgements I wish to express my sincere gratitude to John McWhorter, who selflessly shared his knowledge and resources on the Saramaccan language, and Rohit Paulus, who patiently cooperated in the data elicitations. I also wish to thank Werner Abraham for encouraging me to pursue this topic. The interaction of the imperfective marker tá with modality had struck me from the beginning of my investigation of Saramaccan modality, but I had not been able to put my findings into a meaningful context until I was given the opportunity to relate them to Abraham’s and Leiss’s hypothesis.
References Arends, Jacques. 2002. The history of Surinamese Creoles I. In Eithne B. Carlin & Jacques Arends (Eds), (pp. 115–130). Bakker, Peter, Norval Smith & Tonje Veenstra. 1995. Saramaccan. In Jacques Arends, Pieter Muysken & Norval Smith (Eds), Pidgins and creoles: An introduction (pp. 165–178). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Creole language library 15]. Bickerton, Derek. 1981. Roots of language. Ann Arbor MI: Karoma Publishers. Bruyn, Adrienne. 2002. The structure of the Surinamese creoles. In Eithne B. Carlin and Jacques Arends (Eds), (pp. 153–182). Bybee, Joan. 1985. Morphology. A study of the relation between meaning and form. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Typological studies in language 9]. Carlin, Eithne B. & Jacques Arends (Eds). 2002. Atlas of the languages of Suriname. Leiden: KITLV Press. [Caribbean Series 22].
Heiko Narrog Good, Jeff. 2004. Tone and accent in Saramaccan: Charting a deep split in the phonology of a language. Lingua, 114, 575–619. Grimes, Barbara F. 2000. Ethnologue. Languages of the world. Fourteenth edition (CD-Rom). Dallas, TX: SIL International. Holm, John A. 2000. An introduction to pidgins and creoles. Cambridge: CUP. [Cambridge languages surveys]. Huttar, George L. & Mary L. Huttar. 1994. Ndyuka. London: Routledge. McWhorter, John. 2005. Defining creole. Oxford: OUP. Narrog, Heiko. 2005. Mood and the modal system in Saramaccan. Gengo Kenkyu [Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan], 128, 33–72. Palmer, Frank R. 2001. Mood and modality. Second edition. Cambridge: CUP. (11986). [Cambridge textbooks in linguistics]. Rountree, S. Catherine, Jajo Asodanoe & Naomi Glock. 2000. Saramaccan-English word list (with idioms). Paramaribo: Instituut voor Taalwetenschap (SIL). Singler, John Victor (Ed.). 1990. Pidgin and Creole Tense-Mood-Aspect Systems. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Creole language library 6]. Singler, John Victor. 1990. Introduction: Pidgins and creoles and tense-mood-aspect. In John Victor Singler 1990 (Ed.), (pp. vii-xvi). Spears, Arthur K. 1990. Tense, mood, and aspect in the Haitian Creole preverbal marker system. In John Victor Singler 1990 (Ed.), (pp. 119–142). Thiele, Petra. 1991. Kabuverdianu: Elementaria seiner TMA-Morphosyntax im lusokreolischen Vergleich. Bochum: Brockmeyer. Winford, Donald. 2000a. Tense and aspect in Sranan and the Creole prototype. In John McWhorter (Ed.), Language change and language contact in pidgins and creoles (pp. 383–442). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Creole language library 21]. Winford, Donald. 2000b. Irrealis in Sranan: Mood and modality in a radical creole. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 15, 63–125.
Diachronic
Aspects of a reconstruction of form and function of modal verbs in Germanic and other languages Michail L. Kotin
University Zielona Góra, Poland Genuine modal verbs in the Germanic languages classify as preterit presents. Since the Germanic preterit derives genetically from the Indo-European perfect and since there is no trace of the original Indo-European present stems of the modal verbs, one generally assumes that these verbal classes were perfecta tantum, i.e., a morphological paradigm of the proto-language lacking any imperfectivepresent corresponding forms. The reconstruction shows that the root modality derives directly from the perfective and, respectively, the perfective-medial function. This boils down to the temporal reconstruction of the aspectual function. Comparing the Slavic aspect languages confirms the hypothesis offered by Abraham (1987, 1991, 2001, 2005) and Leiss (1992, 2000, 2002a–d) about the categorial affinity between root modality and perfective aspectuality.
1. Introductory remarks There is a widely discussed – albeit controversially – typological link between aspect and modality which integrates the following phenomena and postulates.
(1) a. The aspect category is a universal linguistic phenomenon based on the dichotomy of “outer perspectivization” vs. “inner perspectivization”. b. Aspect embodies a categorially prototypical characteristic which even under formal and paradigmatic deconstruction leaves behind, under L-change and in linguistic evolution, unmistakable traces which retain an impact on the remaining, reconstructed L-system. Such impact is generally indirect. c. Aspect involves the nominal as well as the verbal structural component. d. Aspect may take control over all other categorial functions, or it may at least leave marks on them.
. The participation of the author of this publication at the 39th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea in Bremen was financed by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The author wishes to thank Werner Abraham and Daniel Hole for their help at the preparation of the English version of this article.
Michail L. Kotin
Judged against the background assumptions in (1a–d), the following discussion involves a practical, empirically based probe on the relation between aspect and modality. My own attempts at verifying the aspect-link hypotheses put forward by Abraham (1987, 1991, 2001, 2005) and Leiss (1992, 2000, 2002a–d) by adducing representative empirical support from historical corpus material have led to the following results.
(2) The view summarized in (1) appears to be very promising and seems, on the whole, to be correct. Even if some hypotheses look surprising and, in particular instances, unusual or seem to have little credibility to them, we typically find upon closer scrutiny of the material and after its interpretation that the basic assumptions of the Aspect Hypothesis are confirmed.
(3) In those cases that may give us the impression that the affinity of aspect and other grammatical categories is implausible or may even have been postulated on an artificial or premature basis, it commonly turns out that a slightly different phrasing would remedy the problem or that, in the worst case, certain specific aspects of the problem have been neglected, or that a jumping to conclusions has occurred from A to D, while intermediate steps B and C were omitted from the argument. If, however, the postulates are augmented by a complex analysis which includes a chronological component, we will notice that the Aspect Hypothesis as such is sufficient in virtually every single case, and therefore has overall credibility to it.
Let one illustration stand for this. It is Leiss’ (2000) speculation that there is a fundamental conditioned affinity between the category of article and aspect such that the erosion and total loss of the aspect category, as in the Germanic languages, leads to the emergence of the paradigms of (definite and indefinite) articles. In doing so, the nominal category of article supplants the aspectual category in the verb phrase. Quite in line with her hypothesis, Leiss (2000) sees reason for a typological division of languages into an article type vs. an aspect type. Undoubtedly, this typological position is tough to defend at first sight given that there are languages such as Greek and Bulgarian, which have both articles and aspect. But Leiss’ (2000) theory is not such an easy victim. My reflections on the issue have led to the following results: (i) There are no languages that originally have articles (cf. Sternemann 1995: 153); (ii) languages like Greek constitute paradigm instances of intermediate stages; as is well known, the definite article arises significantly later in Greek than the category of aspect, the latter being a category of the Indo-European proto-language. The article exists in the Mediterranean Greek of the Attic era and, of course, in the more recent Greek of Hellenistic times; the Homeric Greek of Asia Minor (8th century BC, documented in Alexandrine copies), to take an example, did not make regular use of the article, rendering it similar to Gothic with its use of articles in this respect; the Early Greek of Linear B (roughly 13th century BC) has no article at all; (iii) Leiss’ (2000) hypothesis, i.e., “Article vs. Aspect”, need
Aspects of a reconstruction of form and function of modal verbs
not necessarily be right in this very form, but this doesn’t undermine her underlying hypothesis of a categorial affinity between articles and aspect in the least. My own analysis, carried through with material from Gothic (among other languages), has revealed that aspectuality and determination need not occur in an “either-or” fashion, but may also occur “cumulatively”.
At the present stage, my reflections upon the affinity of aspectuality and modality have reached roughly that stage that I found myself in a while ago when considering Leiss’ (2000) ideas about the affinity between article and aspect, a stage of skepticism beginning to fade as a result of new findings in the domain of article and aspect. The reasons for my skepticism concerning the evaluation of the sufficiency of the basic hypothesis of affinity between deontic modality and perfective aspectuality on the one hand, and epistemic modality and imperfective aspectuality on the other, may be summarized as follows:
(4) Upon classifying modality in terms of categories, the following factors play a role (among others): subjective stance of the speaker relative to the described situation, factivity vs. non-factivity, anthropocentric vs. non-anthropocentric viewpoint, all of them factors that, at first sight, do not seem to relate to the category of aspect directly.
(5) It has been shown that the epistemic uses of modal verbs arise chronologically later than the deontic uses, a fact that contradicts the pan-chronic character of the aspect opposition. For the hypothesis of affinity in the aspectual-modal domain to be maintained, one has to search for expressive means other than modal verbs in the earlier stages of language development that encoded a perfectively dominated epistemic category. (This task has partly been fulfilled by Leiss 1992 already.)
(6) Leiss’ (2002d) hypothesis that there are no epistemic uses of modal verbs in the Slavic languages (which is supposed to prove that aspect languages do not require the dichotomy of deontic and epistemic readings in the domain of modal entities) is not correct.
Nevertheless, there are categorial affinities between aspect and mood, or aspectuality and modality, that cannot be ignored, and I set myself the task to demonstrate, or rather determine, the earliest attested or reconstructable categorial relations of this kind.
2. The reanalysis of preterit presents True modal verbs in the Germanic languages categorize as morphological preterit presents, i.e., their present tense paradigms have the typical form of “normal” strong verbs in the preterit (in terms of “ablaut” and endings). As is well known, preterits
Michail L. Kotin
of these verbs only came into existence a lot later as analogical forms following the pattern of the weak Germanic preterit (i.e., with the dental suffix and without “ablaut”). Now, given that the Germanic preterit derives genetically from the Indo-European perfect and that we have no evidence whatsoever of the original Indo-European present stems of the modal verbs, we have to assume that the pertinent Indo-European verb stems were perfecta tantum. The perfect in Proto-Indo-European itself is not a tense category, but an aspect with the genuine function of coding a state as a result of a successively terminated action performed on the subject (cf. the results of the reconstructions by Stang 1932, Kuryłowicz 1964 and others), so there obviously existed an interconnected category of perfective aspect and medium voice that stood in opposition to the present tense as an active voice and, simultaneously, as an imperfective aspect. The Germanic languages inherited the present tense forms from the IE protolanguage (preserving the primary endings and generalizing the relevant changes in the root vowel, i.e., the normal grade with -e- in the first five “ablaut” classes, the normal grade with -a-/-ә in class VI and the lengthened grade in class VII), which continue to be used in the Germanic (temporally recategorized) present, and also the perfect forms (preserving the secondary endings and the “perfective” change of the root vowel, i.e., the normal grade with -o- in the 1st and 2nd person sing. in classes I through V, and the lengthened grade in classes VI and VII), which continue to be used in the Germanic (temporally recategorized) preterit. There can be no doubt, the internal (“ablaut”) and the external (endings) inflection of the Germanic preterit present indicates that we are dealing with true perfecta tantum, which probably had no imperfectivepresent counterparts in the protolanguage. It seems that they did not have any deontic modalizing function either, a function that is known to have emerged a lot later, viz., as the reconstruction demonstrates, immediately from the perfective, or perfectivemedium function. Ich kann “I can” was originally rendered as something like “something is in the state of having been/being recognized/understood (by me)”; ich mag “I may” as something like “something is/has been mastered or defeated (by me)”; ich muss “I must” as “something is/has been apportioned (to me) (by myself)”, ich darf ~ “I may” as “something is/has been used up (by me)”; ich soll “I shall” as “something detrimental is/has been caused (by me)” – perfective-medium meanings without imperfective-active counterparts throughout. We can thus state that the deontic modal function can immediately be derived from the perfective (more accurately, perfective-medium) function, viz. as its modal interpretation. This effect compares with the temporal reinterpretation of the aspect function. In turn, the epistemic function of the modal verbs arises right from their deontic modality, namely as their “deictic” reading (Diewald 1999); this process is not sensu stricto in need of reconstruction, since it starts only in those times for which we have written documents and may therefore be tracked down easily.
Aspects of a reconstruction of form and function of modal verbs
3. The preterit presents in Old Germanic and their further development In general, the Old Germanic languages had more preterit presents than Modern Germanic. For reasons of space, only two of them will be dealt with below – [CAN] and [MAY].
3.1 [CAN] The Old Germanic forms of this verb derive either from the o-“Vollstufe” (normal level with -o- characteristic of the Proto-IE perfect – present singular), or from the “zero Level” (present plural and the infinitive derived from it at a later stage) of the root *gen-/*gon-/*gәn-/*gʼn. The paradigm features a gap for the e-“Vollstufe” (normal level with -e- characteristic of the Proto-IE present), which means that there are no traces whatsoever of the original imperfective meaning. Gothic kunnan means as much as “know”, but also “get to know, learn, recognize”, i.e., that meaning which is closest to that of the reconstructed IE verb stem (cf. lat. cognoscere, gr. gnosis, russ. znat´, pol. znać). It is thus neither a modal at that point, nor does it require an infinitival complement, therefore I dub it as [CANL1], cf.: (7) jah þan andhaita im þatei ni huanhun kunþa izwis […] ‘And then I will tell them: I knew none of you.’
(Got. Mt. 7, 23)
The verb kunnan is imperfective in Gothic, the perfective aspect is coded with the help of primary-perfectivizing ga- or, sporadically, with the help of secondarily perfectivizing prefixes, cf.: (8) […] gakunnaiþ blomans haiþjos, huaiwa wahsjand; nih arbaidjand nih spinnand. ‘Notice [lit. ‘recognize’] the flowers in the field, how [they] grow, [they] do not work, [they] make no thread.’ (Got. Mt. 6, 28) (9) bi akranam ize ufkunnais ins. ‘You will recognize them by their fruit.’
(Got. Mt. 7, 16)
. The ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� view extended here is pan-chronic. The capitalized verbal stems in brackets are to indicate that the Germanic modal verbs are reanalyzed. Proto-Indo-European (PIE)-stems have little to do with modality. All abbreviations for primary sources are listed at the end of the paper.
Michail L. Kotin
kunnan may also be perfectivized – and this conforms entirely to Leiss’ (2000) ArticleAspect Hypothesis – without any prefix, simply by adding the perfectivizing deictic form þata in the rhema, cf.: (10)
jah qaþ Zacharias du þamma aggilau: bihue kunnum þata? Ik raihtis im sineigs, jah qens meina framaldrozei in dagam seinaim. ‘And Zacharias said unto the messenger: Whereby shall I know this? For I am aged, and my wife is advanced in her days.’ (Got. Lk. 1, 18)
The original IE perfectivum tantum thus becomes imperfective in the course of the restructuring of the verbal paradigm and is secondarily perfectivized (by way of prefixing or in combination with the demonstrative in the rhema). The ensuing aspectual dichotomy is not determined by “ablaut”, though, but in different ways. In terms of semantics, not much happens at this stage. It is a main verb without a modal function all along, and its meaning goes back to IE *gon/*gәn-/*gʼn-, but is, of course, no longer a perfectivum tantum in Germanic. The earliest OHG literary documents have the first quasi-modal uses of kunnan, i.e., the meaning “know” has already shifted to “be capable of ”, but has not yet been weakened semantically, such that no infinitival complement is required at this stage. This development may be represented as [CANL1] → [CANL2], cf.: (11) thu biguol en Uuodan, so he uuola conda ‘Thus Wodan cured him by magic formulas, since he was capable of that.’ (2. Merseburger Zauberspruch. 5)
This reinterpretation is a decisive precondition for grammaticalization, though: “being capable of something” inevitably becomes “being capable of doing something”, and given an adequate semantic specification of (infinitival) doing in the German construction we arrive at the first deontic use of the meaning of capability (deonticity of capability), i.e., [CANL2] → [CAND1]. This is not yet an instance of classic “deonticity”, which must have the feature [+OPTIONAL] presupposing a choice, i.e., “potential” [CAND1] develops further to become “potential” [CAND2], i.e., [CAND1] → [CAND2] (capability → possibility). This development only sets in in the Middle High German (MHG; 1050–1350) period, while in Old High German (OHG; 850–1050) sources kunnan is only used as [CANL2] or [CAND1], and sporadically still as [CANL1]. In MHG we find first attestations of optional-anthropocentric uses of [CAN], i.e., with the meaning of the possibility of choice ([CAND2]). The first optional-nonanthropocentric uses follow in ENHG – possibility as statistically or objectively conditioned probability [CAND3]. Epistemic [CANE] is unequivocally attested as late as in ENHG, and it encodes a presumption or assumption of the speaker concerning the probability of the event referred to. The complete reanalysis of [CAN] thus looks as follows – see (12): (12) [CANL1] → [CANL2] → [CAND1] → [CAND2] → [CAND3] → [CANE].
Aspects of a reconstruction of form and function of modal verbs
In NHG only (sporadic) [CANL2] persists, as well as all deontic uses and the epistemic use, cf. (13): (13) a. [CANL2]:
Das kann ich sehr gut. Peter kann Polnisch. ‘I know (how to do) that very well.’ ‘Peters knows (how to speak) Polish.’
b. [CAND1]: Peter kann lesen und schreiben. ‘Peter can read and write.’ c. [CAND2]: Peter kann endlich einen Brief schreiben. ‘Peter can finally write a letter.’ d. [CAND3]: Bei 200 Grad Celsius kann das Gas explodieren. ‘The gas may explode at a temperature of 200 degrees Celsius.’ e. [CANE]:
Peter kann in seinem Zimmer sitzen. Die Brille kann in der linken Schublade liegen. ‘Peter may be sitting in his room.’ ‘The glasses may be in the left drawer.’
3.2 [MAY] The meaning of I may in IE was something like “something {is (stat.)/has been} mastered or defeated (by me)”. This lexical meaning, albeit reinterpreted as active, is still found in OHG, even in Late OHG, even if, at that time, it is almost always construed with the dative, and perfectivity is encoded by the usual prefixation, cf.: (14) Obe dû ne hílfest, sô gemag er mir. ‘If you don’t help he will defeat me.’
(Not. 7, 3)
Hartmann’s Gregorius presents us with probably the most archaic reading, which can be traced back all the way to the IE proto-language, cf.: (15) diu liebe und diu leide, die mohten im beide, daz er taveln vergaz. ‘Love and sorrow had taken such complete control of him that he forgot to eat.’ (Hartm. Gr. 321, 1)
From this evolves the deontic meaning “can, be capable”, which construes the “object of mastery” as the infinitive of the verbal complement. For some time, this meaning continues to surface in Old Germanic, cf.: (16) Frauja, jabai wileis, magt mik gahrajnjan. ‘Lord, if you will you can make me pure.’
(Got. Mt. 8, 2)
Michail L. Kotin
(17) Dar ni mac denne mak andremo helfan vora demo muspille. ‘Nobody will be able to save his relative from the apocalypse there.’ (18) Huuô mag that giuuerðan sô?, quað he. ‘How may this come about?, said he.’
(Musp. 57)
(Hel. 141)
(18) shows the direction of the further grammaticalization and is, therefore, important for the reanalysis. By using a deictic instead of an animate subject, “may” takes on a new, more abstract shade of meaning. We are not dealing with a possibility as a capability of the subject (so-called can1), and not with possibility-as-option (so-called can2). What we have here instead is a possibility which is independent of the subject and has its cause in a probability that is determined by laws of nature, or is a matter of fate, or – and this is the case here – has been brought about by some higher force (can3), cf. ex. (13d). Now, the third meaning gives rise to the meaning of presumption, which became the primary meaning of the present tense forms of German mögen. This modality, however, is not deontic anymore (or objective, non-deictic – Diewald 1999: 36, 124ff., 164ff.), but epistemic (or: subjective, deictic – Diewald 1999: ibid.). (19) Das mag wohl so sein. ‘This may be so.’ (20) Peter mag schon gekommen sein. ‘Peter may have come already.’
On this reading, the abstract probability is reinterpreted as a concrete presumption on the part of the speaker. This should not take us by surprise, since one can only presume things that are in principle probable. How, then, does the meaning of mögen evolve in the process of its grammaticalization? “Control, master” (i.e., a concrete action in a resultative reading) yields “be capable of ”, i.e., the action that was really performed is interpreted as the power or capability to perform this action. This is succeeded by the reinterpretation of power (capability) as an option (possibility of choice). Setting aside the animate subject this is, in turn, reinterpreted as probability, and the latter as a presumption of the speaker. But what happens if the component of anthropocentricity persists? In this area, too, further evolution of meaning occurs, at the beginning in the preterit of the subjunctive only, and still predominantly in that category later. This is because we are dealing with a reinterpretation of options as wishes, whereby deontic modality shades off into volitional modality: (21) Fisch mag er nicht essen. fish wants he not eat ‘He doesn’t like to eat fish (now).’
Aspects of a reconstruction of form and function of modal verbs
(22) Ich möchte die Urlaubsreise heute buchen. ‘I would like to book the holiday today.’
This latter development is not a case of grammaticalization, though, since it does not involve the loss or bleaching of the meaning of mögen, but just a meaning change in the “denotational sphere”, i.e., the verb does not lose its semantic autonomy, but merely changes its denotational relation. We are therefore entitled to speak of a horizontalassociative change, as opposed to vertical-hierarchical change. The reason for this is that this change does not result in a change of the status of the lexical unit, whereas grammaticalization always involves a change of status. This process starts, as can be seen from the sources, quite early (in Middle High German (= MHG)), cf.: (23) ir möcht uns hân geschendet. ‘Ihr habt uns schänden wollen.’ ‘You wanted to rape us.’
(Willeh. 251, 16)
To be sure, this volitional function may be interpreted as a “passive wish”, too, a reading for which we find attestations as early as in the MHG sources. Of course, this meaning is a further step in the direction of grammaticalization, since wish and option are necessarily intertwined here, thereby uncontroversially leading to a tendency towards an abstract-deictic function, cf.: (24) Und möchten uns die bluomen alsô schoene sîn beliben. ‘And may the flowers have remained to seem so beautiful to us.’
(Nîdh. 45, 4)
The process of grammaticalization is not yet finished here. The evolution of the concessive function of mögen is a further stage, viz.: (25) Modern German: a. Das mag so sein, aber meine Entscheidung bleibt trotzdem unverändert. ‘This may be so, but my decision will nonetheless remain the same.’ b. Er mag sich verspäten, aber wir werden deswegen die Party nicht verschieben. ‘He may arrive late, but we will not postpone the party for this reason.’ c. Er mag das gewusst haben, aber das spielt jetzt keine Rolle mehr. ‘He may have known this, but this doesn’t play a role anymore.’
The concession of concessive constructions is an immediate result of the grammaticalization of mögen in the anthropocentric-volitional domain. May it be so!, a wish, is reinterpreted as “even if it is like this”, i.e., strictly speaking, as its opposite. This evolution of meaning (not necessarily with modal verbs, though) is common in several languages (cf. russ. Пycmь будет так! → Пусть так, но…). (26) Пусть будет так! → Пусть так, но…
‘May it be so!’
‘Even if it is like this / …’
‘It may really be like this …, [but …].’
Michail L. Kotin
In a first step, we may thus posit two grammaticalization paths for the verb mögen: (27) “have mastered” [inactive-medium state] → “master” [successive action] → can1 [capability] → can2 [anthropocentric optional possibility] → can3 [non-anthropocentric statistical possibility (probability)] → can4 [subjective possibility (presumption, assumption)] (28) “{have been/be (stat.)} mastered” [inactive-medium perfective state] → “master” [successive action] → can1 [capability] → can2 [anthropocentric optional possibility] → want1 [active volitionality, always anthropocentric: “I want to attain some goal”] → want2 [passive volitionality: “I wish for it to be(come) like this”] → “although” [negative-concessive volitionality]
Thanks to their connectedness at the earliest stages, both channels of grammaticalization may now be reanalyzed synthetically: (29)
“have mastered” → “master” → can1 → can2
can3 → can4 want1 → want2 → “although”
It can be read off this scheme that the emergence of the meaning can2 is the crucial step in the grammaticalization, i.e., of the anthropocentric optional possibility which itself derives from the meaning of the “state of being mastered/defeated”. The further development bifurcates into the further grammaticalization of mögen in the can-sphere – until the endpoint of deictic can4 is reached, and the reinterpretation as want, which, in turn, proceeds all the way to the function of concession. In MHG a prefix verb vermügen is derived from mügen, and vermügen, in its initial stage, has precisely that meaning that the reconstructed IE mögen stem had, cf.: (30) wer die sache nit vermochte. ‘who {had not mastered/was not capable of} this.’
(Elis. 3725)
(31) der keiser grôȝer hêrschaft pflag, als die daȝ rîche noch vermag. ‘The emperor had many vassals, which the empire still had power over.’ (Ernst 5514) (32) vermöhte kokedrille sînen zorn, nieman eȝ leben lieȝe. ‘If the crocodile could act out its rage it would leave nobody alive.’ (Minne 2, 259b)
We can perceive a repetition of the development of mögen’s semantics in the verb vermögen here, starting from the source meaning – albeit with a chronological shift. Vermögen denotes the inactive perfective state first (“have mastered/dominated and, therefore, possess”) (see (30) and (31)), an action later (“have the power, make use of it”) (see (32), and then again the reinterpretation of the action as a potential or capability in construction with the infinitive, as seen with NHG vermögen:
Aspects of a reconstruction of form and function of modal verbs
(33) Wir vermögen diese Aufgabe zu lösen. ‘We have the capability of solving this task.’ (34) Niemand zweifelt daran, dass er sein Projekt umzusetzen vermag. ‘Nobody doubts that he has is capable of carrying this project through.’
Thus: (35) ‘have mastered’ → ‘master’ → can1
After the development of the meaning of capability and the bleaching of the original meaning of vermögen – the latter process being reflected by the fact that the infinitival complement becomes obligatory – the basic requirements have been fulfilled to make further grammaticalization possible by way of a reinterpretation of capability in terms of optional possibility, and so on, just as in the case of mögen. Therefore, if vermögen were to reach the level of can2 in the future, the further development would be inevitable both in the epistemic and in the volitional domain. To be sure, the persistence of these functions with mögen is a strong counterbalancing factor, such that a parallel development of vermögen would, due to obvious redundancy, conflict with the principle of economy. Therefore, the present distribution of meaning between grammaticalized mögen and its “lexical twin” vermögen is, by and large, optimal.
4. Modality and aspectuality – and conclusion Now, how are the relations between modal and aspectual components of meaning of the modal verbs under scrutiny to be interpreted from the diachronic point of view? It is uncontroversial that both verb stems can be traced back to perfective forms of Proto-IE. The development of the meanings of both verbs in the Germanic languages initially backgrounded their original perfectivity. This fostered the need to encode the perfective reading by way of special perfectivizing means (prefixes, or determinative deictic elements in the rhema). Like this, aspectual verb pairs (at the “langue” level) and aspectually marked contexts (at the “parole” level) emerged. The deontic modal function that evolved for both verbs remained compatible with perfective global readings at the clause level. But what about the epistemic function, which arose only a lot later? According to the hypothesis put forward by Leiss (2002d), this function emerged precisely because the aspect category was on the decline; the dichotomy “deonticity” : “epistemicity” is said to make for a sui generis categorial substitute for the aspectual opposition; deontic modality is claimed to have a tendency towards the encoding of the perfective function, whereas epistemic modality is said to encode predominantly imperfective readings. The Slavic languages with their retained verb aspect have, according to Leiss (2002d), not seen the emergence of epistemic modal functions in modal verbs.
Michail L. Kotin
The last generalization is incorrect, as has been pointed out already, cf.: (36) [CAND1]: Он может читать стихи без устали. (Russian) He can.imp read.imp poems without tiredness ‘He can recite poems without ever getting tired of it.’ (37) [��� CAND�2]: Игорь� может �������� сегодня� прийти���� ���������� ��� на� ������ приём. Igor can.imp today come.perf to office hours ‘Igor can come during my office hours today.’ (38) [CAND3]: При такой высокой температуре газ может взорваться. At such high temperature gas may.imp explode ‘The gas may explode at such a high temperature.’ (39) [CANE]:
Игорь� может ��������������������� приехать������������� ������������ уже��������� �������� сегодня. Igor may.imp come.perf as early as today ‘Igor may come as early as today (= presumably!).’
Does that mean that the basic hypothesis concerning the relation between aspect and modal function in the Slavic languages has generally been disproved? Obviously not. The hypothesis is in need of a specification, though, which is to say that we have to demonstrate precisely how it may be put to the test in the Slavic languages. It is wellknown that in Russian, for instance, modal verbs may under certain conditions come in aspect pairs. The perfective aspect of мочь (смочь) may, virtually without any exceptions, only be used with the reading of [CAND1], though: (40) Вчера он смог прочитать только две главы. Yesterday he could.perf read.perf only two chapters ‘He could only read two chapters yesterday.’ (41) Я� ��� не� ��� смогу ������� завтра� ������� прийти�. I not can.perf tomorrow come.perf ‘I can’t come tomorrow.’
In principle, an interpretation as [CAND2] is possible in some contexts, but such an interpretation invariably leads to extreme markedness, cf.: (42) Хотя вода в озере и холодная, я всё же смог искупаться�. ‘I was able to take a swim, although the water in the lake was cold.’
In contradistinction to that, no reading in the sense of [CAND3] is possible at all, or may only be considered in specific contexts, remaining unusual even then, cf.: (43) ?Газ так и не смог взорваться. Gas so and not could.perf explode. ‘The gas could not possibly explode.’
Now, epistemic readings of perfective смочь are entirely impossible, cf.: (44)� *Он� сможет ���������� прийти, а сможет ����� и���� ��� не ������� прийти. he may come but may also not come ‘He may come, but may also not come.’
Aspects of a reconstruction of form and function of modal verbs
What we find to be correct is: (45) Он может� прийти,��� ��а может ����� и���� ��� не ������� прийти�. he may come but may also not come ‘He may come, but may also not come.’ (46) Может
быть.
may.imperf be
‘may be’/‘perhaps’
but under no circumstances: (47) *Сможет быть. may.perf be
This confirms that the decline of the root (non-deictic) function and, conversely, the increase of the epistemic (deictic) function entail the decreasing usability of the perfective modal verb cмочь and that the latter is definitely excluded with unambiguously epistemic readings. The hypothesis about the interaction of modality and aspectuality is therefore confirmed, albeit not with regard to the total absence of epistemic readings of modal verbs in the Slavic languages, but on the grounds of other criteria which have the force of demonstrating the assumed affinities just as readily.
References Primary sources Elis. – Verfasser der Erlösung. Das Leben der heiligen Elisabeth. Edited by Max Rieger (1868). Stuttgart: Litterarischer Verein. Ernst – Herzog Ernst. Edited by Bernhard Sowinski (1998). Stuttgart: Reclam. Got. – Die gotische Bibel. Teile I und II. Edited by Wilhelm Streitberg (21919/51965). Heidelberg: Winter. Hartm. Gr. – Hartmann von Aue. Gregorius. Edited by Hermann Paul, revised by Burghardt Wachinger (152004). Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Altdeutsche Textbibliothek 2]. Hel. – Heliand. Edited by Burkhardt (91984). Tübingen: Niemeyer. Minne. – Minnesinger. In Friedrich Heinrich Hagen (1838) (Ed.), Minnesinger. Deutsche Liederdichter des 12., 13. und 14. Jhs. 5 volumes. Leipzig: Barth. (Reprint Aalen: Otto Zeller 1963). Musp. – Muspilli. In Wilhelm Braune, Karl Helm & Ernst A. Ebbinghaus (161979) (Eds), Alt hochdeutsches Lesebuch (pp. 86–89). Tübingen: Niemeyer. Not. – Notkers Psalmenübersetzung. In Paul Piper (1895) (Ed.), Die Schriften Notkers und seiner Schule. Bd. III. Freiburg und Leipzig: Mohr. Nîdh. – Nîdhart von Riuwenthal. In Moritz Haupt (1986), Neidharts Lieder. Stuttgart: Hirzel 1986. (Reprint Leipzig: Hirzel 1858). Willeh. – Wolfram Eschenbach. Willehalm. Edited by Werner Schröder (1978). Berlin: de Gruyter.
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Secondary references Abraham, Werner. 1987. Burzio trifft Wulfila. Zu den distributionellen Eigenschaften von wairðan ‘werden’ und wisan ‘sein’ im gotischen Passiv. Groningen Papers in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics – TT, 9, 1–29. Abraham, Werner. 1991. Aktionsartsemantik und Auxiliarisierung im Deutschen. In Elisabeth Feldbusch (Ed.), Neue Fragen der Linguistik. Akten des 25. Linguistischen Kolloquiums in Paderborn 1986. Bd. 1: Bestand und Entwicklung (pp. 125–133). Tübingen: Niemeyer 1991. [Linguistische Arbeiten 270]. Abraham, Werner. 2001. Modals: Toward explaining the ‘epistemic non-finiteness gap’. In Reimar Müller & Marga Reis (Eds), Modalität und Modalverben im Deutschen (pp. 7–36). Hamburg: Buske. [Linguistische Berichte Sonderheft 9]. Abraham, Werner. 2005. Event arguments and modal verbs. In Claudia Maienborn & Angelika Wöllstein (Eds), Event arguments: Foundations and applications (pp. 243–276). Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Linguistische Arbeiten 501]. Diewald, Gabriele. 1999. Die Modalverben im Deutschen. Grammatikalisierung und Polyfunktionalität. Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Reihe Germanistische Linguistik 208]. Japanische Gesellschaft für Germanistik (Ed.). 2002. Grammatische Kategorien aus sprachhistorischer und typologischer Perspektive. Akten des 29. Linguisten-Seminars (Kyoto, 2001). München: Iudicium Verlag. Kuryłowicz, Jerzy. 1964. The inflectional categories of Indo-European. Heidelberg: Winter. Leiss, Elisabeth. 1992. Die Verbalkategorien des Deutschen. Ein Beitrag zur Theorie der sprachlichen Kategorisierung. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Studia Linguistica Germanica 31]. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2000. Artikel und Aspekt: Die grammatischen Muster von Definitheit. Berlin: de Gruyter 2000. [Studia Linguistics Germanica 55]. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2002a. Die Rolle der Kategorie des Aspekts im Sprachwandel des Deutschen: ein Überblick. In Japanische Gesellschaft für Germanistik (Ed.) (pp. 9–25). Leiss, Elisabeth. 2002b. Der Verlust der aspektuellen Verbpaare und seine Folgen im Bereich der Verbalkategorien des Deutschen. In Japanische Gesellschaft für Germanistik (Ed.) (pp. 26–41). Leiss, Elisabeth. 2002c. Der Verlust der aspektuellen Verbpaare und seine Folgen im Bereich der Nominalkategorien des Deutschen. In Japanische Gesellschaft für Germanistik (Ed.) (pp. 42–58). Leiss, Elisabeth. 2002d. Explizite und implizite Kodierung von Deontizität und Epistemizität: über die grammatische Musterbildung vor der Entstehung von Modalverben. Jezykoslovlje, 3, 69–98. Stang, Christian. 1932. Perfectum und Medium. Norsk tidskrift for sprokvidenskap, 6, 29–39. Sternemann, Reinhard. 1995. Gedanken zum “Artikel” im Gotischen. In Gisela Brandt & Rainer Hünecke (Eds), Wie redet der Deudsche man Jnn solchem fall? Studien zur deutschen Sprachgeschichte. Festschrift für Erwin Arndt zum 65. Geburtstag (pp. 151–172). Stuttgart: Heinz. [Stuttgarter Arbeiten zur Germanistik 318].
The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German Jakob Maché
University of Vienna As Abraham (1990, 1991, 2005) has pointed out, aspect plays a crucial role, when epistemic modals (em) emerge out of root modals (rm). The present paper shows that the different aspectual preferences of those items are reflected by the differences in the configuration of the modal’s event structure: whereas rm turn out to be event modifiers, em are propositional modifiers. In technical detail, rm select infinitival complements involving an event argument and assign to them a interval posterior to utterance time. em, on the other hand, can combine with any non-finite complement that constitutes a licit proposition. This paper will discuss some data from German that shows that rm are indeed event modifiers since they (1) fail to embed predicates that lack event arguments and (2) are bound to complements with future orientation. The grammaticalisation of em then can be considered as a decline of the modal’s ability to modify events. This major change in its event structure causes the modal to extend its scope from events over propositions. This assumption is confirmed throughout by the fact that early em contained by the corpus exploited here only combine with predicates lacking event arguments, whereas rm never do. Finally, the theory offered here provides an interesting link between formal accounts and functional ones: Considering rm as event modifier, it explains why they are always “action oriented”, as commonly assumed by most functionalist approaches.
1. Recent proposals – a synopsis1 The past decade has yielded a whole range of different new insights into what exactly could be the circumstances that gave birth to epistemic uses of modals. Following the original analysis of Ross (1969) the contrast between epistemic modals (em) and root
. Abbreviations employed in this article: ag – agentive reading, em – epistemic modal, enhg – Early New High German (15th/16th century), fut – future reading, ilp – individual level predicate, ip – inflection phrase, ipp - infinitivo pro participio, mhg – Middle High German (12th-15th century), ohg – Old High German (9th-11th century), rm – root modal, slp – stage level predicate, tp - tense phrase, qm - quotative modal.
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modals (rm) is reflected by a difference in argument structure.2 While rm introduce their subject on their own (= the bearer of the obligation or permission) em lack them and take over them, like auxiliaries, from the matrix clause. Henceforth known as the “Control vs. Raising” hypothesis, it remained the leading paradigm for a long time. Already pre-Government & Binding approaches like Höhle (1978) suggested that at least some of the rm should be regarded as verbs without semantic subjects. This idea was further advocated by Öhlschläger (1989), Geilfuss (1992), Kiss (1995) and later Wurmbrand (1999, 2001), Erb (2001), Reis (2001). It finally prevailed, when Axel (2001) showed that there were already rm in Old High German (ohg) that were underlying raising constructions. Yet, see Abraham (2005) arguing for maintaining the original distinction. Yet, unless it was really the loss of the external (= subject) argument of the modal that caused the diachronic conversion from rm to em, what else could there be to be held accountable for? A different view is developed in Roberts (2003: Section 2.1), where he suggests for the English case that modals are generated as functional elements, entering the derivation somewhere in the ip. Depending on the level where they are inserted they are supplied with a different meaning. According to Robert’s (2003) view the ip is split into at least four hierarchically ordered modal projections, each of them a potential host for a modal: em > necessity > possibility > root. However, it remains mysterious what exactly ensures that a specific modal enters the derivation at the right point. Why does may denote permission (=“root”), possibility or epistemicity but never volition (different instantiation of “root”) or necessity? Why aren’t there any elements that occur in each of those positions? Moreover, it is not quite clear why some of the modals generated under modroot assign θ-roles to their subject positions (e.g., ability modals), while most modals do not. Following Kenesei (2001), θ-assignment from functional categories should be barred. Apart from these difficulties one additional important fact keeps us from extending Robert’s (2003) analysis onto the situation in German. Whereas English modals are in complementary distribution with lexical verbs, as shown by Lightfoot (1979) and Abraham (2002), German modals behave more or less as lexical verbs. As a consequence there are a lot of reasons in favor of considering English modals as a category different from v (for example i), but not so in German. A third account for the evolution of em is offered by Reis (2001). She assumes that the development of em required the existence of a specific type of clause union
. I conceive here of the notion of “root modality” as a superset of different more specified types of modality: as dynamic ones (ability, volition) and circumstantial ones (permissive, obligation, practical possibility, practical necessity). Employing the term, I do not intend to suggest that all of these “root” modals form a homogenous class. Rather, I use the expression “root modal” here for mere methodological reasons, in order to distinguish epistemic modality from all other types of modality.
The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German
construction, so called “Starke Kohärenz” (“strong coherence”), modelled after Bech’s (1955/57) original ideas. In these constructions a matrix verb takes up an infinitive and elides all of the clausal boundaries. She further argues that only that particular tight relation between the finite verb and its infinitive complement enables the first one to act as epistemic modifier over the latter one. But as it seems, em were already available in the Early New High German (enhg) before these kinds of verbal complexes came into existence, see Müller (2001) and Maché (2006). Finally, Abraham (1991, 2005) and Leiss (2002) propose a somewhat different view. Owing to Otto Behaghel’s (1924: 103–104) observation that modal verbs in ohg were almost restricted to infinitival complements displaying the morphology of the perfective aspect, Leiss (2002) and Abraham (1991, 2005) take the category aspect as the main actor in the development of em. Based on the assumption that the contrast of epistemic and root modality could be encoded by different usages of the ohg aspectual morphology, a new strategy of expressing modality became necessary when the aspectual system collapsed in the course of the Middle High German (mhg) period between the 12th and the 15th century. This gap was filled by the modals which correspondingly acquired epistemic readings. According to the authors, the dominant role of aspect in this development is still displayed by selectional restrictions of the particular modal: while rm exhibit a strong preference to take [+perfective] infinitives, em are confined to [–perfective] infinitives. Even if Abraham (1991, 2005) and Leiss (2002) are on the right track, their accounts require some further refinement. As shown by Fritz (1991) and Heine (1995), em are also compatible with [+perfective] infinitives. The analysis presented here will discuss some ways of avoiding these problems alluded to. Rather than relating the development of modals to general changes in the grammar, as do Abraham (1991), Leiss (2002) and Reis (2001), the current article will focus on the internal structure of these lexical items, in order to figure out, how grammaticalisation may affect the anatomy of a modal. Apart from those syntactic and semantic accounts towards the evolution of modals in German sketched, there exist also theories that deal rather with the pragmatic aspects of that process, see Diewald (1999). Concentrating on the shifts of the usage of modal verbs, these pragmatic accounts do not pay too much attention to the alterations that take place in the internal structure of those items. As it will be shown in the upcoming sections, there is indeed evidence for some major changes in the entrails of modals.
2. The emergence of epistemic modals Although some authors, such as Fritz (1997), Leiss (2002), Krause (1997), among others, assume that there were already epistemic forms in ohg time, there is no doubt that the systematic use of em was only established in the course of the late mhg period or no sooner than in enhg time; see Fritz (1997), Diewald (1999) or Kotin (in this
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volume). This view is confirmed throughout by the latest empirical studies, including the one presented in this article.
2.1 Modal verbs across centuries Following conclusions drawn by Müller (2001) em were not yet common in the late mhg. In his work Müller (2001) investigated an early print of the Prose Lancelot, edited in the 15th century. Since that print relies on sources that date back to the 13th and 14th centuries, it exhibits a much older state of languages than comparable texts of the 15th century. Among the 200,000 words Müller (2001) scrutinized, he only could find two occurrences of modals that came into question to show a epistemic interpretation: one mögen “can, may” and one quotative use of sollen “shall”. But either occurrence is ambiguous in that their contexts are also compatible with a root reading. As appears, there has been a considerable increase in the use of em in the course of the 15th century. Employing a corpus of similar size than the one used by Müller (2001), Fritz (1991) demonstrated that around 1609 em show up far more frequently. Instead of only two ambiguous occurrences, Fritz (1991) adduces countless examples of unambiguous em. However, the genre of empirical data differs in one respect that might turn out to be crucial in future research. While Müller (2001) employed a narrative text, the corpus exploited by Fritz (1991) was composed of early newspapers, where the use of em has an expectedly higher rate. Yet, it remains doubtful that this explosive increase of epistemic forms in enhg time is only due to changes in textual genres.
2.2 Epistemic modals in Schmid’s Neuwe Welt (1567) The present analysis covers the preface plus the first chapter of Ulrich Schmid’s report about the travels of Portuguese discoverers Neuwe Welt, which was published in 1567. The chapters investigated comprise 44,687 words. Concerning the genre, it should be considered more as a narrative text than as a journalistic report. The latter would rely on different sources or even just rumours, and in order to be objective it would evaluate them with respect to the preconceived convictions of the author – quite different from a travelogue which is normally based on only one source of evidence: the sensory input and the immediate experience of the author himself. Even after eliminating the factor of textual genres, the data from the enhg period seem to contain many more em-tokens than Müller (2001) could attest for the Prose Lancelot (13th/14th century). In more detail, the corpus exploited here covered 29 potential occurrences of epistemic modals. For methodological reasons, two different types of occurrences will be distinguished: ambiguous ones and unambiguous ones. This is an important issue, since some studies rely on tokens involved in a context that
The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German
also allows for the “root” interpretation. As will be shown, in a number of the ambiguous contexts it is almost impossible to exclude that the intended reading was not the root meaning. Let’s look at the ambiguous cases first. The corpus contains eleven tokens that are plausible with an epistemic reading, but also compatible with the older root reading. Four of them will be discussed in more detail. (1) a.
denn sie furchteten / es moechte jhnen begegnen for they feared it may.sbj.pst. them.dat happen.inf
was jhn S. Helenen Hafen begegnet war.3 what them S. Helena.dat port happen.prt.pst was ‘For they were afraid it could (possibly/presumably) happen to them the same that happened to them at port S. Helena.’ (LEAF 5, right column)
The modal moegen “can, may” employed in (1) can have two different interpretations. An em is always a speaker bound item. Usually, it indicates that the speaker labels the proposition he utters as assumption, rather than as part of his knowledge. The clause containing the modal in (1) “it might happen the same…” cannot be interpreted as assumption of the author. Rather, the modal has to be connected to the subject of the matrix sentence. In that case, the em labels the clause of the modal as assumption of the subject in the directly superordinate clause “they feared…”. To sum up: an em identifies a proposition as mere assumption of the speaker, and therefore entails always the presence of an [+human] individual. Accordingly, sentence (1) under an epistemic interpretation requires that the subject of the superordinate sentence uttered or thought in the following manner: “they feared: “It might happen the same…”” In the second interpretation moechte indicates a practical possibility. Thus, whenever the speaker employs epistemic constructions he never knows whether the situation he assumes has already happened once. Using root constructions, the speaker knows that the situation has become true at least once, see Ziegeler (2006) and Westmoreland (1996, 1998) for details. Accordingly, the root modal doesn’t refer to the knowledge of the speaker. This possibility reading is also available in (1), though almost impossible to distinguish from the epistemic one. The fact that the modal in (1) is inflected for past subjunctive deserves particular attention. First of all, the modal doesn’t occur freely in the matrix clause, but in a dependent subordinate clause. The crucial fact is that it appears embedded under an attitude verb that generally seems to require subjunctive morphology in Ulrich Schmid’s Neuwe Welt. Since the forms of past tense and past subjunctive became mostly homonymous due to phonological changes, the modal in (1) might have . Abbreviations used in the glosses: dat – dative, gen – genitive, inf – infinitive, ipp – infinitivus pro participio effect, par – particle, prf – perfective, prt – participle, pst – past, sbj – subjunctive.
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been set in order to mark the embedded clause unambiguously as specified for past subjunctive. Indeed, the corpus hardly contains any attitude verbs followed by the simple synthetic subjunctive forms of the main verb. This finding is supported by the fact that moegen occurs mainly as a finite verb in subordinate clauses (76 out of 99), mostly bearing past subjunctive morphology. It appears then that the construction moegen + infinitive served as well as a substitute for an insufficiently salient subjunctive inflection. The case of (2) is somewhat more complex. (2) Bontaibo verwunderte sich sehr / wie sie zu wasser hetten Bontaibo wondered himself very how they at water prf.aux kommen moegen/ come.inf may.prt.pst.ipp
uñ fragten jn was sie sucheten/ and asked him what they searched
weil sie so weit gefahren weren: because they that far travel prf.aux ‘Bontaibo was very surprised how they might have come across the sea and asked them what they were looking for, since they were travelling so far:’ (LEAF 20, left column)
Whether the modal in (2) might obtain an epistemic interpretation or not, is subject to lively debate. For that reason, I hesitate to exclude that reading completely. It is quite contested that em can show up as non-finite form (participle, infinitive). Reis (2001) however alludes to some examples, where em indeed do. Accordingly the sentence (2) would require an underlying thought or utterance of Bontaibo: ‘Bontaibo wondered: “How might they have come across the sea?”’ Since in this case the modal would occur within a wh-question, it is not very likely to receive an epistemic interpretation, for wh-questions are no suitable contexts for epistemicity, unless it was of rhetorical nature, as pointed out by Öhlschläger (1989) or Reis (2001). Apart from that, Diewald (1999) adduces good reasons to qualify modals bearing ipp-morphology as rm. Altogether, it is not very plausible to assume that the modal in (2) originally was intended as em, but, however, one cannot exclude it either. The construction in (3) differs from the previous ones in that the modal is contained in a main clause and not embedded by an attitude predicate. (3) Denn der Hafě wer besser daselbst/ denn zu Calecut/ da for the harbour is.sbj.pst better there than at Calecut where die seit sehr gefehrlich ist/ vnnd die Schiff moechten the coast very dangerous is and the ship may.sbj.pst vielleicht daselbst verderben. maybe there perish.inf ‘For that harbour was better than the one at Calecut where the coast is that perilous that the ship could maybe get lost.’ (LEAF 21, left column)
The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German
Again, the epistemic interpretation entails the presence of a human individual that labels the proposition as an assumption. In (3) that individual could only be the Minister of Calecut, who utters (3) in order to warn the Portuguese crew of the dangers of that coast. Employing an em, he would express that he isn’t sure whether the ships would indeed sink or not. It does not need to be the case that a ship had ever sunk there before. However, using the rm he indicates neutrally that sometimes when ships try to anchor at that place they indeed sink. The interpretation of (3) is slightly blurred by the use of the epistemic adverb. However, this doesn’t exclude the root reading of the modal at all. In (4) the modal once more is contained by an attitude expression. It is ambiguous in the same way as the examples (1) and (2). (4) denn er wuste nicht/ was jme etwan begegnen for he knew neg what.rel.prn him.dat eventually happen.inf moechte. may.sbj.pst ‘For he didn’t know what would/could (perhaps) happen to him.’ (LEAF 21, left column)
As in (2) the modal is contained in a wh-clause which offers in most cases no suitable contexts for an epistemic interpretation. The very same holds for the last example as well: (5) Auch solte er bedencken/ wie es nach seinĕ todt jnen also shall.sbj.pst he reflect how it after his.dat death them allen ergehen moechte. all prf.go may.sbj.pst ‘Moreover he should imagine how their fate would be when he died.’ (LEAF 21 left column)
But in any of these cases the epistemic reading cannot be excluded. To sum up the discussion, ambiguous modals mostly occur embedded under attitude expressions (nine tokens out of eleven) and select usually a process or event involving an infinitive (eleven out of eleven). Finally, it appears that those modals may show up in distribution that do not favour an epistemic interpretation as in non finite contexts or in wh-sentences, so that it becomes quite doubtful if such readings were really already available for speakers of enhg. Let us consider the second class of the data first. Apart from the eleven ambiguous tokens, the corpus contained as well eight occurrences of modals that allow nothing but an epistemic reading. In contrast to the majority of the examples already discussed, the modal shows up in the uppermost matrix clause. (6) Des Sontags/ vngefehrlich vmb Vesper zeit/ kamen die vnsern bey the.gen Sunday.gen roughly at evening time came the ours at drey Inseln/ die alle sehr klein waren/ vnd moechte eine von den three islands that all very little were and may.sbj.pst one of the
Jakob Maché
andern vielleicht vier meil weit seyn. other maybe four mile far be.inf ‘At Sunday roughly at evening time, our crew arrived near three islands which all were very small. The distances between each of them might have been maybe four miles each.’ (LEAF 7, right column)
The modal can express neither a disposition nor a permission nor an ability. Even the practical possibility reading as in (3) is excluded here, since this use would require that there were situations where the circumstance expressed by the infinitival complement didn’t hold. In the case of (6), a possibility reading would imply that there is at least one moment where the distances between the islands are significantly bigger or smaller than four miles. But still, such a reading is also barred apart from common sense logic. The same reasoning holds for the following example: (7) Vnnd erstlich gibt er jhm sechtzig Kanons an gold / das ist ein Muentz and first gives he him sixty Kanons of gold that is a coin die also heist / vnd mag zusammen drey Portugalesischer that alike be called and may altogether three portuguese Croisaden seyn / das were dreissig Ducaten. Croisades be.inf that is.sbj.pst thirty ducates ‘At first he gives him sixty golden Kanons, that so-called coin might value about thirty Portuguese Croisades or thirty Dukates.’ (LEAF 19, right column)
Once more, the only suitable reading is the epistemic one. Apart from moegen “can, may”, the corpus also contains epistemic uses of koennen “can”. In contrast to the examples above, this em is embedded under an attitude expression. (8) darab der Oberst sehr froh ward / denn er gedachte bey jhm about that the colonel very happy got for he thought by him selbst / dieweil er zu Leuten kommen were / die etlicher massen self because he to people come is.sbj.past the many size Schiffung hetten / so koendte Indien nicht mehr weit seyn navigation had thus can.sbj.past India neg more far be.inf ‘Therefore the colonel became very happy, for he thought that since he came to people with the knowledge of navigation India could not be that far any more.’ (LEAF 7, left column)
The root interpretations are barred in (8) for the same reason as already discussed in the case of (6). Apart from (8), the corpus contains only one more unambiguous em that isn’t hosted by the uppermost main clause. Despite its distribution, muessen “must” doesn’t offer a plausible root interpretation. (9) Denn dieweil er gehoeret hatte / daß er auß einem so gar Weiten landt for since he heard had that he from a that far country
The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German
her vnd was sein fuernemen were hielte er darfuer / es mueste par and what his undertaking was thought he par it must.sbj.pst der Koenig auß Portugal ein dapfferer geherzter Mann seyn the king of Portugal a bold geherzter man be.inf ‘Having heard that he came from such a far country and what his undertaking was, he thought that the King of Portugal must be a bold and brave man’ (LEAF 15, left column)
In total, the analyzed amount of data proved the existence of at least three different em: moegen (six out of 99 occurrences) and muessen (one out of 34), koennen (one out of 155). All of the unambiguous occurrences select either the copula seyn “be” as their complement or halten “consider”, a Kimean-state verb, in terms of Maienborn (2003). Both of them are considered as stative verbs that denote mere instantiations of properties but not situations. Maienborn (2003) further concludes that neither of them involves a situation argument. It deserves attention that the ambiguous cases of em differ from the unambiguous ones in twofold manner. On the one hand, the majority of the ambiguous examples are embedded under attitude expressions (nine out of eleven; 82%), whereas unambiguous ones mostly are hosted by the uppermost matrix clause (six out of eight; 75%). On the other hand, in each of the ambiguous cases the modal selects a verb denoting an event or process, while in the unambiguous cases always a very abstract stative verb is selected. In this section I showed so far that all modals with non-stative complements occurring in Schmid’s Neuwe Welt turned out to be ambiguous and exhibit thus also a non epistemic reading. I adduced farther some good reasons to treat most of those ambiguous cases as rm. But I will leave it finally to the reader to make the final decision. In either case, it won’t affect the analysis presented here.
3. Root modals modifying situations4 As appears, early occurrences of em obviously preferred (or even required) stative complements. The following two sections are going to offer an explanation of that nontrivial behaviour. The general reasoning runs as follows. rm are modifiers of situations. Whenever a modal takes up a clausal complement that doesn’t involve a situation argument, it loses its root reading. The configuration of the event structure in turn reflects
. In this article, I will follow henceforth the terminology put forward in Maienborn (2003) where it is shown that the standard terms “event” or “event argument” may be misleading. She pleads therefore to stick to more precise terms such as “situation” or “situation argument”.
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the aspectual preferences of modals. As remains to be shown in section 4.3, predicates that lack situation arguments obligatorily encode imperfective aspect and trigger epistemic interpretations. All these generalisations are confirmed throughout by data from German spoken in Vienna. Consider the ambiguous sentence (10). In most cases, it is almost impossible to distinguish between the root or alethic (= practical possibility) and the epistemic reading of können. In distributions with definite, discourse-bound singular subjects and stative predicates however, the contrasts between the two interpretations become ostentatious. (10) Der See kann [sehr kalt sein] the lake can very cold be a. rm: ‘The lake can be very cold.’ b. em: ‘It could be the case that this lake is a cold one.’
The crucial difference is that the root interpretation in (a) requires at least one situation where the embedded predicate doesn’t hold. Either the lake is not cold at utterance time or it is just for a clearly delimited period of time. Only the epistemic interpretation of (b) allows the setting where it is the permanent property of that lake of being cold. Moreover, the contrasting interpretations of können + stative verb have different entailments with respect to the speaker’s knowledge. Whereas in (a) the speaker is informed that the lake was cold at least at once, in the epistemically-modified sentence (b) he doesn’t know that at all. At first glance, it appears that the distinction permanent vs. periodic plays a crucial role in the contrast of modalities. As will be shown in the upcoming sections, rm never embed predicates denoting essential states, that is, states that are permanent and do not imply agentivity. em, however, do. It is tempting thus, to account for that observation in terms of the individual level predicates (ilp) vs. stage level predicates (slp) contrast, as put forward by Diesing (1992) or Kratzer (1995). Following Kratzer (1995), both types of predicates differ in that only slp involve a situation argument. That argument ensures that the property denoted by the predicate only holds for a clearly limited period. Lacking that situation argument, ilp can only refer to permanent or essential properties of an individual. In short terms, ilp are said to denote permanent or essential properties, while slp refer to temporary ones. Assuming that only rm but not em are modifiers of situations and that vacuous modification is illicit, we expect that rm were only grammatical in distributions where their infinitival complement contains a situation argument. Applying Kratzer’s (1995) analysis, rm should only tolerate slp as their complements, but never ilp. This expectation appears to be born out in the example (10) above: the root reading requires an episodic interpretation of the predicate. em, however, are commonly considered as propositional modifiers. Accordingly, they do not impose selectional restrictions on
The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German
their infinitival complement and therefore can combine with any type of predicate regardless of whether they are involving a situation argument or not. Opposed to rm, em may embed any type of ilp. Let us consider this analysis in more detail. Note that Diesing’s (1992) and Kratzer’s (1995) distinction between ilp and slp has some entailments with respect to the quantification of the subject np. Indeed the nature of the subject np (weak vs. strong) seems to play a role determination of the modal interpretation, as will be shown in the generalisation (25). However, since modal constructions involve two different vp domains, the application of Diesing’s (1992) Mapping Thesis cannot apply trivially. For that reason, this paper will leave the investigation of interaction between quantified subject nps and modals to further research. Yet, some further refinements need to be made. First of all, there are some cases where root modals select predicates that are usually conceived as ilp, such as g escheit “intelligent”, as in the following data from German spoken in Vienna (personal observation): (11) Auf der Uni muß der Gerdsch dann gescheit sein. at the uni must the Gerdsch then intelligent be a. ‘At university Gerdsch has to behave intelligently.’ b. ‘When Gerdsch enters university he must become smart(er).’
The construction may have two different interpretations. The first one requires that the subject Gerdsch does contribute actively to his being intelligent. The second one implies that Gerdsch is not yet intelligent at utterance time. In both examples thus, the ilp does not really refer to an essential state. Even if an rm selects an ilp, the latter won’t be interpreted as a permanent, nonagentive predicate. Instead we can predict that the embedded predicate either refers to an intermediate property of an individual or it doesn’t already hold at the utterance time and only becomes only true at some later point of time. It appears then that rm crucially lack the ability to select predicates referring to essential properties: a rm thus never embeds a non-agentive predicate that holds indefinitely including utterance time. Accordingly, gescheit in (12) can, under the exclusion of the agentive reading, never refer to a time span covering utterance time and the remaining life time of Gerdsch. (12)
Der Gerdsch muß gescheit sein. the Gerdsch must.obl intelligent be ‘Somebody/Something obliges Gerdsch to be an intelligent person.’ # ∀ti ∃ tutterance [ti ≥ tutterance]∧ [Gerdsch is intelligent at ti]
As with the circumstantial (practical possibility) reading of können in (10) and the obligation reading of müssen in (11) and (12), the remaining rm never combine with predicates that display an essential interpretation: whenever wollen (volitive, “want”), können (ability, “can”), mögen (psych, “like to”) and sollen (obligation, “shall”) embed a
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stative predicate it never refers to a permanent, non-agentive state. Some of these rm even seem to generate ungrammatical constructions if combined with stative c omplements. (14) Die Grete will (endlich) stark sein. the Grete wants.vol finally strong be a. ‘Grete wants to become strong.’ (fut) b. ‘Grete wants to be the strong at the moment.’ (ag) #∀ti ∃ tutterance [ti ≥ tutterance]∧ [Grete is strong at ti] (15)
?Der
Hermann kann männlich sein. the Hermann is able to.abil masculine be ‘Hermann is able to be manly, from time to time.’ (ag) # ∀ti ∃ tutterance [ti ≥ tutterance]∧ [Hermann is masculine at ti]
(16) ?Die Erna mag fromm sein. the Erna likes to.psych pious be a. ‘Erna likes to become pious.’ (fut) b. ?‘Erna likes being pious/behaving piously.’ (ag) #∀ti ∃ tutterance [ti ≥ tutterance]∧ [Erna is pious at ti] (17)
Die Mariedl soll fesch sein. the Mariedl shall.obl beautiful be ‘Mariedl shall dress beautifully.’ (fut) # ∀ti ∃ tutterance [ti ≥ tutterance]∧ [Mariedl is fesch at ti]
With volitional modals as in (14), the predicate involves either a future orientation (a) or an agentive reading (b). As for the ability reading (15) or the psychological templates (16), it is not quite clear whether they may select ilp at all. Their acceptance in the examples quoted above might be due to interference with the practical possibility (15) or a volitive reading (16) which are both also available in these sentences. But even if those constructions were grammatical, the embedded predicates would just behave in the manner stated above in that they never denote essential states. Finally, (17) only exhibits a future reading, that may or may not involve additionally that agentive interpretation as well. However, permissive modals (können, dürfen, “is allowed to”) don’t seem to fit into that picture: (18) Der Fredi darf (*von Natur aus) zum Speiben schiech sein. The Fredi is allowed to.perm (*by nature) to vomit ugly be ‘Fredi is allowed to be revoltingly ugly (*by nature).’
Obviously those modals may embed predicates that seem to denote essential states (sometimes). But still, like their other rm counterparts, they only modify clearly bounded temporal intervals. Any permission is restricted to a particular time span that
The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German
has a beginning and an end. Usually, the restriction is determined by the discourse. So the interval of permission in (18) is set by a previous utterance as When Fredi goes to a beer tent. Accordingly, the modalised sentence (18) hardly ever means that there is the general permission that Fredi may be ugly independently of any context and therefore it is not compatible with adverbials modifying the infinitive of the type like von Natur aus (“by nature“). Moreover, permissive modals with stative complements as in (18) exhibit always an agentive reading, where allowed to be ugly entails allowed to not worry about his appearance.5 As opposed to the apparent incompatibility of rm to embed essential states, em display a clearly different behaviour. In the very same distribution involving a definite, discourse-bound singular subject and a stative (ilp) complement, the predicates embedded by em might refer to permanent states. The use of the adverbial von Natur aus “by nature” modifying the embedded infinitive ensures that only the epistemic reading is available. The root interpretations are excluded.6 (19)
Der Gerdsch muß von Natur aus gescheit sein. the Gerdsch must.e by nature intelligent be ‘Gerdsch must be intelligent by nature.’ OK: ∀ti ∃ tutterance [ti ≥ tutterance]∧ [Gerdsch is intelligent at ti]
(20)
Der Hermann kann von Natur aus männlich sein. the Hermann could.e by nature masculine be ‘Hermann could be virile by nature.’ OK: ∀ti ∃ tutterance [ti ≥ tutterance]∧ [Hermann is virile at ti]
(21)
Die Erna mag von Natur aus fromm sein. The Erna might.e by nature pious be ‘Erna might be pious by nature.’ OK ∀ti ∃ tutterance [ti ≥ tutterance]∧ [Erna is pious at ti]
. Since permissive modals are raising verbs (see Axel 2001, Reis 2001, Wurmbrand 2001), the imposee of permission need not be identical to the matrix subject, but may remain covert. As a consequence, it is not necessary to identify the agent with the matrix subject, but rather with the imposee of the permission that is normally contextually determined. This explains why in (i) there is no overt agent available, but an agentive reading. (i) Dieser Stein darf schwer sein. that stone may heavy be ‘That stone may be heavy.’ → ‘you are allowed to use that stone/to not take a different one’ . Since the reference of adverbs is ambiguous in mono-clausal constructions containing an infinitival complement (matrix predicate vs. infinitive), most of the examples (19)–(22) involve a second interpretation: If the adverbial is interpreted as a modifier of the modal, the root reading is the only one available.
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(22)
Der Fredi dürfte von Natur aus zum Speiben schiech sein. The Fredi might.e by nature to vomit ugly be ‘Fredi might be revoltingly ugly by nature.’ OK ∀ti ∃ tutterance [ti ≥ tutterance]∧ [Fredi is ugly at ti]
In contrast to the constructions with rm, all of the em tolerate the selection of predicates denoting essential states. Similarly, both quotative modals (qm) wollen “claim” and sollen “is claimed to” can combine with that type of infinitival complement. Due to their similar function, they are often associated with em, as held by Öhlschläger (1989), Diewald (1999), Reis (2001) or Abraham (2005). While in the case of em the modified sentence is labeled as “inference or assumption by the speaker”, the employment of qm label the modified sentence as “allegation made by matrix subject” (wollen) or as “general rumor” (sollen): (23)
Die Grete will von Natur aus stark sein. The Grete wants.q by nature strong be ‘Grete claims to be the strong by nature.’ # ∀ti ∃ tutterance [ti ≥ tutterance]∧ [Grete is strong at ti]
(24)
Die Mariedl soll von Natur aus fesch sein. The Mariedl shall.q by nature beautiful be ‘Mariedl is claimed to be beautiful by nature.’ # ∀ti ∃ tutterance [ti ≥ tutterance]∧ [Mariedl is beautiful at ti]
Again, the selection of a predicate that denotes an essential property is straightforward, although qm exhibit a semantic content clearly different from those of their epistemic counterparts. To sum up, whereas all subtypes of rm turned out to be incompatible with stative verbs that refer to essential states, qm and em are not. This observation can be captured by the following generalisation, where [= essential] refers to a permanent, non-agentive state. (25) Descriptive Generalisation on the selection of essential predicates In distributions with a definite, discourse-bound singular subject and a stative predicate: ⇒ rm never tolerate a [+essential] interpretation of the embedded predicate ⇒ em tolerate a [+essential] interpretation of the embedded predicate ⇒ qm tolerate a [+essential] interpretation of the embedded predicate
The ensuing section is going to discuss two alternatives to account for the significantly different behaviour patterns of the different types of modalities.
4. Implementing the contrast There are two possibilities to encode the contrast captured by the generalisation in (25). Both of them proceed on the assumption that the selection of predicates without
The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German
situation arguments triggered the grammaticalisation of em. They only differ to the extent to which classes of predicates they attribute situation arguments. As pointed out above, an analysis of stative verbs in the style of Kratzer (1995) will not succeed. She assumes that only slp involve situation arguments but not ilp. As a consequence, it would become clear why rm prefer to select slp, process and event verbs. Since rm are obviously modifiers of situations they require predicates that involve a situation argument. For the very same reason, they could not embed predicates lacking a situation argument altogether. Unfortunately, there are cases where a rm selects predicates that are commonly conceived as ilp, such as gescheit “intelligent’’ or stark “strong”. But how are we to account for that? First of all, we could abandon Kratzer’s (1995) analysis and replace it by a different one, as suggested by Maienborn (2003). Otherwise we would need to modify Kratzer’s (1995) theory to the extent that the conflicting data can be accounted for. The crucial question is: How should ilp be considered when they appear in distributions where they shouldn’t, as in expletive constructions, bare plural sentences with an existential reading or embedded by a situation modifier such as an instrumental pp or a rm (see Maienborn 2003: 37ff. for more detailed discussion). But even advocates of a clear grammatically founded distinction between ilp and slp such as Diesing (1992) assume that under certain conditions an ilp can be converted into an slp (and vice versa).
4.1 A pragmatic solution – Maienborn (2003) Employing a whole range of tests (embedding under perception verbs, modification with manner adverbs and local adverbs), Maienborn (2003) argues that neither of the copula constructions (slp, ilp) involves a situation argument. Rather, both copula constructions constitute a class together with Kimean-state verbs (including items as wissen, “know” or lieben “love”) as the only verbs that lack situation arguments. As for the contrast between slp and ilp, Maienborn (2003) argues that it can be entirely attributed to the interaction of different pragmatic principles. According to her theory there is only one type of copula construction in German. What is known as a sl interpretation is not a uniform phenomenon that results from a deviant configuration of the copula’s argument or event structure, but rather has to be distinguished into two separate pragmatic mechanisms. The first one she labels as “Temporariness Effect” which involves an “optimal interpretation of a semantically underspecified item” (Maienborn 2003: 216), as the German copula sein “be”. The periodic reading in “putative” slp constructions is in fact ensured by the interplay of Grice’s maxims of communication with some newly introduced constraints of Optimality Theory. Following Levinson (2000), Blutner (2000) and others, Maienborn (2003) employs one principle that preserves the economy of the speaker (the so-called “I-principle”: “Say no more than you must.”) and another
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one that preserves the economy of the hearer (the so-called “q-principle”: “Say as much as you can.”). The i-principle, seeking for the simplest possible semantic content of the sign, prefers that interval where the predicates holds is identified with topic time. Hence, essential (ilp) reading would only be available if topic time had been equated with eternity or the life time of the bearer of the property. In most cases however, the q-Principle, seeking for the most legible representation, identifies topic time with a temporally confined time span. In those instances the essential (ilp) reading is excluded, and the periodic one the only available. In order to accommodate these principles in her ot-account, Maienborn (2003) needs to stipulate a whole range of new powerful constraints (e.g., “Be strong”, “Choose a simple interpretation”), that might have unforeseen consequences for other parts of the theory and that therefore require a still stronger empirical justification. Apart from that, the underlying formalisation of the Gricean maxims by Blutner (2000) is not a compelling one and perhaps not the only plausible one. So it is not obvious why the speaker’s preference to produce “the minimal linguistic information sufficient to achieve his communicational ends” (Levinson 2000: 114) should concern only the content of a sign but not its expression. The second mechanism Maienborn (2003: 216) suggests is the so-called “Agentivity Effect”, which she considers as an “optimal reinterpretation of an ungrammatical construction”. Crucially, the Agentivity Effect arises when the argument slot of a situation modifier remains unsatisfied. This is the case when an instrumental-pp modifies a copula verb, which according to the view of Maienborn (2003) never involves a situation argument. In particular instances, this (sortal) conflict can be repaired, turning the defect construction into a grammatical one. If there is no situation argument available, the situation modifiers may scan presuppositions that are contained by lower embedded elements for an appropriate situation argument. In cases in which the presupposition contains a situation argument that is in a relation with the state the copula denotes (e.g., when the state of the copula is the result of the event encoded by the situation argument) the sortal conflict can be solved, and the vacant argument slot of the situation modifier can be filled by that argument. But yet it remains mysterious why that repair mechanism only applies with particular situation modifiers as instrumental-pp but never with perception verbs or local adverbs. Maienborn’s (2003) account for the apparent distinction of slp and ilp becomes clearer when she discusses copula constructions in Spanish. While ser is commonly conceived as ilp, estar functions as slp, see Maienborn (2003) for an extended discussion. In an analysis in the style of Kratzer (1995), estar involves a situation argument, whereas ser does not. As opposed to that, Maienborn (2003) assumes that estar presupposes a specific (confined) topic time, while ser being a more neutral copula lacks that presupposition. In order to explain why ser is usually ungrammatical with intermediate states she needs to stipulate further (ot) constraints that ensure the employment
The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German
of estar in all those distributions. As already argued by Kratzer (1995), Maienborn (2003) attributes the contrast of Spanish copulas to a difference in their lexicon entries. The differences between the two accounts appear then smaller than they were at first glance. But Maienborn’s (2003) analysis differs crucially in that even predicates that do not involve a presupposition of a specific topic time as estar does may refer to temporary states. For topic time can also be determined by discourse or different pragmatic principles. By means of Maienborn’s (2003) analysis, we can account for the particular behaviour of the early occurrences of em discussed in detail in chapter two. Assuming that rm are situation modifiers, it is not surprising that whenever the infinitival complement lacks a situation argument a modal fails to display the root interpretation. Notably, each of the eight unambiguously epistemic occurrences contained in the corpus involved either a copula construction or a Kimean state verb, both of them lacking situation arguments according to the view of Maienborn (2003). Turning to the occurrences with root modality, this assumption is borne out. First of all, rm rarely select copulas or Kimean state verbs as their complements, and when they do they trigger always the Agentivity Effect or the Temporariness Effect. (26) Stative complements of root modals in Neuwe Welt:
moegen (91): koennen (154): wollen (307): sollen (179): müssen (33): dürfen (22):
seyn (3), Kimean (3; wissen, leiden) seyn (3), Kimean (4; haben, wissen) seyn (7), Kimean (7; haben) seyn (9), Kimean (3; freuen, halten, haben) seyn (3), Kimean (2; haben) seyn (1)
6,59% 4,55% 4,56% 6,70% 15,15% 4,55%
As opposed to Maienborn (2003), we would additionally need to assume that (a type of) the Temporariness Effect may apply to the rm’s vacant slot for the situation argument as well. This so far strengthens the suspicion that the first em in history were initially selecting infinitival complements that lacked situation arguments. It appears that some generation of language learner wasn’t able to detect that repair mechanism in certain distributions any more, when they were exposed to modals with copula complements, so that they couldn’t analyse these modals as situation modifiers anymore. Obviously those learners just sought to find the closest suitable element the modals could modify. It will be seen below that there are good reasons to consider em as propositional modifiers, rather than situation modifiers as rm. However, it remains unclear whether those occurrences that seem to be ambiguous from the perspective of speakers of Modern German as (1)–(5) displayed an epistemic reading that was already accessible to speakers of enhg. The analysis advocated here does not state that there was necessarily a period where em selected only copulas and
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Kimean state verbs. Rather, it holds complements that lacked situation arguments liable for being the main trigger of the grammaticalisation of epistemic readings. But crucially, as soon as the epistemic templates were available they could be combined with any proposition possible – whether or not the complement involves a situation argument.
4.2 Saving Kratzer (1995) As shown above, Maienborn’s (2003) analysis is not without difficulties either. Possibly, it is worth maintaining Kratzer’s (1995) initial proposal that slp involve situation arguments, while ilp don’t. But then it becomes necessary to employ different diagnostics for situation arguments. Moreover, it remains to be shown why those suggested by Maienborn (2003) (complement of perception verbs, local modifier) were not involved. But how to account for those instances of alleged ilp that appear in contexts where only slp are supposed to be grammatical? What is it exactly that permits predicates lacking a situation argument to occur in distributions that require the presence of such kinds of argument? Obviously, some of the problematic instances discussed by Maienborn (2003) can be considered as lexical polysemy. For example, as long as a speaker is not familiar with the effects of hydrogen peroxide, she will use the predicate blond exclusively as ilp, for those who are used to artificial blondes the item additionally acquires a slp template. In the majority of cases, though, the requirement for a situation argument can be satisfied by different mechanisms similar to the Agentivity Effect proposed by Maienborn (2003). Even Diesing (1992) or Kratzer (1995) concede the need for similar mechanisms. rm as situation modifiers seek for a complement containing a situation argument. If they select an ilp their argument slot for the situation argument remains vacant. Note that this is exactly the configuration where the Agentivity Effect applies, satisfying the unfilled argument place. The previous sections alluded to good reasons that there is in addition a similar effect that generates periodic readings. And indeed, as already pointed out above, those cases always display agentive or periodic readings. The remainder of this article won’t go into technical details of possible implementations and will leave to further research the question of whether or not the periodic and the agentive readings of ilp may be attributed to the same mechanism. Crucially, even if an ilp appears in a distribution that requires the presence of a situation argument, thus restricted to slp, the predicate exhibits a semantic alteration: it loses its ability to encode essential properties and either involves an agentive or a periodic interpretation of the copula. Turning to the historical data, the reasoning of an account based on Kratzer (1995) would run as follows. As already shown above, at least six out of the eight unambiguously epistemic instances contained by the corpus involve complements referring to permanent properties – in different terms: most of those em were selecting ilp.
The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German
acking a situation argument, they weren’t able to satisfy the sortal restrictions of rm. L At some point of time, language learners failed to detect repair mechanisms as the Agentivity Effect and reanalysed the modal item as a propositional modifier. Either of the analyses following the ideas of Kratzer (1995) or Maienborn (2003) considers predicates without situation arguments as the trigger of the grammaticalisation of em. They only differ in the distribution of situation arguments: whereas according to Kratzer (1995) only ilp do not involve them, Maienborn (2003) doesn’t attribute them either to copula constructions in general (covering ilp and slp) or to Kimean state verbs.
4.3 Event structure and aspectual specification The aspectual specification of a predicate is reflected by the configuration of its event structure. In languages that encode aspect morphologically, as Russian, predicates lacking situation arguments cannot be perfectivised. Correspondingly, the Russian copula byt’ fails to combine with the perfective morpheme po- and is restricted to imperfective aspect7 There is a clear correlation between aspect and modality then, mediated by the configuration of the event structure. Predicate without situation arguments embedded by modals trigger both imperfective aspect and epistemic interpretation. As will be shown in the upcoming section, the event structure of the modal construction even has an impact on the temporal interpretation as well. The generalisation put forward in this paper that rm modify situations but em modify propositions gains further support from insights of early pragmatic literature, where rm are usually dubbed as “action oriented” modals and em as “speaker oriented” modals, see Öhlschläger (1989) or Diewald (1999) for more details. If rm indeed were modifiers of situations, they are expected to determine the temporal specification of the infinitival complement. em as propositional modifiers on the other hand shouldn’t impose selectional restrictions on situation arguments, but they are supposed to be compatible with any kind of proposition that is true. The next section focuses on the interaction of modals and temporal reference.
5. Root modals determining temporal reference8 As already shown above, the scope of root modality is restricted to a clearly bounded time span. The situation, however, turns out to be much more intricate. As for simple
. For this clue I am deeply indebted to Nina Rothmayr. . This section owes a lot of insights to Rita Veloso, the “Portuguese Queen of Pseudo Clefts”.
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rm constructions, we need to distinguish between two different temporal intervals: modal intervals and event intervals. The first one is confined by the point of time when the modality is imposed and the point of time when it is suspended again. The latter corresponds to the time span that is covered by the event or state encoded by the infinitival complement. The following section investigates various factors that contribute to the determination of these two intervals based on Modern German (Viennese) data. First of all, the modal interval turns out to be sensitive to tense specification. Whenever the modal is realized as finite verb, the modal interval is set by means of the matrix tense. Modals bearing past morphology usually involve a modal interval that precedes utterance time (27a), modals embedded by future auxiliaries refer to modal intervals that follow utterance time (27c) and finally present tense modals exhibit a modal interval that includes utterance time (27b): (27) Root modality and tense configuration a.
tense of = [past] modal interval tn
tutterance Der the
Hermann Hermann
hat .
ein a
Buch book
lesen read
müssen. must...
‘Hermann had to read a book.’ b.
tense of = [present] modal interval tn
tutterance Der Hermann muß ein the Hermann must a ‘Hermann has to read a book.’ c.
Buch book
lesen. read
tense of = [future] modal interval tn
tutterance
Der Hermann wird ein Buch the Hermann . a book ‘Hermann will have to read a book.’
lesen read
müssen. must.
The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German
Notice, that the generalisation in (27a) holds for both past tenses in German irrespective of whether it is a synthetic or periphrastic one (past perfect vs. preterite). As it seems, the modal interval needs always to include topic time in terms of Klein (1994). But crucially, whereas the modal interval of past and future tense rm must not include utterance time, the interval of present tense rm must always. In order to keep things simple, we will restrict the ensuing discussion to present tense modals. Moreover, the modal interval may be further limited by the properties of the event interval. As it will be shown, the event interval needs always to be contained by the modal interval. However, for necessity, permission and volition modals, the end of the event interval necessarily triggers the end of the modal interval. That is, any volition, permission or obligation expires once the modalised event has been accomplished. Possibility and ability modals typically are restricted to embed generic predicates and accordingly the expiration of the event interval need not trigger the end of the modal interval. The diverging behaviour of the different rm still requires further investigation. The modal interval is set due to an interplay of tense configuration and the properties of the event interval. But what about the event interval? It has been a long held suspicion that rm in general are restricted to future interpretation. Ziegeler (2006) even claims that the employment of a present tense rm always entails that the situation encoded by the infinitival complement is not yet realized at utterance time. However, Ziegeler’s (2006) generalisation does not apply to Modern German. Crucially, the construction can even be uttered when the event of working is already realised at utterance time. (28) Laß mich in Ruhe, ich muß jetzt arbeiten. Let me in peace I must now working ‘Leave me alone, I need to work now.’
Moreover, the mental concepts of root modalities even may refer to the past or present. Indeed, we can think and speak of obligations, permissions and volitions that were imposed before utterance time. Why should rm not be able to express these natural references as well? It seems to be tempting, thus, to attribute to rm the ability to refer to event intervals that begin simultaneous to utterance time or even before. The linguistic reality, however, proves much more intricate. In order to account for the complexity of temporal reference of rm, we need to distinguish the modal interval thoroughly from the event interval. Before investigating the factors that determine the temporal location of the event interval, it is important to recall that this interval does not imply that the event itself really will take place in the actual world, it only defines the time span for those possible worlds where the event indeed takes place, see Kratzer (1991) for more details. Accordingly, the event interval is distinct from the actual realisation of the event.
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The event interval may be restricted by various means. First of all, the event interval always has to be included by the modal interval. As already discussed above, rm differ from each other with respect to whether the accomplishment of the relevant event triggers the end of the modal interval or not. This trigger effect holds usually for necessity, volition and permission modals. Therefore they cannot refer to events that were achieved before utterance time. In that case, however, due to the trigger effect, the modal interval would expire before utterance time as well. But opposed to that, present tense rm require that the modal interval includes utterance time, as shown in (27b). As a consequence, rm may only refer to events that end after utterance time. This again, restricts necessity, volition and permission modals either to events that already begin before utterance time (29a), or only after (29b): (29) Present tense rm and temporal reference event realisation
a.
event interval modal interval
tutterance
tn event realisation
b.
event interval modal interval
tutterance
tn event realisation
c.
event interval modal interval
tutterance
tn
For ability and possibility modals, the accomplishment of the relevant event usually does not terminate the modal interval. Accordingly, they also may refer to multiple realisations of the event (29c). However, at least one of them needs to be settled posterior to utterance time. To sum up, all of the rm still have one thing in common: they all require that the relevant event could take place during some period in the modal interval after utterance time. This period constitutes the so-called “event interval”. There is a strong favour thus to conceive rm indeed as restricted to future reference. rm select predicates involving event arguments and assign to them an event
The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German
i nterval that is preset to posterior to utterance time. In order to be true, rm constructions require that the relevant event is realised during the event interval in at least some of the worlds accessible from the actual world. This generalisation is born out. Assuming that the event interval is necessarily located posterior to utterance time, it shouldn’t permit infinitives that are modified by past or present oriented adverbials. However, in order to ensure that adverbs refer to the infinitival complement, we need to employ a syntactic configuration where the domains of the two verbs, the modal and the infinitive, are clearly distinct, as in pseudo clefts, for example. Indeed, in (30) the adverbial has scope only over the infinitive. This distribution clearly shows that even imperfective infinitives such as lesen “read” can only combine with future oriented adverbs. Consider the data from Modern German. (30) [Was der Hermann (wirklich) muß], ist (vielmehr) … wh.prn the Hermann (really) must is par a. *… bis gestern ein Buch lesen. until yesterday a book read b. *… seit gestern ein Buch lesen. since yesterday a book read c.
?…
gerade ein Buch lesen. now a book read
d. … bis morgen ein Buch lesen. until tomorrow a book read e. … ab morgen ein Buch lesen. from tomorrow a book read ‘What Hermann indeed has to do, is to read a book *until yesterday/ *since yesterday/?right now/before tomorrow/from tomorrow.’
Under usual circumstances, the adverbial in (30a) triggers the end of the modal interval anterior to utterance time, hence contradicting the requirement of the present tense rm. Opposed to that, the adverbial in (30b) fails to indicate that the realisation of the event is still actual at the event interval. For some speakers example (30c) seems to be acceptable, but only if the infinitive is interpreted as referring explicitly to the future. Accordingly, rm cannot select complements with a strict present reference. However, both constructions that embed future oriented adverbials (30d) and (30e) are straightforward. Those contrasts are clearly in favour of the long held suspicion that rm are confined to future reference. See Wurmbrand (2006) for more detail. She suggests that modals select bare VP infinitivals that need to be temporally bound by an operator within the matrix clause. This can be done by the temporal operator in matrix tp or by the modal operator introduced by the modal itself. But, unfortunately, things are more complicated. Why does the same pseudo-cleft construction become grammatical, when a non future oriented adverbial is placed in the uppermost domain instead in the lower one?
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(31) [Was der Hermann seit gestern muß], ist ein Buch lesen. wh.prn the Hermann since yesterday must is a book read ‘What Hermann has had to do since yesterday, is to read a book.’
In contrast to (30), the adverbial in (31) modifies the modal interval but not the event interval. Correspondingly, the employment of the adverbial expresses that the modality was imposed the day before utterance time. But note, this doesn’t entail that the event interval is affected as well by that modification, rather it remains irremovably located in the future. The semantic contribution of the rm in (31) is twofold: on the one hand it expresses by means of the temporal adverbial that the obligation was already imposed the day before utterance time and is still valid after utterance time. On the other hand it defines an (event) interval located in the future during which the event is supposed to happen. The time span between the beginning of the modal interval and the beginning of the event interval, though, remains underspecified. Accordingly, whenever the reading event of (31) is interpreted as having started before utterance time, this is result of some pragmatic inference and not the semantic contribution of the rm. As commonly assumed, the aspectual configuration and “Aktionsart” of the infinitive complement have an impact on the temporal interpretation. Substituting the usually imperfective lesen “read” by a perfectivised counterpart auslesen “finish reading”, even (30c) and (30e) obtain ungrammatical results. If rm really were restricted to future reference, they should not allow even for past interpretations of the periphrastic construction haben “have” + past participle, which is usually employed for past reference. Indeed, the only suitable distributions involve future oriented modifiers (32d, e).9 (32) [Was der Hermann (wirklich) muß], ist (vielmehr) … wh.prn the Hermann (really) must is par a. *… bis gestern ein Buch (aus)gelesen haben. until yesterday a book (prf-)read.pst.prt pst.aux b. *… seit gestern ein Buch (aus)gelesen haben. since yesterday a book (prf-)read.pst.prt pst.aux c.
*… gerade ein Buch (aus)gelesen haben. now a book (prf-)read.pst.prt pst.aux
d. … bis morgen ein Buch (aus)gelesen haben. until tomorrow a book (prf-)read.pst.prt pst.aux
. Note that some of the ungrammatical sentences could obtain acceptable readings, if interpreted as part of a purpose or conditional construction. This is not possible however, if (31) is uttered independently from any context.
The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German
e. ?… ab morgen ein Buch (aus)gelesen haben. from tomorrow a book (prf-)read.pst.prt pst.aux ‘What Hermann indeed has to do, is to finish reading a book *until yesterday / *since yesterday / *right now / before tomorrow / ?from tomorrow.’
As opposed to the pseudo clefts involving simple infinitives, the aspectual configuration of the embedded participle does not play a role here. To sum up, this section has shown so far that rm, as commonly assumed, really are restricted to future reference. Since they select event arguments and assign them an event interval that starts after utterance time, rm do not permit infinitival complements specified for the past or present. Note finally that the incompatibility of rm with past or present oriented complements becomes even more obvious, when we replace müssen by different root modality items as wollen (volitive), können (possibility or ability), sollen (obligation), dürfen (permissive) or mögen (possibility).
6. The transparency of epistemic and quotative modals In contrast to rm, em and qm do not exhibit temporal restrictions. For some reasons further to be investigated, em and qm cannot be separated from their infinitival complements by means of pseudo clefts.10 This, however, raises no difficulties, since adverbials only may modify rm but never em or qm, as already pointed out by Öhlschläger (1989). Correspondingly, adverbials in epistemic and quotative constructions unambiguously refer to the infinitive. Turning to the most striking differences, em permit reference to non-accomplished past events as well as to present events as illustrated by (33). Moreover, they embed complements that denote an accomplished event in the past, as in (34). All of these temporal orientations were ruled out for complements of rm, as demonstrated in the previous subsection 5. In order to exclude an interference with root interpretations, the examples below each contain the only unambiguously epistemic item dürfte “might”. Being representative for all qm and em, it can be replaced by any epistemic or quotative item in the following constructions. (33) Der Hermann dürfte seit gestern/ gerade ein Buch lesen. the Hermann might since yesterday/ now a book read ‘Hermann might have been reading a book (since yesterday).’
. This deviant behavior of em could arise due to their higher degree of grammaticalisation compared to rm. Possibly, the topicalised phrase must not contain an auxiliary lacking its lexical verb. A different account could be made in terms of information structure. Recall that the right constituent in pseudo clefts receives focus. However, some distributions involving focus, such as wh-questions, generally appear to be incompatible with em.
Jakob Maché
(34) a.
Der Hermann dürfte (bis) gestern ein Buch gelesen. haben. the Hermann might since yesterday a book read.pst.prt pst.aux
b. Der Hermann dürfte gestern ein Buch ausgelesen. haben. the Hermann might yesterday a book prf-read.pst.prt pst.aux ‘Hermann might have read a book (*until) yesterday.’
While rm are confined to future oriented complements, em and qm permit various types of present and past oriented complements. Leiss (2002) and Abraham (2005), however, assume that em (qm) select only imperfective infinitives. Consider the examples (35): (35) a.
Der Hermann dürfte *seit gestern/ *gerade ein Buch auslesen. the Hermann might since yesterday/ now a book prf-read ‘Hermann might have been finishing the book (since yesterday).’
b. Der Hermann dürfte (bis) morgen/ *ab morgen ein Buch auslesen. the Hermann might until tomorrow/ now a book prf-read ‘Hermann might finish the book (*from) tomorrow.’
As correctly predicted by both authors, perfective infinitives are ruled out in most em constructions. But note, whenever the infinitival complement refers to an event that is accomplished in future, the construction becomes grammatical. Perfective infinitives under em (qm) thus behave exactly as finite perfective verbs marked for present tense: Lacking the ability to refer to events simultaneous to utterance time, they always exhibit future orientation. Opposed to rm, em and qm do not contribute to the temporal specification of their infinitival complements, rather, they are transparent in this respect. Whether a verbal item embedded under an em (qm) may occur with a particular temporal adverbial is thus not a matter of the em (qm). Rather, it depends on whether or not that verbal item permits the same temporal adverbial when inflected for present tense. The temporal configuration is set within the infinitival clause (due to the aspectual properties of the verb and adverbials), an em then only modifies the whole proposition, since it is a propositional modifier. The results of this section meet exactly the generalisation stated by Fritz (1991). He proved that in order to be a “true” epistemic modifier, a modal needs to be able to refer to any point of time possible: the past, the present and the future. The chart below once again sums up the results of the last two sections: This contrast between rm and em (qm) confirms again the hypothesis that rm as event modifiers seek for complements containing an event argument. Similar to the selection of nominal arguments, rm impose selectional restrictions on their situation argument: it needs to be located in the future. Opposed to that, em and qm turned out to be propositional modifiers. Of course it remains to be further investigated exactly what element they modify. The most fruitful option seems to be an account in terms of Erb (2001) who, following Höhle (1992), analyses epistemic modifiers as alternative realisations of a sentence operator right below the c-projection.
The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German
Table 1. The interplay of modality, temporal reference and aspectual configuration
rm + inf imp muß lesen rm + inf prf muß auslesen rm + inf ii imp muß gelesen haben rm + inf ii prf muß ausgelesen haben em + inf imp dürfte lesen em + inf prf dürfte auslesen em + inf ii imp dürfte gelesen haben em + inf ii prf dürfte ausgelesen haben
past present +accompl. –accompl. –accompl.
future +accompl. –accompl.
–
–
?
+
+
–
–
(?)
+
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
+
+
+
–
(+)
(+)
+
–
+
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
+
–
7. New insights about Behaghel’s Puzzle Finally, we can strengthen Abraham’s (1990, 1999) and Leiss’s (2002) assumption that aspectual and temporal orientation are the key factors in Behaghel’s Puzzle outlined in section 1. The reason why all preterit presents (= rm) in the ohg period selected only infinitives with perfective morphology now becomes obvious. As shown above, rm require infinitives with future orientation. In ohg however, future tense was expressed by means of the perfective prefix ge-, similar to morpheme po- in contemporary Russian, see Leiss (2002). In order to fulfil the requirement of future oriented complements, rm in ohg were bound to select perfective infinitives exhibiting the ge- prefix. If rm really are future oriented event modifiers Leiss’s (2002, in this volume) and Abraham’s (1990) solutions for Behaghel’s Puzzle is confirmed throughout. There is indeed an affinity between aspectual morphology and modality.
8. A short sketch of grammaticalisation The discussions in the previous sections have provided enough insight about the internal structure of modals to enable us to retrace their development during the past centuries. In accordance with Lehmann (1995), we assume here that grammaticalisation usually involves the loss of the lexical integrity of a sign – or in our terms the loss
Jakob Maché
of syntactic features. The development of modals in German at least involved four stages, (i)–(iv). i. Starting out as transitive verbs in the Proto-Germanic period, modals initially involved at least the following set of features [+acc, external θ-role, internal θ-role, +p], where +p is a projection feature that licenses the projection of the direct object, as suggested by Haider (1993). ii. When these verbs became dynamic modals (as ability or volition), they lost the accusative feature [ext. θ, int. θ, +p]. Dynamic modals differ from the transitive templates in that they assign the internal θ-role to a clausal argument and not to a dp. Assuming that even clausal complements bear θ-roles is a standard assumption of the generative framework, see Chomsky (1981: 93), Hornstein (1999: 84), Kenesei (2001) or Reinhart & Siloni (2005: subsection 4.1.2) for more details. iii. At some later point of time, modal templates that lacked a subject argument on their own became available, as in the case of circumstantial modals (permission, obligation, possibility or necessity). This development was caused by the loss of the external θ-role. Accordingly, the internal structure of circumstantial modals can be characterised as follows: [int. θ, +p]. Dynamic modals and circumstantial modals both are instances of rm, since in both cases the internal θ-role takes scope over the embedded situation argument – in different terms: rm act as event modifiers. iv. In the last step of grammaticalisation the internal θ-role becomes defective, the modal thus loses its ability to modify events. This loss arose in distributions, where the rm selected an infinitival complement lacking a situation argument. Usually, this sortal conflict could be resolved by the employment of some repair mechanism. At some point of time, language learners were not able to detect this mechanism anymore and reanalysed the modal as a propositional modifier, rather than an event modifier. After these steps of reanalysis, two new types of modals became available: em and qm. While rm assign full internal θ-roles to their arguments, em and qm only assign defective internal θ-roles (def. int. θ) lacking the ability to modify events (if they assign θ-roles in the first place). According to this view, qm involve [ext θ, def. int. θ, +p], while em are characterised [def. int. θ, +p]. Furthermore, this confirms the suspicions of Leiss (2002) and Abraham (2005) that aspect and event structure are crucial factors in the development of em and qm. These findings then allude to good reasons in favour of the assumption that the grammaticalisation of modals should be analysed in terms of a stepwise decline of syntactic features, as case, external and internal theta roles.
The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German
References Abraham, Werner. 1990. A note on the aspect-syntax interface. In Joan Mascaró & Marina Nespor (Eds), Grammar in progress. GLOW essays for Henk van Riemsdijk (pp. 1–12). Dordrecht: Foris. [Studies in generative grammar 36]. Abraham, Werner. 1991. Modalverben in der Germania. In Eijiro Iwasaki (Ed.), Begegnung mit dem Fremden: Grenzen – Traditionen – Vergleiche. Akten des VIII. Internationalen Germanisten-Kongresses in Tokio 1990. Volume 4 (pp. 109–118). München: iudicium. Abraham, Werner. 1999. How descending is ascending German? On the deep interrelations between tense, aspect, pronominality, and ergativity. In Werner Abraham & Leonid Kulikov (Eds), Tense-aspect, transitivity, and causativity (pp. 253–292). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Studies in language companion series 50]. Abraham, Werner. 2002. Modal verbs: Epistemics in German and English. In Sjef Barbiers, Frits Beukema & Wim van der Wurff (Eds), Modality and its interaction with the verbal system (pp. 19–50). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 47]. Abraham, Werner. 2005. Event arguments and modal verbs. In Claudia Maienborn & Angelika Wöllstein (Eds), Event arguments: Foundations and applications (pp. 243–276). Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Linguistische Arbeiten 501]. Axel, Katrin. 2001. Althochdeutsche Modalverben als Anhebungsverben. In Reimar Müller & Marga Reis (Eds), (pp. 37–60). Bech, Gunnar. 1955/57. Studien über das deutsche Verbum infinitum. Tübingen: Niemeyer. (Reprint 1983). [Linguistische Arbeiten 139]. Behaghel, Otto. 1924. Deutsche Syntax. Vol. II. Heidelberg: Winter. Blutner, Reinhard. 2000. Some aspects of optimality in natural language interpretation. Journal of Semantics, 17, 189–216. Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on government and binding. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Studies in generative grammar 9]. Diesing, Molly. 1992. Indefinites. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. [Linguistic Inquiry Monographs 20]. Diewald, Gabriele. 1999. Die Modalverben im Deutschen: Grammatikalisierung und Polyfunktionalität. Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Reihe Germanistische Linguistik 208]. Erb, Marie Christine. 2001. Finite auxiliaries in German. Tilburg: Tilburg Dissertations in Language Studies. Fritz, Gerd. 1991. Deutsche Modalverben 1609 – epistemische Verwendungsweisen. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 113, 28–53. Fritz, Gerd. 1997. Historische Semantik der Modalverben. In Gerd Fritz & Thomas Gloning (Eds), Untersuchungen zur semantischen Entwicklungsgeschichte der Modalverben im Deutschen (pp. 1–157). Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Reihe Germanistische Linguistik 187]. Geilfuß, Jochen. 1992. Ist “wollen” ein Kontrollverb oder nicht? Arbeitspapier Nr. 27 des SFB 340. Universität Tübingen, Universität Stuttgart und IBM Deutschland. Haider, Hubert. 1993. Deutsche Syntax – generativ. Tübingen: Narr. [Tübinger Beiträge zur Linguistik 325]. Heine, Bernd. 1995. Agent-oriented vs. epistemic modality. In Joan Bybee & Suzanne Fleisch man (Eds), Modality in grammar and discourse (pp. 17–53). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Typological studies in language 32]. Höhle, Tilman N. 1978. Lexikalistische Syntax. Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Linguistische Arbeiten 67].
Jakob Maché Höhle, Tilman N. 1992. Über Verum-Fokus im Deutschen. In Joachim Jacobs (Ed.), Informationsstruktur und Grammatik (pp. 112–114). Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Hornstein, Norbert. 1999. Movement and Control. Linguistic Inquiry, 30, 679–708. Kenesei, István. 2001. Criteria for auxiliaries in Hungarian. In István Kenesei (Ed.), Argument structure in hungarian (pp. 17–53). Budapest: Akadémieai Kiadó. Kiss, Tibor. 1995. Infinitive Komplementation. Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Linguistische Arbeiten 333]. Klein, Wolfgang. 1994. Time in language. London: Routledge. Kratzer, Angelika. 1991. Modality. In Arnim von Stechow (Ed.), Semantik (pp. 639–650). Berlin: de Gruyter. Kratzer, Angelika. 1995. Stage-level and individual-level predicates. In Greg N. Carlson & Francis Jeffrey Pelletier (Eds), The generic book (pp. 125–175). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Krause, Maxi. 1997. Zur Modalisierung bei Otfrid. In Yvon Desportes (Ed.), Semantik der syntaktischen Beziehungen. Akten des Pariser Kolloquiums zur Erforschung des Althochdeutschen 1994 (pp. 92–106). Heidelberg: Winter. [Germanistische Bibliothek: Reihe 3, Untersuchungen. Volume 27]. Lehmann, Christian. 1995. Thoughts on grammaticalization. München: Lincom. Leiss, Elisabeth. 2002. Explizite und implizite Kodierung von Deontizität und Epistemizität. Jezykoslovlje, 3, 69–98. Levinson, Stephen C. 2000. Presumptive meanings: The theory of generalized conversational implicature. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Lightfoot, David W. 1979. Principles of diachronic syntax. Cambridge: CUP. [Cambridge studies in linguistics 23]. Maché, Jakob. 2006. Clause union im Frühen Neuhochdeutsch. Talk given at the Österreischischen Linguistik Tagung, University of Klagenfurt. Maienborn, Claudia. 2003. Die logische Form von Kopulasätzen. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. [studia grammatica 56]. Müller, Reimar. 2001. Modalität im Prosalanzelot. In Reimar Müller & Marga Reis 2001 (Eds), (pp. 239–262). Müller, Reimar & Marga Reis (Eds), (2001). Modalität und Modalverben im Deutschen. Hamburg: H. Buske. [Linguistische Berichte, Sonderheft 9]. Öhlschläger, Günther. 1989. Zur Syntax und Semantik der Modalverben des Deutschen. Tübingen: Niemeyer. [Linguistische Arbeiten 144]. Reinhart, Tanya and Tal Siloni. 2005. The lexicon-syntax parameter: Reflexivization and other arity operations. Linguistic Inquiry, 36 (3), 389–436. Reis, Marga. 2001. Bilden Modalverben im Deutschen eine syntaktische Klasse? In Reimar Müller & Marga Reis (Eds), (pp. 92–106). Roberts, Ian G. 2003. Syntactic change: A minimalist approach to grammaticalization. Cambridge: CUP. [Cambridge studies in linguistics 100]. Ross, John Robert. 1969. Auxiliaries as main verbs. In: Studies in Philosophical Linguistics, 1, 77–102. Westermoreland, Robert R. 1996. Epistemic must as evidential. In Martin Stokhof et al. (Eds), Proceedings of the 10. Amsterdam Colloquium. Part III (pp. 683–702). Amsterdam: Institute for language, logic and computation. Westermoreland, Robert, R. 1998. Information and intonation in natural language modality. Michigan: UMI Dissertation services.
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Wurmbrand, Susi. 1999. Modal verbs must be raising verbs. In Sonya Bird, Andrew Carnie, Jason D. Haugen & Peter Norquest (Eds), Proceedings of the 18th WCCFL (pp. 599–612). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Wurmbrand, Susi. 2001. Infinitives. Restructuring and clause structure. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Studies in Generative Grammar 55]. Wurmbrand, Susi. 2006. Infinitives are tenseless. MS. available at: http://ling.auf.net/lingBuzz. Ziegeler, Debra 2006. Omnitemporal will. In Language Sciences, 28, 76–119.
Index of authors A Abraham, 16, 24, 27, 43, 46–9, 51, 58, 91, 98f., 100, 147f., 249, 271, 280f., 284, 290, 323 Abraham & Leiss, 68, 280, 309 Aikhenvald, 37 B Barentsen, 191 Behaghel, 25 Bhat, 282 Bhatt, 282 Bickerton, 360 Birjulin, 180, 183 Boogaart, 49 Bulygina & Šmelev, 179 Bybee, 63, 71 Bybee, Pagliuca & Perkins, 43, 46, 48, 51 C Carlson, 53, 55, 58, 62, 66f., 69 Coates, 45, 51, 59 Comrie, 47 D Dahl, 47, 54f., 58, 62, 66, 69 De Clerck, 82 Diewald, 34, 51, 100, 104, 313, 316, 321 Dowty, 44 E Ehlich, 315 Emenanjo, 244, 246 F Fitneva, 58 Fritz, 31 G Gelderen, van, 15f., 26 Givón, 47 Gonçalvez, 91 Goossens, 51 Götz, 26
H Hacquard, 288 Halliday, 303 Hanazono, 281 Heine, 65 Heine, Claudi & Hünnemeyer, 75 Hopper, 44 Hornstein, 285f. Huddleston, 87 Hundt, 23 Hyams, 99 I Iatridou, 289 Igwe, 250, 258 Ivančev, 186 J Jakobson, Roman, 34 James, 52 Jespersen, 90 Jetchev & Bertinetto, 187f. K Karavanov, 148, 152 Klein, 182f. Klimonov, 147 Kotin, 23 Kuehnast, 185 Kratzer, 303 Krifka et al., 53, 55 L Laca, 54, 67 Langacker, 44 Lazard, 59 Leiss, 99, 147f., 249, 280f., 283 Lenci & Bertinetto, 54, 55 Li, 46 Lyons, 45, 69, 100 M Maienborn, 393 Manova, 187 Maslov, 186 Matthews, 82, 87
McDowell, 49, 58 Mindt, 290 Moens & Steedman, 177, 181f. Morita & Mazuki, 297 Mushin, 38 Mycielski, 82 N Narrog, 282 Nöel, 59 Nordlinger & Traugott, 50, 62 Nuyts, 58f. Nwachukwu, 244 O Onoue, 326 P Paddock, 282 Palmer, 45f., 48, 51, 362 Pullum, 87 Q Quine, 89 R Reichenbach, 289 Rytel, 33 S Sakuma, 317 Salkie, 58 Sasse, 43 Schlesinger, 51 Sherebkov, 280 Smith, 44 Steedman, 280 Suzuki, 282 T Traugott, 75, 310, 321, 323 Traugott & Dasher, 46, 69f., 75 V Van der Auwera & Plungian, 46, 59 Van Valin, 49
Index of authors Verkuyl, 56f., 64, 65, 68 Verstraete, 47, 50f. Visconti, 44, 63f., 70, 74 von Wright, 46, 100
W Welmers, 258 Westney, 64 Williamson, 244
Z Ziegeler, 20, 43f., 48, 51f., 57f., 60, 63, 66, 75, 249, 271
Index of subjects A ability, 197, 283, 363 in Igbo, 258 Abraham(s) Generalization, 27, 119, 122, 135, 142, 143 Abraham–Leiss Hypotheses, 136, 140f. achievement, 49f., 52 additivity (mereological), 17 agentivity, 49, 51f., 65f. - effect, 400ff. agent-oriented, 46, 50, 52 aktionsart, 43, 49f., 56, 59, 102, 108 ANA (Action Narrowly Averted; from Kuteva), 343 (a)nakereba naranai (Japanese), 293, 302 anterior, 360 anticipation, 251 aorist, 47 argument structure, 412 Armenian, 97–99, 101–112 aspect, 82, 233 - completive, 292 - continuative, 292 - imperfective, 99, 100, 103, 108f., 111f., 246 - perfective, 97, 99, 101, 106, 108f., 110ff., 246 - preemptive, 292 - progressive, 83f., in Armenian, 102 in Japanese, 292 in Russian, 102 loss of, 33 aspect affinity, 249, 261, 272, 274 aspect-tense forms, 147, 151 - imperfective and perfective future, 157ff. - imperfective and perfective present, 160ff. - imperfective and perfective preterit, 153ff
Aspect-Modality-Links, 270f., 309, 319, 323, 324, 326, 327 Aspect-Tense-Modality Links, 147 aspect selection, marked, 28 ATM (Aspect Tense Modality Hierarchy) XVII, 30f. aspectual coercion, 177, 181f., 185, 191 aspect(uality) attract(ors), 121, 123, 135, 139f. avertive (completive proximative), 343 B bo + l-participle (Slovene), 126 Book of Psalms (Old Russian), 32 boundedness, 333 bridging context, 65 budu (Russian, Czech), 33 C can in Slavic languages, 21 in German, 33 in Polish, 33 in Russian, 33 in Silesian, 33 Catalan, 84 cognition, 120 cognitive - complexity, 121f. - processing, 120, 123 - strategies, 120 - structure, 119, 123 collocation, 119, 131, 141 - affinity, 143 - data, 130 - frequency, 135, 136, 138 - macro-contextual, 121 - preference, 120, 140 - tendency, 119, 122, 130, 142, 143 completive, 292 complex - categorical properties, 120 - communicative functions, 127
- entities, 122 - functional categories, 123 - grammatical category, 122 - grammatical parameters, 123 - micro-grammatical contexts, 124 - structures, 120, 131 - types of texts, 121 completive (non-), 246 composition, 65 compositional, 43, 45, 56, 58 compositional aspect, 69, 75 compulsion (obligation), 250 construction, 119, 121, 126, 130, 143 - analytical, 123 context - micro-grammatical, 119ff., 124, 126, 141f. continuative, 361 contro�������� l verb, 7 conversational background, 303 conversational implicature, 44 counterfactual, 44, 342, 360 Czech, 33f. D -daroo (Japanese), 293 definiteness-aspect link, 28 deixis, 313–315 deontic (modality), 23, 43ff., 48ff., 54, 61ff., 68ff., 74ff., 109ff., 122, 143, 279 emergence of, 317 deonticity, 66f. emergent, 322 divisibility (mereological), 17 DMV (deontic modal verb) XIV, 7���� , 17 dolžen (Russian), 33, 101, 103f., 111, 208 + negation, 209f. double displacement (shifter), 37 downstep (grammatical tone), 241f.
Index of subjects durative, 56f., 65, 361 dürfen (German), 125 dynamic, 51f., 56, 121 dynamic modality, 46, 283 E emergent, 44 - deonticity, 322 - epistemicity, 322 EMV (epistemic modal verb) XIV, 7, 17 episodic, 53f., 69 epistemic, 44ff., 48, 50ff., 58f., 62, 70, 74ff., 279 - evaluations, 142 - function, 125, 142 - qualifications, 123 - meaning, 122f., 130, 142, 144 - modality, 43, 119, 122f., 126, 141ff., 227, 232 - modal, 122ff., 126ff., 141ff., 385f., 387ff, 398, 401, 403, 409ff., 412 - modal verb (MV), 23, 120, 123, 126, 131ff., 141, 137f. - MV-construction, 131 - possibility, 364 - readings, 122, 141 - stance, 38 - structures, 122, 131, 140 - use, 124 emergent, 322 erosion, 71 essential state, 394, 398, 400 evaluating sentence, 310 event - bi-phasic, 17 - imperfective, 17 - mono-phasic, 17 - perfective, 17 - structure, 17, 393, 399, 403ff., 412 - verb, 218 evidential, 37f., 60, 65ff., 70f., 74f. generic, 72 evidentiality, 58f., 70, 74 experiencer, 51f. F factive, 46 factivity, 43 first person evidence, 37 Fongbe, 216, 219, 222 (fn. 4) frequency, 75
French, XI frequentative, 361 functional domain, 82 future, 361 analytic, 29 imperfective, 6 perfective, 6 projecting, 18, 20 future orientation, 396, 405ff., 410f. future perfect, 50 future-projecting, 43ff., 52, 55, 57f., 60ff., 71ff. G ga (nominative marker; Japanese), 311, 317 ga- (Gothic), 25 -gá (Igbo modal suffix), 250f., 253f., Gbe (African), 215 ge- (Middle High German), 25 generic, 23, 43–49, 52–58, 60, 62–64, 66–71, 73ff. gensho-bun (sentence type; Japanese), 311 German, 35f., 97–100, 104f., 107, 111f., 346 Germanic languages, 119, 123 gi- (Old High German), 25 Gothic, 25, 375ff. grammatical - innovation, 119 - parameter, 119, 121ff., 130f., 141ff. grammaticalization, 43, 45, 51, 65f., 69, 70–75, 119, 121, 123, 142, 313, 321, 332 - of modality, 317 - phases, 119, 121, 123 - process, 143 - stage, 122, 143 - status, 119 Gungbe, 215 H habitual, 47ff., 53f., 56f., 64�, 66, 74 h���������������������� andan-bun (evaluating sentence; Japanese), 310 high text frequency, 71 hoteti (Slovene), 124 hypothesis, 119, 122
- frequency, 131 - markedness, 127, 132f., 138 I iconicity, 127 Igbo (Niger-Congo language), 241f., imperfective, 43f., 48f., 56, 59, 65, 75, 99f., 103, 108f., 111f. + negation, 198 (im)perfectivity, 47, 119, 122, 133ff., 138f., 142f. Imperfectivity-Epistemicity Convergence Generalization XII, 11 Imperfectivization, secondary 186, 187 implicature, 50 inchoative, 61, 76 indefinite quantification, 56 (in)definiteness, 119, 122, 131, 133ff., 138, 140, 141ff. -aspect link, 28 indicative, 311f., 315 inner aspect, 56 intentional (aspect), 334f. interminative, 7 irrealis, 47f. 360f.1 iterative, 209 J Japanese, 279 K karoł em/ēi (Armenian), 101–103 karołanal (Armenian), 101–103 -kinica (Lakota), 334–336, 350 können (German), 98–100, 105, 125 -kwési (Igbo), 268f. L lahko (Slovene), 124 Lakota (Siouan), 332 language, - change, 120, 127, 142f. - corpora, 127 - evolution, 120 - innovation, 120 lėżėć (Polish), 86 Leiss’ Hypothesis, 119, 122, 142f.
Index of subjects less marked, 120ff., 141, 144 less natural, 120, 141 M magan (Old High German) 25, 28f. selection of, 29 markedness, 120ff., 143 - degree , 120f. - Hypothesis, 127, 132f., 138, 141f. - lesser, 120ff., 141, 144 - level, 119, 121, 133, 143 - Theory, 119 - values, 141 Marking and Optimizing Hypothesis 323 menda (Slovene), 123, 126 mereology, 17 Middle Dutch, 29 Middle High German, 379f. mirative, 47 moč’ (Russian), 32, 101f., 107f., 112 moči (Russian), 124, 126, 142 modal, - adverb, 34 - alethic, 22f. - auxiliary, 221 - deontic, broad vs. narrow 18f. - epistemic (EM), 18f., 23, 310, 385ff., 387ff., 398, 401, 403, 409ff., 412 - function, 125 - generic, 19, 21, 23 - marker, 223 - particle, 313 - permissive, 396, 405 - polyfunctionality, 282 - predicative, 33 -quotative (QM), 398, 409f., 412 -root (RM), 18, 105, 386, 393ff., 399, 403, 405ff., 411f. with wide scope, 105f. - structure (Igbo), 273 - verb, 97–106, 111f., 119f., 125f., 141–144 classification of 18f., 21, 23f. first (diachronic), 27 future projection of, 24 rise of, 25
use, quasi-, 376 + perfective infinitive, 25 Modal Aspect Hypothesis, 323 modality, 82, 119, 122f., 126, 141ff. correlations of 207 unmarked epistemic (Japanese), 310 verb morphology related to 256, 265, 270 - base, 149f. - circumstantial, 149f. - (non-)deictic, 314 - deontic, 109f., 111f., 149f. - desiderative, 149f. - dispositional, 149f. - epistemic, 97–101, 103–8, 110ff., 149f., 201 - markers (Japanese), 297 and perfective, 296f. and stative, 295f. - root, 97–101, 104–8, 112 - typology of, 227 mood markers, 221 Modality-Aspect Substitution Hypothesis (Leiss) XIV morati, 124, 142f. morda, 123 more marked, 120ff., 136 more natural, 120ff., 141, 144 mögen (German), 125 müssen (German), 125 N nado (Russian), 101, 103f., 111, 209 nai (Japanese), 317 naj (Slovene), 124 nátá (Igbo), 254f., 257, 274 natural, less, 120, 141 Naturalness Theory, 119 necessity, 97–105, 108–112 in Armenian, 109f. in Russian, 110f., 210 - deontic (moral obligation), 204 - epistemic (= probability), 205 external, 203 internal, 203 negation, 57 imperfective of 201
Negation-Imperfectivity Convergence Generalization XIII, 12 negative, 65 nomic, 47 nomic statements, 47 non-factivity, 43 non-punctual, 360 non-specific, 57, 60, 62, 71 non-specificity, 56 non-stative, 292, 361 non-volitive, 303 NT-postulate, 120 nužno (Russian), 101, 103f., 111, 209 nwé íké (Igbo), 258f. _nwu (Igbo), 264f. O obligation, 363 Igbo morphemes of, 267 Old Bulgarian, 32 Old English, 26 Old High German, 29, 31, 376, 378 Old Japanese, 282, 326 Old Saxon, 378 Optimality Principle, 120 origo, 314ff., 321f. outer aspect, 56 P pač, 123, 127ff. participant-external, 46, 52 participant-internal, 46, 52 past, 287, 360 simple (PS), 8 Pennsylvania German 100 perfecta tantum, 374 perfective 43f., 47f., 50, 52, 56, 58f., 61, 63–66, 74ff., 97, 99, 101, 106, 108–112 infinitive, 18 perfective-medium function, 374 perfectivity, 45, 57, 68 emergent/incremental phase of 10 resulting phase of 10 Perfectivity-Root Modality Convergence Generalization XII, 8 perspectivization, inner 371 outer, 371
Index of subjects person category, 36 petk’ ē (Armenian), 103f., 110 piti (Armenian), 103, 109 Polish, 84 polyfunctionality, 282 Portuguese, 84 possessive, 350 possibility, 97–102, 104ff., 108, 110ff., 197, 210 deontic, 200 external, 199 internal, 197 potential agency, 51, 65 potentiality, 292 predicate - essential, 394, 398 - individual level, 394, 399ff., 402ff. - Kimean state, 393, 399, 401 - stage level, 394, 399, 402 - stative, 393, 396, 398, 401 present, 287 present perfect, 287 present tense-imperfective link 6 preterit present, 373f. in Old Germanic 375 preventive, 177, 179, 180, 189, 190, 192 principle, 120 progressive, 47, 48, 83f., 85, 361 categorical status of 87 compatibility of with imperative 94f. co-occurrence of with deontic modality 84 discourse function of 90f. future time reference of 92f. present time reference of, 93f. prohibitive, 177, 179, 180, 186 propositional, 65 Prospective vs. Retrospective Aspect constraint XVI proximative (aspect), 332, 334, 348 pseudo cleft, 407, 409 -pù (Igbo), 262f. Q quantification, indefinite, 19 quasi-modal use, 376 Quechua, 39
R raising verb, XIV, 7 ( r)areru (Japanese passive marker) 292 ( r)eru (Japanese passive marker) 292 realis, 47f. _rí.rí. (Igbo), 250, 254f., 257, root, 44ff., 51, 119, 122–6, 131, 141f. root-necessity, 363 root modality, 97–101, 104–8, 112, 228 root possibility, 283, 363 Russian, 3–6, 97ff., 101–8, 110ff., 198ff., 207ff., 379, 382f. S Saramaccan Creole, 359 scullan (Old High German) 26 semantic continuity, 45 semantic role, 51f. semantic weakening, 71 sentence - operator, 410 - type (in Japanese), 311, 317 shifter (from R. Jakobson), 34 siedzieć (Polish), 86 _sì (Igbo�), 257, 273f. _sìrì (Igbo), 257, 273f. skulan (Gothic), 26 Slavic - language(s), 119, 123 Slovene, 119f., 126f., 141ff. - Model of Natural Syntax (SMNS) 120–3, 141f. smeti, 124, smoč’, 101, 102 sollen, 125 speaker-oriented, 46 specific, 56, 57, 61, 64, 68, 71 specifically-referring, 67, 69 specificity, 65 state verbs, 218 statistical (data), 119, 127, 130, 140–44 stative, 292, 361 subjectification, 321, 323 subjectivity, 321 suppositive (modality), 342, 346
syntactic - construction, 122 - structures, 120f. - variant, 119ff., 126, 131 T telicity, 10 te-mo ii (Japanese), 297 temporal reference, 285, 395, 403ff., 408 Temporariness Effect, 399, 401 tense-aspect-mood, 215, 360 terminative, 7, 56–8, 65 terminativity, XIII, 64 tkhá (Lakota), 338–43, 351f. time, - reference, 123 - frame, 123 token, 121, 123, 125, 128, 141 frequency, 119ff., 127f., 130f., 141, 143 - reference and aspect, 21 topic, 318 topic particle, 314 -tósí (Igbo), 269f. trigger, 121ff., 135, 139 type reference and aspect 20 Typological Aspect- Divergence Generalization XIV-XV U unidirectional, 75 uuollen (Old High German), 26 V volitive, 303 vowel harmony (in Igbo), 243 W wa (topic marker; Japanese), 310, 317 werden + infinitive (German) 33, 124, 126, 140, 141, 144 wiljan (Gothic), 26 wohl (German), 123, 124, 129 wollen (German), 125 würde + infinitive, 124, 141 Z želeti (Slovene), 124
Typological Studies in Language A complete list of titles in this series can be found on the publishers’ website, www.benjamins.com 80 Laury, Ritva (ed.): Crosslinguistic Studies of Clause Combining. The multifunctionality of conjunctions. xiv, 246 pp. + index. Expected August 2008 79 Abraham, Werner and Elisabeth Leiss (eds.): Modality–Aspect Interfaces. Implications and typological solutions. 2008. xxiv, 422 pp. 78 Harrison, K. David, David S. Rood and Arienne Dwyer (eds.): Lessons from Documented Endangered Languages. v, 366 pp. + index. Expected August 2008 77 Seoane, Elena and María José López-Couso (eds.): Theoretical and Empirical Issues in Grammaticalization. In collaboration with Teresa Fanego. x, 354 pp. + index. Expected June 2008 76 López-Couso, María José and Elena Seoane (eds.): Rethinking Grammaticalization. New perspectives. In collaboration with Teresa Fanego. xxi, 327 pp. + index. Expected June 2008 75 Frajzyngier, Zygmunt and Erin Shay (eds.): Interaction of Morphology and Syntax. Case studies in Afroasiatic. 2008. v, 234 pp. 74 Kurzon, Dennis and Silvia Adler (eds.): Adpositions. Pragmatic, semantic and syntactic perspectives. 2008. viii, 307 pp. 73 Ansaldo, Umberto, Stephen Matthews and Lisa Lim (eds.): Deconstructing Creole. 2007. xii, 292 pp. 72 Næss, Åshild: Prototypical Transitivity. 2007. x, 240 pp. 71 Nedjalkov, Vladimir P. (ed.): Reciprocal Constructions. With the assistance of Emma Š. Geniušienė and Zlatka Guentchéva. 2007. xxiii, 2219 pp. (5 vols.). 70 Zúñiga, Fernando: Deixis and Alignment. Inverse systems in indigenous languages of the Americas. 2006. xii, 309 pp. 69 Aranovich, Raúl (ed.): Split Auxiliary Systems. A cross-linguistic perspective. 2007. vii, 277 pp. 68 Abraham, Werner and Larisa Leisiö (eds.): Passivization and Typology. Form and function. 2006. x, 553 pp. 67 Veselinova, Ljuba N.: Suppletion in Verb Paradigms. Bits and pieces of the puzzle. 2006. xviii, 236 pp. 66 Hickmann, Maya and Stéphane Robert (eds.): Space in Languages. Linguistic Systems and Cognitive Categories. 2006. x, 362 pp. 65 Tsunoda, Tasaku and Taro Kageyama (eds.): Voice and Grammatical Relations. In Honor of Masayoshi Shibatani. 2006. xviii, 342 pp. 64 Voeltz, F. K. Erhard (ed.): Studies in African Linguistic Typology. 2006. xiv, 426 pp. 63 Filimonova, Elena (ed.): Clusivity. Typology and case studies of the inclusive–exclusive distinction. 2005. xii, 436 pp. 62 Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth and Cecilia E. Ford (eds.): Sound Patterns in Interaction. Crosslinguistic studies from conversation. 2004. viii, 406 pp. 61 Bhaskararao, Peri and Karumuri Venkata Subbarao (eds.): Non-nominative Subjects. Volume 2. 2004. xii, 319 pp. 60 Bhaskararao, Peri and Karumuri Venkata Subbarao (eds.): Non-nominative Subjects. Volume 1. 2004. xii, 325 pp. 59 Fischer, Olga, Muriel Norde and Harry Perridon (eds.): Up and down the Cline – The Nature of Grammaticalization. 2004. viii, 406 pp. 58 Haspelmath, Martin (ed.): Coordinating Constructions. 2004. xcv, 578 pp. 57 Mattissen, Johanna: Dependent-Head Synthesis in Nivkh. A contribution to a typology of polysynthesis. 2003. x, 350 pp. 56 Shay, Erin and Uwe Seibert (eds.): Motion, Direction and Location in Languages. In honor of Zygmunt Frajzyngier. 2003. xvi, 305 pp. 55 Frajzyngier, Zygmunt and Erin Shay: Explaining Language Structure through Systems Interaction. 2003. xviii, 309 pp. 54 Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. and R.M.W. Dixon (eds.): Studies in Evidentiality. 2003. xiv, 349 pp. 53 Givón, T. and Bertram F. Malle (eds.): The Evolution of Language out of Pre-language. 2002. x, 394 pp. 52 Güldemann, Tom and Manfred von Roncador (eds.): Reported Discourse. A meeting ground for different linguistic domains. 2002. xii, 425 pp.
51 Newman, John (ed.): The Linguistics of Sitting, Standing and Lying. 2002. xii, 409 pp. 50 Feigenbaum, Susanne and Dennis Kurzon (eds.): Prepositions in their Syntactic, Semantic and Pragmatic Context. 2002. vi, 304 pp. 49 Wischer, Ilse and Gabriele Diewald (eds.): New Reflections on Grammaticalization. 2002. xiv, 437 pp. 48 Shibatani, Masayoshi (ed.): The Grammar of Causation and Interpersonal Manipulation. 2002. xviii, 551 pp. 47 Baron, Irène, Michael Herslund and Finn Sørensen (eds.): Dimensions of Possession. 2001. vi, 337 pp. 46 Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y., R.M.W. Dixon and Masayuki Onishi (eds.): Non-canonical Marking of Subjects and Objects. 2001. xii, 364 pp. 45 Bybee, Joan and Paul J. Hopper (eds.): Frequency and the Emergence of Linguistic Structure. 2001. vii, 492 pp. 44 Voeltz, F. K. Erhard and Christa Kilian-Hatz (eds.): Ideophones. 2001. x, 436 pp. 43 Gildea, Spike (ed.): Reconstructing Grammar. Comparative Linguistics and Grammaticalization. 2000. xiv, 269 pp. 42 Diessel, Holger: Demonstratives. Form, function and grammaticalization. 1999. xii, 205 pp. 41 Frajzyngier, Zygmunt and Traci S. Walker-Curl (eds.): Reciprocals. Forms and functions. Volume 2. 2000. xii, 201 pp. 40 Frajzyngier, Zygmunt and Traci S. Walker-Curl (eds.): Reflexives. Forms and functions. Volume 1. 2000. xiv, 286 pp. 39 Payne, Doris L. and Immanuel Barshi (eds.): External Possession. 1999. ix, 573 pp. 38 Siewierska, Anna and Jae Jung Song (eds.): Case, Typology and Grammar. In honor of Barry J. Blake. 1998. 395 pp. 37 Giacalone-Ramat, Anna and Paul J. Hopper (eds.): The Limits of Grammaticalization. 1998. vi, 307 pp. 36 Newman, John (ed.): The Linguistics of Giving. 1998. xv, 373 pp. 35 Givón, T. (ed.): Grammatical Relations. A functionalist perspective. 1997. viii, 350 pp. 34 Givón, T. (ed.): Conversation. Cognitive, communicative and social perspectives. 1997. viii, 302 pp. 33 Fox, Barbara A. (ed.): Studies in Anaphora. 1996. xii, 518 pp. 32 Bybee, Joan and Suzanne Fleischman (eds.): Modality in Grammar and Discourse. 1995. viii, 575 pp. 31 Gernsbacher, Morton Ann and T. Givón (eds.): Coherence in Spontaneous Text. 1995. x, 267 pp. 30 Downing, Pamela A. and Michael Noonan (eds.): Word Order in Discourse. 1995. x, 595 pp. 29 Kahrel, Peter (PJK) and René van den Berg (eds.): Typological Studies in Negation. 1994. x, 385 pp. 28 Givón, T. (ed.): Voice and Inversion. 1994. viii, 402 pp. 27 Fox, Barbara A. and Paul J. Hopper (eds.): Voice: Form and Function. 1994. xiii, 377 pp. 26 Lord, Carol: Historical Change in Serial Verb Constructions. 1993. x, 273 pp. 25 Svorou, Soteria: The Grammar of Space. 1994. xiv, 290 pp. 24 Perkins, Revere D.: Deixis, Grammar, and Culture. 1992. x, 245 pp. 23 Kemmer, Suzanne: The Middle Voice. 1993. xii, 300 pp. 22 Payne, Doris L. (ed.): Pragmatics of Word Order Flexibility. 1992. viii, 320 pp. 21 Downing, Pamela A., Susan D. Lima and Michael Noonan (eds.): The Linguistics of Literacy. 1992. xx, 334 pp. 20 Croft, William, Suzanne Kemmer and Keith Denning (eds.): Studies in Typology and Diachrony. Papers presented to Joseph H. Greenberg on his 75th birthday. 1990. xxxiv, 243 pp. 19:2 Closs Traugott, Elizabeth and Bernd Heine (eds.): Approaches to Grammaticalization. Volume II. Types of grammatical markers. 1991. xii, 558 pp. 19:1 Closs Traugott, Elizabeth and Bernd Heine (eds.): Approaches to Grammaticalization. Volume I. Theoretical and methodological issues. 1991. xii, 360 pp. 18 Haiman, John and Sandra A. Thompson (eds.): Clause Combining in Grammar and Discourse. 1988. xiii, 428 pp. 17 Hammond, Michael, Edith A. Moravcsik and Jessica Wirth (eds.): Studies in Syntactic Typology. 1988. xiv, 380 pp. 16 Shibatani, Masayoshi (ed.): Passive and Voice. 1988. xi, 706 pp.
