Two types of peripheral adjunct WHATs

This study investigates two types of adjunct WHATs merged at peripheral positions in Chinese. The L-WHAT is merged within VP and denotes a why-interpretation with an aggressive, prohibitive force. The H-WHAT is merged at the left periphery of a sentence and is exclusively used in expressing a speaker’s refutatory force without interrogativity. The two WHATs are encoded with different modalities: the L-WHAT with root modality while the H-WHAT with epistemic modality. It is proposed that the interpretations of the two types of WHATs are compositionally derived from the modality and speaker force. This study not only explores the origins of different interpretations of adjunct WHATs, but also advances a uniform approach in mapping the speaker force onto syntax.

The subjunctive in main clauses

This chapter deals with the frequency development of the subjunctive and its competitors as well as with their distribution across text categories in main clauses in the periods Old English (OE), Middle English (ME), and Early Modern English (EModE). The results of the analysis of these parameters are interpreted as a change from a preferred weak type of root modality in OE to a strong type in ME, which is reversed in EModE. A more or less continuous frequency decrease of subjunctives from OE until late ME contrasts with a frequency rise of modal contructions and imperatives. Yet the frequency rise of imperatives is reversed in ME. The subjunctive is the preferred realisation of the verbal syntagms in text category STA (legislative texts) in all periods. The other text categories with big shares of relevant verbal syntagms have changing preferences of their realisations.

The subjunctive in adjectival relative clauses

This chapter deals with the frequency development of the subjunctive and its competitors, namely indicatives and modal constructions, in adjectival relative clauses in the historical periods Old English (OE), Middle English (ME), and Early Modern English (EModE). Additionally, it discusses the linguistic and extralinguistic parameters influencing their distribution across these periods. The analysis of a corpus comprising nearly 3,000 relative clauses reveals that the subjunctive in adjectival relative clauses died out in the 16th century, that it was best preserved in text category STA containing legislative texts, and that it was favoured in combination with wh-relative markers and in constructions characterized by modal harmony, i.e. in combination with matrix clauses with verbal syntagms expressing root modality.

Animation of grammar – Interplay of cognitive linguistics and multimedia learning: The example of German modal auxiliaries

This article explores German modal auxiliaries as a means of expressing root modality from a cognitive linguistic point of view. Special attention is paid to the educational aspect in the context of teaching German as a foreign language. The article presents an innovative didactic concept for German modal auxiliaries based on the cognitive linguistic approach and implemented through animations. The effectiveness of this concept was tested in an empirical study, the findings of which also presented and discussed in the article.

On root modality and thematic relations in Tagalog and English

The literature on modality discusses how context and grammar interact to produce different flavors of necessity primarily in connection with functional modals e.g. English auxiliaries. Hence the grammatical properties of lexical modals (i.e. thematic verbs) are less understood. In this paper, we use the Tagalog necessity modal kailangan and English need as a case study in the syntax-semantics of lexical modals. Kailangan and need enter two structures, which we call ‘thematic’ and ‘impersonal’. We show that when they establish a thematic dependency with a subject, they express necessity in light of this subject’s priorities, and in the absence of an overt thematic subject, they express necessity in light of priorities endorsed by the speaker. To account for this syntax-flavor mapping, we propose a single lexical entry for kailangan / need that uniformly selects for a ‘needer’ argument. In thematic constructions, the needer is the overt subject, and in impersonal constructions, it is an implicit speaker-bound pronoun.

Verbal and Non-Verbal Markers of Root Modality in EU Maritime Affairs and Fisheries vs. Agriculture and Rural Development Reports and Studies: An Overview

This paper examines different options used by writers in reports and studies to control information from two departments of the European Commission: EU Maritime Affairs and Fisheries and Agriculture and Rural Development, using the web as corpus. These two Directorates or Commissions have the power of initiative, are responsible for policy formulation and policy implementation. Two comparable sub-corpora of reports and studies have been selected from the two Directorates. Fifteen markers related to key areas of root modal expression are presented: modal-evaluative adjectives like essential, necessary, suitable and appropriate (Van linden 2012); the semi- modals (e.g. have to, be able to, be supposed to, need to) (Leech et al. 2009); the emerging modal want to (Verplaetse 2010) and expressions with comparative adverbs (e.g. had better, would rather) (van der Auwera et al. 2013). The study of these markers reveals that shared norms and action in these two EU areas are constantly collectively established. Root modals are one of the rhetorical strategies of legitimization and persuasion used in EU’s political discourse by the different parties involved.