Modality in English: Theory and Description

✍ Scribed by Johan van der Auwera, Pierre Busuttil

• Publisher: Mouton de Gruyter
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 391
• Series: Topics in English Linguistics 58
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This volume presents strongly empirical, corpus-based studies of a range of English modal auxiliaries and modal constructions in specific uses. It also approaches some of the classic issues in the field of modality from new perspectives, notably that of the ??;Theory of Enunciative Operations?? developed by the French linguist Antoine Culioli and his colleagues.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover Page......Page 1
Topics in English Linguistics 58......Page 3
Title Page......Page 4
ISBN 9783110196344......Page 5
Contents......Page 6
Introduction......Page 8
Towards a typology of modality in language......Page 16
‘Not-yet-factual at time t’: a neglected modal concept......Page 38
Semantic ascent, deixis, intersubjectivity and modality......Page 62
Degrees of modality......Page 86
Another look at modals and subjectivity......Page 112
For a topological representation of the modal system of English......Page 130
Epistemic might in the interrogative......Page 152
MAY in concessive contexts......Page 166
When may means must: deontic modality in English statute construction......Page 184
Legal English and the ‘modal revolution’......Page 206
Posteriority in expressions with must and have to: a case of interplay between syntax, semantics and pragmatics......Page 218
Using the adjectives surprised/surprising to express epistemic modality......Page 230
Commitment and subjectivity in the discourse of a judicial inquiry......Page 244
Hearsay adverbs and modality......Page 276
When Yes means No, and other hidden modalities......Page 302
Modality and the history of English adhortatives......Page 322
On the “great modal shift” sustained by come to VP......Page 356
List of contributors......Page 382
Author index......Page 384
Subject index......Page 387