Modality in Typological Perspective

248 Pages·2008·1.86 MB·English

Modality in Typological
Perspective
ILLC Dissertation Series DS-2008-08
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Modality in Typological
Perspective
Academisch Proefschrift
ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor
aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam
op gezag van de Rector Magnificus
prof. dr. D.C. van den Boom
ten overstaan van een door het college voor promoties ingestelde
commissie, in het openbaar te verdedigen in de Agnietenkapel
op donderdag 4 september 2008, te 10.00 uur
door
Fabrice Dominique Nauze
geboren te Mont-de-Marsan,
Frankrijk
Promotiecommissie
Promotor: prof. dr. F.J.M.M. Veltman
Co-promotor: prof. dr. P.C. Hengeveld
Overige leden:
prof. dr. M. Bittner
prof. dr. P.C. Muysken
prof. dr. M.J.B. Stokhof
prof. dr. J. van der Auwera
dr. H.H. Zeijlstra
Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen
Copyright (cid:13)c 2008 by Fabrice Nauze
Cover design by Nicolas Nauze.
Printed and bound by PrintPartners Ipskamp, Enschede.
ISBN: 978-90-9023343-7
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Typology and modality 7
1.1 Typology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.1.1 Variation in the languages of the world . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.1.2 Language comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.1.3 Three steps of typology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.1.4 Language sample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.1.5 Language universals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2 Typologies of modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.2.1 Palmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.2.2 Hengeveld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.2.3 Van der Auwera and Plungian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.2.4 Typology of modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2 Typological investigation of six modal systems 19
2.1 Dutch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.1.1 Dutch modal system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.1.2 Combinations of modal items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.2 Fon cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.2.1 Fon modal system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.2.2 Combinations of modal items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
2.3 Korean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.3.1 Korean modal system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.3.2 Combinations of modal items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
2.4 Lillooet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
2.4.1 Lillooet modal system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
v
2.4.2 Combinations of modal items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
2.5 Turkish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
2.5.1 Turkish modal system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
2.5.2 Combinations of modal items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
2.6 Tuvaluan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
2.6.1 Tuvaluan modal system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
2.6.2 Combinations of modal items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
2.7 Typological conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
2.7.1 Participant-internal modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
2.7.2 Participant-external modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
2.7.3 Epistemic modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
2.7.4 Combinations of modal items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
2.7.5 Polyfunctionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
3 Formal semantics of modality 131
3.1 Kratzer’s semantics of modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
3.1.1 Relative modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
3.1.2 Double relativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
3.1.3 Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
3.2 Extensions of the standard framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
3.2.1 Goal-oriented modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
3.2.2 Modals and conditionals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
3.2.3 Brennan: the epistemic/root distinction . . . . . . . . . . 146
4 Some problems of the standard framework 153
4.1 Polyfunctionality and context-dependence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
4.1.1 Ineffability of conversational backgrounds . . . . . . . . . . 154
4.1.2 Non-polyfunctional modals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
4.1.3 Polyfunctional modals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
4.1.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
4.2 Participant-internal modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
4.2.1 Asymmetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
4.2.2 Disjunctive abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
4.2.3 Inference from epistemic modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
4.3 Participant-external modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
4.3.1 The content of a deontic ordering source . . . . . . . . . . 163
4.3.2 Zvolenszky’s problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
4.3.3 Goal-oriented modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
4.4 Combinations of modals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
vi
5 Update semantics framework 181
5.1 Epistemic and deontic modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
5.1.1 Epistemic above deontic modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
5.1.2 In the scope of deontic modals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
5.2 Goal-oriented and participant-internal modality . . . . . . . . . . 204
5.2.1 Goal-oriented modality: a first sketch . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
5.2.2 Participant-internal modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Conclusion 219
List of abbreviations 225
Samenvatting 227
Bibliography 229
vii

Acknowledgments
One piece of advice I can give to any new PhD student is to start right away with
the writing of their acknowledgements. As you might expect, it is too late for
me to follow this advice; for all those I forget to mention, my sincere apologies.
However as the process of writing this dissertation finally comes to an end, a
certain number of names come to mind as having been of importance in this long
journey.
First and foremost, I would like to thank my promotors Frank Veltman and
Kees Hengeveld. Frank Veltman gave me the opportunity to be a PhD student
under his guidance: for that I cannot thank him enough. I have truly enjoyed and
benefited from each of our numerous discussions and his patience and sense of
humor have always been a great support. Through our contact I’ve learned that
one of the greatest joys of academics is to have the freedom to build your own
luchtkastelen. The first two chapters would never have been possible without
the help of Kees Hengeveld. With him I discovered the gentle art of reading
descriptive grammars and the pleasures of discussing exotic languages.
Quite a lot of people helped me with the second chapter of this disserta-
tion. Some are teachers, others scholars; some are native speakers, others second-
language speakers; some corresponded with me by email, others spent hours re-
sponding to my questions in person; I am very much indebted to all of them:
Enoch Aboh (Fon), Young-Mee Choi and Sana Song of the Korean School Ams-
terdam and Robert Cloutier (Korean), Jan van Eijk and Henry Davis (Lillooet),
Margreet Dorleijn (Turkish) and Niko Besnier (Tuvaluan).
Writing a dissertation and studying semantics is really gratifying but can
sometimes be a lonely business. I have been lucky to be surrounded by many
great colleagues always ready for discussion (the second floor of the Philosophy
Department is hereby thanked). For the present work, I have greatly benefited
from the insights of Rosja Mastop, Katrin Schulz, Paul Dekker, Robert van Rooij
and Kai von Fintel.
IwouldliketothankeveryoneattheILLCandatthePhilosophyDepartment.
ix
A particular mention should go to Ingrid van Loon and Dick de Jong for giving
me the chance to follow the Master of Logic program at the ILLC, to Michiel van
Lambalgenwho, tomygreatpleasure, supervisedmyMastersthesisandtoTikitu
de Jager who took it on himself to proofread this dissertation under great time
pressure (of course, he cannot be held responsible for any remaining mistakes).
Finally, my sincere gratitude and best wishes go to all the people without
whom this dissertation would have been finished a long time ago.
Amsterdam Fabrice Nauze
July, 2008.
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