Deontic Modality Research Articles

Mandative verbs and deontic modals in Russian: Between obligatory control and overt embedded subjects

The paper presents and examines a previously undescribed puzzle concerning the syntactic distribution of Russian mandative verbs (velet’ ‘order’, razrešit’ ‘allow’) and non-verbal deontic modals: these predicates exhibit dual behavior as they embed non-finite clauses with either implicit obligatorily controlled (PRO) or overt referential (DP) subjects. The ambiguity holds for the same native speakers and no detectable difference in terms of the Tense – Agreement characteristics can be found between infinitival constituents with DP/PRO subjects. To account for this phenomenon, I propose, first, to analyze mandative verbs as lexical realizations of a verb of communication that embeds a silent deontic modal head; the latter, in turn, takes a clausal proposition as its complement. Second, I demonstrate that the reported DP/PRO alternation is described by the following generalization: An embedded overt referential subject is allowed only when there is no potential dative DP controller available within the higher clause. In the spirit of the traditional Case theory, I argue that an embedded lexical subject must be Case licensed, and, since non-finite clauses are Case deficient, licensing may only be done by a higher (matrix) functional head, namely Appl0, which normally introduces an obligation Holder; thus, matrix Holders and lexical embedded subjects end up competing to receive Case from the same functional head. Finally, I show that, as no true subject raising happens, Case assignment proceeds long-distance over a CP boundary.

Modality in English And Kurdish: A Contrastive Study

This study attempts a contrastive analysis of modality between English and Kurdish. The problem of the study is attributed to the difficulties faced by Kurdish learners and students at the Translation and English Departments at the College of Languages at the University of Duhok regarding mastering English modality in general and modal auxiliary verbs in particular. Modality is the category of meaning which is employed to express necessities and possibilities. The main aims of this study are to describe both epistemic and deontic modality in the two languages under study in order to define similarities and differences between them with respect to modality. The findings of the study show that modals in English are mostly grammatical auxiliaries, whereas in Kurdish they are mostly lexical items, and a variety of lexical items are employed for the expression of one single English modal auxiliary. The study ends up with a number of conclusions and recommendations.

Penggunaan Modal Verbs Bahasa Inggris dalam Ketrampilan Berbicara

This research discusses the form of modality and the meaning of modality in English learning process using role play method. This research discusses the form of modality and the meaning of modality in English learning process using role play method. Objective to describe the form of modality and to explain the meaning of modality. The form of modality that is used in speaking is deontic modality with the modal verbs such as “must, has to atau have to, should, can/could” and the meanings of modality which are found, are order/necessity modality and permission modality. Descriptive qualitative with equal pragmatic methods. The data were taken from the conversation of role play which contained modal verbs. The sampling of the research were used randomly when the nursing students did role play of giving health education with diet program theme. firstly, the main form of modality in the conversation of role play using modal verb “can and will”. Secondly the meaning of modality which is often found in conversation of role play is deontic modality for asking permission. The nursing students are able to use English modal verbs correctly in role play learning process.

Negotiating dominance on Facebook: Positioning of self and others in pro- and anti-Trump comments on immigration

The article examines the use of the modal auxiliaries MUST and HAVE (GOT) TO in politically charged online communication. Comments from D. Trump’s official Facebook page were categorized according to the ideological position of the commenters and further divided into employing deontic or epistemic senses of the modals. The analysis was based on the assumption that the proportion of epistemic and deontic modals in the supportive and critical comments reflects the stances of equality or superiority assumed by the commenters. The hypothesis that pro- and anti-Trump camps assume different stances while debating immigration was confirmed as the proportion of deontic and epistemic senses of the modals differed significantly between the two groups. There were also differences in the use of passive voice referring to in- and out- groups. The results are used to make inferences about the underlying ideology of Trump supporters and the prevalent attitudes in the population under study.

A Genre Approach to the Translation of Political Speeches Based on a Chinese-Italian-English Trilingual Parallel Corpus

Using a trilingual parallel corpus, this article investigates the translation of Chinese political speeches in Italian and English, with the aim to explore cross-linguistic variations regarding translation shifts of key functional elements in the genre of political speeches. The genre-based methodology includes a rhetorical move analysis, which is used to highlight key functional elements of the genre, and a functional grammar analysis of translation shifts of the lexico-grammatical elements identified in the previous stage. The findings show that the core communicative function of the genre is “Proposing deontic statements,” and modality of obligation is essential for the realization of this rhetorical function. Afterwards, the analysis of translation shifts of deontic modality reveals that the English translation is characterized by higher modality value shifts in comparison to the Italian translation. This difference may be related to the degree of autonomy in translation choice and understanding of the communicative purposes of the translation genre. In terms of methodological implications, this functionalist approach attempts to providing insights into the communicative purposes of the translation genre by focusing on how key functional elements are translated.

현대중국어 ‘不能’의 의무양태 의미 연구

현대중국어 ‘不能’의 의무양태 의미 연구

Hedging as an Indicator of Disciplinary Variation in Pakistani Academic Discourse: A Corpus Based Study

Hedging is a pragmatic phenomenon which is practiced to signal interpersonal communication. In academic discourse, hedges are used to signal writers’ presence in a text. This article explores the use of hedges particularly with reference to epistemic and deontic modality markers—important and frequently used types of hedges-- in Pakistani research dissertations belonging to three major disciplines: Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities. The material is based on a special purpose corpus of Pakistani academic writing developed with 235 M.phil and PhD research theses. To find out the frequencies of modal verbs AntConc 3.5.6 was used. All the frequencies were listed and every 50th example was analysed using the theoretical distinction between epistemic and deontic modality outlined by Biber et al. (1999). Statistical analysis of the data reveals, that disciplinary affiliation has a considerable influence on the proportion of epistemic and deontic modality

Changes in the modal domain in different varieties of English as potential effects of democratization

One well-investigated recent change in English that has been linked to democratization is the ongoing change in the modal domain, which is characterized by a decline of some of the core modals (such as may, might, must) and a rise of the so-called semi-modals (such as be able to, have to, have got to) (cf. Leech, 2003; Mair and Leech, 2006; Leech, 2013). This process is advanced to different degrees in different varieties of English (cf. Collins, 2009a/b). Although a correlation between a society's decreasing attention to social hierarchies and changes in the use of markers of modality is intuitively convincing, there is still a lack of empirical studies linking the two phenomena.The present paper represents a first step to fill this gap by combining corpus-based and variational pragmatic methodology. Focusing on three varieties of English (British, American and Indian English), we first investigate the frequency differences in the use of the core modals in GloWbE (Corpus of Global Web-Based English). This traditional corpus-linguistic approach is supplemented by the use of discourse completion tasks (DCTs) to collect instances of requests, a speech act in which deontic modals are likely to be used. By collecting data in the respective varieties from 172 speakers belonging to a younger and an older group, we can analyze synchronic variation as well as diachronic change based on apparent-time data.The results confirm previous findings on the use of modals in different varieties of English to a large extent. Furthermore, we found the core modals’ different rates of decline to be mirrored broadly in their different frequencies of occurrence in the DCT. Interesting differences between the two L1 varieties and the L2 variety investigated are brought to light.

Do + subjunctive, future reference and modality in Albanian

The aim of this paper is to unravel the use of do + subjunctive form as one of the future markers in the Albanian language, as well as its uses where overt modal nuances are expressed. Do + subjunctive form, also known as the voluntative, is one of the future markers in the Albanian language. Even though its main function is the expression of the future, there are some of its uses in which various significant modal nuances are expressed. Thus, do + subjunctive can be used to express epistemic modality (an assumption), deontic modality (an order or a promise), and dynamic modality (volition). It can also be used in conditional structures, in their apodosis, and protasis, to express real and unreal conditions.

Property: A conceptual analysis

This paper aims to explicate the concept of property, regarded as the minimal sense of the word “property”, in ordinary as well as legal language. The main claim is that the concept of property consists in a set of one or more deontic modalities that regulate the relations between persons in connection with one or more goods. The concept of property is then distinguished from differing conceptions of property, and its relations with other legal concepts are analysed. Then, some observations on the criteria for applying the concept and on the transferability of property are presented. Finally, the utility of the knowledge of the concept of property is discussed.

PREPONDERANT MODALITY IN STUDENTS� ENGAGING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS

Expressing modality in Appraisal is cordially expected to be prevalent in argumentative writings in that writers in the Engagement System set up negotiation or alternative points of views. Three conveniently selected student-writers� hortatory argumentative essays in English in which they were course-instructed in an accredited language institution were linguistically analyzed as to pinpoint their aptness to employ particular modality, furthermore to discuss the feasible resource factors on their employment. It was found out that they were prone to be lack of commitment as they delivered their stances, therefore attempting the readers to be engaged in an argumentative discourse to construe the meanings. Subsequently, they had difficulty in manipulating epistemic and deontic modality, owning mundane syntactic constructions and imparting limited device ranges. Therefore, applicably explicit genre-based instructions are in the need, bearing in mind the factual functions of modality in arguability of the utterances as well the resourceful linguistic features of modality.

Yükümlülük kipliği ve klasik Türkçe tıp metinleri ilişkisi

Tıp metinlerinin yükümlülük kipliği için uygun metin türlerinden biri olduğu varsayımına dayananan bu çalışmanın konusu klasik Türkçe tıp metinleri ile yükümlülük kipliği ilişkisidir. Çalışma, klasik Türkçe tıp metinleri, yükümlülük kipliğinin kullanımına uygun mudur, klasik Türkçe tıp metinleri hangi özellikleri yönüyle yükümlülük kipliği ile ilişkilendirilebilir, klasik Türkçe tıp metinleri yükümlülük kipliği kiplik alanlarından hangisine dâhil edilmelidir temel sorularından oluşmaktadır. Bu temel sorular, 14. ve 19. yüzyıllar arasında yazılmış 10 klasik Türkçe tıp metninden örneklerle cevaplandırılmaya çalışılmıştır. Çalışmada, yükümlülük kipliğinin alanyazınında kabul görmüş yönleri ile tıp metinlerinin özellikleri karşılaştırılmıştır. Karşılaştırmanın yapılacağı ölçek konumundaki yükümlülük kipliğinin temel unsurları (sınırları, tanımı, kipliğin kaynağı ve kiplik alanı gibi), Palmer, van der Auwera-Plungian, Erk Emeksiz, Corcu Gül, Papafragou, Kratzer, Bybee-Perkins-Pagliuca ve Nuyts-Byloo-Diepeveen’in görüşleri ile belirlenmiştir. Çalışmada klasik Türkçe tıp metinlerinin, yükümlülük kipliği ile ilgili tüm tartışmaları içerecek örneklere ve kullanımlara sahip bir metin türü olduğu ortaya çıkmıştır. Buna göre klasik Türkçe tıp metinlerinde konuşur yani hekim, tedavi olmak isteyen kişilere göre bilgisine güvenilen ve sağlık konusunda söz sahibi olan otorite konumundadır. Yükümlülük kipliği, ilgili kiplik türünün kiplik anlamlarının tamamını örneklendirebilir bir metin türüne sahiptir. Yine bu çalışmayla Papafragou’de ortaya konulan ve kısaca gereklilik ve zorunluluk kiplik alanları olarak belirtilen kiplik alanları içerisinde tıp metinlerinde rastlanan ve kanunlar ile kurallar gibi herkesi değil yalnızca ilgili durumdaki kişileri kapsayan yaptırımların hangi alana dâhil edileceği mevzusunun tartışmaya açık olduğu ortaya çıkmıştır. Böyle bir durum için Papafragou’nun alanlarına tıp ve sağlık başlığının ayrıca alınması gerektiği önerilmiştir.

Investigating the Semantic Development of Modal Markers: The Role of Context

The article tackles the problem of studying diachronic semantic changes of modal markers in Latin. It proposes to do so by using context as a proxy for tracing the development of otherwise unchanging forms. In the first part, the main theoretical positions in modality studies are presented, especially the notions of deontic modality, epistemic modality, and pathways of modality. In the second part, Heine’s model for studying the role of context in language change is presented and applied to the modal verb licet. In the case study of licet, an attempt is made to identify the so-called switch context which co-creates the conditions necessary for the semantic change.

A interpretação deôntica no Português Brasileiro: Um estudo de natureza experimental

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar as interpretações dos modais deônticos em Português Brasileiro (PB) com base em dois tipos de obrigação: ought-to-do e ought-to-be (Castañeda 1970; Feldman 1986). Em Hacquard (2006, 2010), ought-to-do e ought-to-be são interpretados em posições sintáticas diferentes: uma baixa, logo acima do VP, com o modal orientado para o sujeito; e outra alta, acima de Tense, com o modal orientado para um participante do evento de fala. A posição baixa é associada a modais de raiz; e a alta, ao deôntico ought-to-be e ao epistêmico. Neste trabalho, investigamos experimentalmente, por meio de um teste de aceitabilidade com falantes nativos de PB, a intuição de Rech e Varaschin (2018b), segundo a qual, em uma sequência de deônticos, o primeiro é sempre associado à interpretação ought-to-be. Os resultados mostram que a sequência em que dois modais são utilizados seguidos de uma segunda sentença que salienta a interpretação ought-to-do é julgada significativamente menos aceitável. Quando somente um modal é utilizado, as sentenças que salientam as duas interpretações deônticas são igualmente aceitáveis. Consideramos este resultado uma evidência de que o deôntico ought-to-be é interpretado na periferia esquerda da sentença, em interação com as relações discursivas de coerência.

Associations évoquées par le changement climatique chez des citoyens français et norvégiens

Communication related to climate change as well as to its consequences constitutes a major challenge; all the more so since climate is a non-observable phenomenon, in stark contrast to the weather. In this perspective, language plays a crucial role in the conceptualisation and the framing of climate change discourse.
 In this paper, French and Norwegian data stemming from representative surveys in the two countries are compared. The participants are asked to answer an open-ended question concerning their conceptions of the expression “climate change”. The French data are collected from a survey undertaken in 2016 by ELIPSS at the Sciences Po (Institut d'études politiques de Paris). The Norwegian data are generated from a survey undertaken in 2013 by the Norwegian Citizen Panel/DIGSSCORE, at the University of Bergen. The answers are first analysed through a semi-automated structural topic modeling (STM) and then assessed through an in-depth manual evaluation. Further linguistic and enunciative analyses are undertaken of a selection of the respondents’ answer provided by the surveys.
 Given the difference in the energy mix of the two countries, different associations are expected to appear from the French and the Norwegian participants. At the same time, with the common global dimension of climate change, it seems reasonable to expect some similar associations concerning the reality of the changes, the consequences and the measures of adaptation or mitigation proposed or undertaken by the two countries. These issues are discussed within the theoretical frame of enunciation, including perspectives related to concession in a polyphonic perspective and to deontic modality.

Hyperintensionality of Deontic Modals: An Argument from Analogy

Hyperintensionality of Deontic Modals: An Argument from Analogy

Identifying Obligation in Legal Finnish and Swedish through English Translations: A Corpus-Assisted Approach

Even though deontic modality is one central feature of statutory texts, codifying obligation, the descriptions of obligation in Finnish legal texts are still few. This corpus-assisted study of Finnish statutory texts has an innovative approach in using English translations as a starting point for identifying the linguistic forms obligation takes in Finnish statutory texts. Beyond describing Finnish deontic modality, we look at ways it has been translated into legally valid Swedish statutes, paying special attention on existing instructions for translators. The results show that, in addition to explicitly modal expressions, Finnish statutory texts express obligation frequently using the present indicative. In Swedish, there is a range of options, but there, too, the use of the present indicative is common. Based on this study, using English translations to identify such cases for further study is a viable option. The results of the study can be applied in translator training as well as in the work of legal translators.

USING DEONTIC MODALITY IN MAZE RUNNER (THE DEATH CURE) MOVIE

The objectives of this research are to identify the types of deontic modality and the meaning of utterances that found in The Maze Runner (The Death Cure) movie. This research used script only from the movie entitled The Maze Runner (The Death Cure) that had been analyzed by the researcher. The research used descriptive as a research design and qualitative method as a research methodology. Therefore, the data of this research was in the form of utterances that was performed by the cast in The Maze Runner (The Death Cure) movie. The research data were collected by taking the movie script from the internet. The collected data were analyzed by Saeed’s theory. The finding revealed that there are two types of deontic modality found in utterances performed by the cast of The Maze Runner (The Death Cure) movie namely; Obligation and permission. The meaning of utterances that belongs to obligation means that someone have to do what the speaker said. While the meaning of utterances that belongs to permission means that someone’s incumbency to authorized somebody else to do something. Keywords: Deontic modality, The Maze Runner (The Death Cure), Semantics

TYPES OF DEONTIC AGENT IN POLITICAL SPEECH (ON THE MATERIAL OF GERMAN AND RUSSIAN LANGUAGES)

This study is dedicated to the problem of semantic and functional variability of deontic constructions. Deontic is an invariant characteristic of any discourse, which, depending on its type, organizes modal structures in different ways. In relation to the actions of an obligatory change in the state of affairs in the world, this modality is expressed by a statement in which there are two plans: informative, (action to perform) and deontic, including information about various factors that require creating a different state of affairs, about the nature of the modal attitude to action (mandatory, prohibited or permitted) and about the performer of the action, i.e. about the modal source, modal force and modal agents. The functional features of deontic expressions and the various combinations and variations of their components depend on the type of discourse. In this paper the types of modal agents in the nuclear genre of political discourse political speeches in German and Russian linguistic cultures are described using contextual analysis. The study shows that the set of deontic agents is predetermined by this discursive practice, its functional and system-forming characteristics, and has a similarity in the implementation of a modal agent regardless of linguoculture. The method of functional-semantic description reveals that various types of deontic agents, their variability and semantic flexibility allow deontic utterances to realize different functions, thus determining the peculiarity of deontic modality in political discourse.

Is Chinese English Majors’ Tendency to Use Modal Sequences Better with the Passing of Their College Campus Time？

Based on the result of the trends of modal sequences in Chinese English majors’ argumentation, this research focuses on the relationship between English majors’ tendency to use modal sequences and their college campus time. The paper reveals that the tendency to use modal verbs is not related to their college campus time, and that epistemic and deontic modality to uses are not related to their college campus time, either. This study offers reference to the understanding of how Chinese students acquire modal verbs and gives suggestions for modal verb teaching which are the following: (1) We should bear in mind when compiling textbooks that more exposure to epistemic modal verbs with euphemism modality for students is needed in early senior high textbooks; (2) Native speakers’ tendency to use modal verbs should be explicitly clarified in class; (3) native speakers tend to use should be consciously presented both in and after class; (4) The proper pragmatic meaning of modal verbs, the basic value view and social philosophy of Anglo-American Culture involved as well as the differences in cultural tradition and value between East and West should be underlined in English modal verbs teaching.