Modal Meanings Research Articles

THE EXPRESSION OF MODAL MEANINGS IN SUBSTANTIVE TWO-PART SENTENCES (N1 NEG СОР N1) WITH DEVERBATIVES IN THE NOMINAL PART OF A PREDICATE

The paper deals with the modality of nominal sentence of phraseological model with deverbative and particle «not» in the predicate. The role of the negative particle in the interaction with different ways of deverbative formation in the formation of expression and subjective modal meanings in sentences of this type is considered, the connection of modal meanings with the category of the person.

How sentence type influences the interpretation of Spanish future constructions

AbstractIt is well known that Spanish futurizing morphology is frequently used not to express futurity, but instead to formulate a hypothesis, i.e. express epistemic modality. Although this is possible with both synthetic or periphrastic future marking, the synthetic future tense is more likely to express an epistemic reading than the periphrastic future. This paper explores the relationship between futurizing morphology and sentence type on the basis of a quantitative analysis of aboutn = 2,700 tokens of synthetic and periphrastic ‘future’ constructions in spoken conversations from Madrid, Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile. On the basis of a bottom-up classification of these tokens regarding their potential to express modal meanings, we demonstrate that polar and partial futurizing interrogatives are more likely to display modal meanings and associated rhetorical effects than futurizing declaratives. This effect is even stronger for synthetic future constructions, due to a conventionalization of specific form-function pairings. Finally, we also document substantial dialectal variation in the use of futurizing morphology.

Сравнительный анализ вспомогательных глаголов в составе аналитических конструкций в разноструктурных языках (на материале французского, английского, русского, татарского)

The paper aims to determine allomorphic and isomorphic features of auxiliary verbs in various analytical constructions. The study is novel in that it identifies shared and distinct semantic meanings and structural components of analytical constructions in different languages, simultaneously creating a common field of variability. As a result, it has been proved that the number of auxiliary verbs ranges from 1 to 4 in the studied languages, with only a single verb being completely desemantised. The semantic field of verbal analytical constructions includes core temporal, aspectual and modal meanings along with specific peripheral ones. Using the example of the verb “to go”, the researcher ascertains the correlation between quantitative indicators and the level of desemantisation of the auxiliary verb and proves that the ratio to the use in the literal meaning varies over a wide range in the four languages: French, English, Russian, Tatar.

Способы выражения модальности в среднеанглийском и ранненовоанглийском языке (на материале Библии Джона Виклифа и Библии короля Якова)

The study aims to describe ways of modality expression by peripheral modal verbs in John Wycliffe’s Bible and the King James Bible. The paper describes modality types, identifies ways of modality expression in Middle English and Early Modern English, defines the notion of peripheral modal verbs, as well as characterises the ways in which they express modality in the diachronic aspect. The work is novel in that it is the first to characterise linguistic means and ways of conveying modal meanings by peripheral modal verbs, using the language of the Bible, which makes it possible to trace language variability in a relatively unchanged text. As a result, it has been proved that Early Modern English peripheral modal verbs correspond to the modal verb “schal” or a verb in the subjunctive mood with certain shifts in meaning in Middle English.

MEANS OF EXPRESSION OF THE CATEGORY OF PROBABILITY IN MODERN SPANISH AND ITALIAN LANGUAGES

The article is dedicated to the study of the functioning of language means, which in the primary or secondary function are able to express the modality of probability in modern Spanish and Italian languages. We consider the category of probability as a kind of modal category both in terms of logical (epistemic) modality, functional grammar, and from the standpoint of the theory of linguistic communication. Probability as a kind of modality is one of the most common types of modality with a large gradation of semantic meanings - from complete ignorance to complete confidence. The range of language tools that can express this kind of subjective modality in Spanish and Italian seems vast. It is a functional-semantic category that combines different levels of language: modal adverbs, modal verbs, fixed syntactic constructions, forms of such moods as indicativo, subjuntivo, condicional in Spanish and indicativo, congiuntivo, condizionale in Italian, two forms of the future tense in both languages that are able to develop this modal meaning. All of them can interact with each other, reinforcing the studied modal significance. And so it is possible to express various gradation of probability. Due to the functional-semantic approach to the study of this category on the material of different languages, functional-semantic fields with central and peripheral zones were created. The structuring of these fields became possible due to the separation of primary and secondary probability modalities in the studied units. It seems that everything has already been said about this category, but a new round of interest in logical modality, adapting the concept of possible worlds to the category of probability, again raised the question of its content and caused the need to defend the fact that linguistic modality, although based on logical modality, does not identify with it.

Admirative Category with an Assessment of Possibility and Motivation in Russian and Persian Interrogative Sentences

In Russian and Persian, the category of indirect evidentiality points out to some unreliable source of information. The category of admirativity expresses unexpected and new information gained by the speaker. Such interrogative sentences convey combine admirativity with diff erent modal meanings. Foreign students of Russian often fi nd it hard to distinguish these meanings in Russian interrogative sentences. The authors compared Russian and Persian interrogative sentences and the linguistics tools that refl ect the admirative category with an assessment of modal meanings of possibility and motivation. This is the fi rst research of the category of admirativity in the Persian language and the fi rst publication on the comparison of Russian and Persian interrogative sentences, as well as on the relationship between admirativity and modal meanings in Russian and Persian interrogative sentences. The research objective was to perform a comparative analysis of admirativity in Russian and Persian interrogative sentences and to study the situations in which this meaning conveys the surprise of the speaker from the availability or lack of possibility to perform a certain action. In both languages, admirativity can accompany the feeling of motivation in the subject of the speech act. The findings can be useful in teaching Russian as a foreign language.

Towards a chronology of the modal particles : the diachronic spread in the Ancient Greek mood system

Research on the modal particles in Ancient Greek has mostly focused on speculations on their prehistory based on Homeric Greek or generalizing about their synchronic distributions (esp. in Classical Greek). Instead, this article details the diachronic spread of the modal particles in different modal constructions from Archaic to Classical Greek. It highlights those cases where its obligatory presence resulted in a different modal meaning (e.g. counterfactual and habitual usages) and critically discusses those cases of optional presence in Archaic and Classical Greek that prescriptivist grammarians have discouraged (e.g. with the future indicative and potential optative). Focusing on innovations allows us to (re)construct a chronology of the modal particles and their diachronic role in the Ancient Greek mood system, e.g. the replacement of the counterfactual optative by the indicative and its subsequent syntactic spread, and the creation of the past habitual and generic indicative replacing the habitual and generic optative (commonly dubbed 'iterative'). Finally, it is suggested that a similar diachronic approach which distinguishes between obligatory and optional presence could clarify the distribution of the modal particles in more complex areas such as Homeric Greek or the Ancient Greek dialects.

German-Russian parallel corpus as an instrument for studying the modality of obligation: Оn semantic differences between müssen and sollen

The purpose of this article is to clarify the semantics of two German verbs expressing the modality of obligation (müssen and sollen) by comparing their translation equivalents from the German-Russian parallel subcorpus of the Russian National Corpus (RNC). These translation equivalents represent a set of Russian words and constructions with a potentially modal meaning, including those not recorded in bilingual and explanatory dictionaries. Some Russian lexical units are used as translation equivalents only for müssen or only for sollen, while others are preferred for one of these verbs, and this preference is not accidental. The distribution of translation equivalents indicates that the verb müssen expresses some absolute necessity, and sollen a kind of relational necessity. Relational necessity is established on the basis of certain correlations. In the ontological plane, it is the correlation represents some logic of the development of events. In the deontic plane, it is the will of another person or one’s own idea of causal relationships. In the communicative plane, it is someone else’s statement. The weakness of necessity, usually recognized as a feature of the modal meaning expressed by the verb sollen, as opposed to the more hard meaning of necessity expressed by müssen, is secondary: it is a potential effect of primordial relationality.

К вопросу о семантических разрядах вводных слов и сочетаний слов ингушского языка

The article presents a classification of introductory words and word combinations with the aim of their most complete presentation. In some of the categories of introductory words or word combinations, components have been added that have significantly expanded the series of introductory elements. Introductory words and word combinations that are functional for the modern vocabulary of the Ingush language, which were not previously taken into account, from the point of view of their structural and semantic organization, should take their place in the language system of this area of knowledge. The added layer of introductory words and word combinations, formally complicating the statement, introduces <<outside>> information (the meaning of subjective modality and other background connotations) into the sentence.

Cognitive-discursive features of functioning of the lexical means of modality in intersemiotic translation

Cognitive-discursive features of functioning of the lexical means of modality in intersemiotic translation

СИНТАКСИЧЕСКАЯ НЕПОДЧИНИМОСТЬ МОДАЛЬНЫХ СЛОВ С СУФФИКСОМ -WEISE В НЕМЕЦКОМ ЯЗЫКЕ

The purpose of the study is to substantiate from the idea of asymmetry which of the derivatives of modal words with the suffix -weise can occur in illocutionary dependent subordinate clauses after factive predicates in a matrix sentence, and which will be syntactically insubordinate. The purpose determined the following tasks to be solved: (1) to analyze the types of modal meanings conveyed by the modal words with the suffix -weise; (2) to identify similarities and dif-ferences of emotive and cognitive predicates; (3) to determine which of the modal words with the suffix -weise are syn-tactically subordinate to the factive predicates; (4) to describe the correlation between the modal specifics of these words and their syntactic subordination. The study has found that the derived modal words with the suffix -weise are heterogeneous in their semantics and can express evaluative, evidential and epistemic meaning. By using the corpus of the German language DWDS, the author shows that the position of the analyzed words in the object subordinate clauses after the emotive predicates bezweifeln, bedauern, bereuen in the matrix sentence is atypical, because their factivity is connected with the presumption that the proposition is true. These modal words show a confident tendency toward a propositional setting, combining indefinitely with factive verbs. Modal words with the suffix -weise demon-strate a freer syntactic compatibility after the cognitive semifactive verb wissen, which loses its factivity in certain con-texts and allows in this case an epistemic interpretation of the proposition. The paper notes that the syntactic insubor-dination of modal words is caused on the one hand by the specifics of emotive and cognitive factives, and on the other hand by the versatility of the semantics of modal words.

Modal analytical forms formed on the basis of participial forms ending with -ya, -yahin Yakut and -arin Tuvan

The article provides a comparative analysis of modal indicators in the Yakut and Tuvan languages. We are talking about analytical grammatical indicators that were formed on the basis of participial forms ending with -yahand -yain the Yakut language and the participle ending in -arin the Tuvan language. These participial forms are the main forms in the verb system of the compared languages; they are polyfunctional participles of the past tense. And it is the ability to express by them the attribution of an action (a sign of an action) to the sphere of time that has not passed that allows them to form on their basis a variety of modal meanings - ought, necessity, assumption, desire and unreality.

Evidentiality and other types readjusted: Interpersonal modality revisited

AbstractInterpersonal modality, bifurcating modalization and modulation, is an important construct of interpersonal meaning in the architecture of Systemic Functional Linguistics. By meticulously reviewing relevant studies from the perspectives of traditional modality and modality’s semantic map, three respects with respect to the system of interpersonal modality have been supplemented. Firstly, modalization, being subcategorized into possibility and usuality, is suggested to entertain evidentiality from the traditional sense. Secondly, considering the delicacy of the system of interpersonal modality, possibility in modalization should be further categorized into epistemic and root possibility; necessity as one subtype of modulation, superseding the original obligation in modulation, is subclassified into obligation and permission; inclination, being the other subtype of modulation, should be specified as the superordinate of volition and ability. Thirdly, the shifting of modal meanings from root possibility to epistemic possibility in modalization and from inclination to necessity in modulation should be clearly specified as far as language evolvement is concerned.

FEATURES OF MODAL WORDS IN THE ENGLISH AND UZBEK LANGUAGES

The scope of the category of modality in linguistics is extremely wide and is the object of the research, reflecting the rich aspects of communication. The concept of modality is considered as a category of meaning that expresses the attitude of a speaker to the content of the spoken word, to reality, that is, the objective reality is reflected in the mind of a speaker, and it expresses its attitude with the help of various semantic categories. The category of modality is widely used in lexicology, phraseology, word formation, morphology and linguistics of the text. Modal words are words that express the speaker's own opinion, attitude to events. This attitude is in terms of the clarity or ambiguity of an idea. With the help of modality, a meaningful connection is established between the external aspects of the expressed thought that are not related to the language, and the effectiveness of the connection with the event is achieved. Modal words are separated by a pause in speech and a comma in writing. When modal words are reused or accompanied by an emotionally significant word, the meaning is reinforced. More than one simple word may be used in colloquial speech. Modal words and words with modal meaning are closely related, and one of the current tasks of functional grammar is to define the characteristics of each of them. The presence of wide possibilities in the manifestation of the modal category, of course, indicates that this category is a universal phenomenon and its study is of great importance for understanding the essence of a language construction. In this article, the author analyzes the relationships of the language to the most complex and comprehensive category of modality in English and Uzbek, as well as the expression of the category of modality. Also, the examples analyzed in Gafur Gulam's story "A Naughty Boy" clearly show the diversity of attitudes towards this category.

Two traditions of studying modality: plan of expression

This article advances a hypothesis on the existence of two linguistic traditions of studying modality from the perspective of the plan of expression. The first tradition – the national one – stems from the works of V. V. Vinogradov. The second tradition – the foreign one – harks back to the studies of the philosophers and logicians. The author explores the views of the scholars of both traditions, concluding on their ways of expressing modality. It is noted that researchers use different principles of grouping the modal means; divide them into the markers of objective and subjective modality, epistemic and non-epistemic modality, grammatical and lexical, as well as implicit and explicit. At the same time, there is no uniform systemic representation on the ways of expressing modality in different languages or in a particular language (in this context – Russian). Solution to this problem requires demarcating modality and subjectivity as the different categories of modus. Modality is a way of expressing irreality of events with regards to semantics (current status of a sentence) and pragmatics (illocutive function of a statement). Subjectivity is a method of conveying emotional and mental attitudes of the speaker in relation to the content of his utterance, reality, as well as other parties to communication. Therefore, modal means should include the linguistic units, which introduce the irreal plan of the possibility and necessity. Leaning on such interpretation of the category, the author lists the means of expressing modality in the Russian language.

Urban identity and the image of the city in the communicative paradigm of toponymy

The scientific article is devoted to the consideration of the correlations of urban identity and the image of the city as an important symbolic aspect of such identity and urban toponymy. It is determined that the city dweller, constructing his own urban space, acquiring the status of a place, actualizes the images of "his city" (due to subjective experiences and memories, places that have personal significance for the city dweller) and "our city" (the subject is the urban community, for members which is characterized by self-identification with the values of this urban area). At the same time, in the formation of urban identity, attachment to a place is most significant, which is traditionally understood as a feeling of connection with a specific physical environment based on the meanings that are attached to this physical environment and activities in relation to this space. This attachment to the place allows you to establish a cognitive-emotional connection with the place, which determines both the emergence of a sense of security and belonging to "one's own group". The image of the city includes meanings that are significant for the individual and society, which allow identifying the territory as a place associated with the experience of urban identity. Urban identity for a person is filled with modal meanings, conditionally divided into positive and negative. Acceptance of urban space and knowledge of the area itself, its names and topoi determines the leading role of urban toponymy, which it plays in the communicative paradigm of the city. The special semiotic status of toponymy is determined by the historical, geographical and cultural content of the symbolic images reproduced by toponyms. The functioning of toponyms is influenced by the urban identity of a person or social group, objectified in the image of the city inherent in them

Who is Right, Who is Wrong? Interpreting 14 Points of Wilson – A Case Study of Deontic Modals and their Meanings

Abstract The document titled “14 points of Wilson” was announced by the President of the United States Woodrow Wilson in his speech addressed to the United States Congress on 8th January 1918. The speech is one of the most well known documents of the First World War as it touched upon several world issues. The text has been interpreted ever since in respect to the importance and real meaning of points formulated by Wilson. One of the points referred to Poland. The aim of the paper is to focus on the exponents of deontic modality used in that text of historical value and to find the answer to the question concerning the deontic value of each point. The analysis will encompass the principles of deontic logic as well as the meaning of deontic modals in legal discourse at the time of speech delivery as those 14 points should be classified as a text belonging to legal genres. The aim of the paper is to present the historical background and the linguistic analysis in order to find out whether historical facts, interpretations and language used correspond with one another.

On determination of the part-of-speech affiliation of modal words

The subject of this research is the part-of-speech affiliation of modal words – a special group of lexemes that are irreplaceable, syncategorematic, and lack formal unity. The author examines four most widespread approaches towards determination of the part-of-speech status of modal words, modal semantics, in particular, and the function of modal meaning; provides summary of the existing in Russian linguistics classifications of modal words, and lists their basic lexical-semantic categories. In the course of studying the genesis of modal words, the author correlates them with other parts of speech. For determination of the part-of-speech status, emphasis is placed on the degree of manifestation within this group of lexemes of semantic, morphological, syntactic and word-forming characteristics, namely the compliance of modal words with the listed criteria. The novelty consists in the analysis of the part-of-speech affiliation of modal words through the prism of the traditional semantic-syntactic approach, considering the formal-morphological aspect of modal words, which allows accumulating the avaliable knowledge on modal words, as well as compiling holistic representation on the nature of their origin and functionality. The research materials can be used in teaching morphology of the modern Russian language, as well as in preparation of lectures and textbooks on cognate disciplines. The conclusion is made that in synchrony, modal words represent an isolated group that is in-between of autosemantic and functional words. The recommendation to classify this group as a separate part of speech remains polemical; however, segregation of modal words in the grammatical system is unarguable.

The Transformation of Subjective and Objective Modality in English News Discourse from the Global Perspective——taking the US Media Reports on Japan’s Discharge of Nuclear Waste Water into the Sea as the Example

Modality system, an important part of the interpersonal function of discourse, is generally used to indicate the author’s cognition and attitude, which contributes the basic representation of subjectivization. Meanwhile, news discourse generally emphasizes the objectivity principle and the author’s subjective standpoint and opinion should be avoided. As the modality system may involve the modal meaning of objectivity in different contexts, it has the characteristic of subjective-objective transformation in discourse. Therefore, the modality system in the news text can be used to hide the author’s subjective ideology, but also can express its objectivity. Taking American media related reports on Japan’s nuclear waste water discharge into the sea as examples, this thesis explores the subjective-objective transformation of modality system in news reports.

Gramatykalizacje modalności w językach naturalnych na przykładzie japońskiego rzeczownika tsumori

Abstract The Japanese noun tsumori is used as the so-called formal noun and the head of syntactic nominalization. Its main meaning of ‘aim, intention’ is expressed through the basic sentence pattern of (suru) tsumori da. The modal meanings of this noun reveal close connections with the pragmatics of linguistic politeness and manifestation of attitudes in interpersonal communication. The article deals with the main sentential patterns and functions from the comparative perspective.