Non-indicative Moods Research Articles

Negation in complement clauses of fear-verbs

Abstract Complement clauses of verbs of fear often contain expletive negation, which is negative marking without negative meaning. Expletive negation in fear-complements regularly co-occurs with non-indicative moods, such as subjunctive, conjunctive, or conditional. The aim of this paper is to provide a diachronic explanation for the phenomenon of expletive negation in complement clauses of fear-verbs. Based on data from various languages, I will show that cases of expletive negation after verbs of fear can be divided into several groups, each with a different origin. Fear complement clauses can derive from embedded polar questions, paratactic constructions expressing a wish, or from negative purpose clauses. Complement clauses with polar questions usually contain an indicative verb form, while clauses based on the expression of a wish often have non-indicative verb forms. The paper also discusses cases in which expletive negation is lost.

The role of DO-auxiliary in subject-auxiliary inversion: Developing Langacker’s notion of existential negotiation

AbstractThis paper builds on Langacker’s (in press. How to build an English clause.Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics2(2)) analysis of subject-auxiliary inversion (SAI) as involving “existential negotiation”. Langacker’s account is completed by relating it to full verb inversion (FVI). In FVI, non-core elements are fronted, resulting in inversion without an auxiliary, as inInto the room walked Mary; however, non-core elements are also frontable in SAI, as inBitterly did we regret our decision.Dois treated as denoting full actualization and SAI is accounted for by focus on an exceptionally intense mode of actualization, whence the use ofdoto explicitly express what is focused on. The role ofinto the roomin the FVI example is to define a locus into which an entity is introduced. Since this does not involve focus on the fact or manner of the verbal event’s actualization,dois not used. This leads to a different division of inverted structures than that of Chen (2013. Subject auxiliary inversion and linguistic generalization: Evidence for functional/cognitive motivation in language.Cognitive Linguistics24. 1–32), who distinguishes those that merely reverse subject and auxiliary (argued to denote non-indicative mood) from those where the inverted auxiliary-subject order is accompanied by fronting of a non-subject element (treated as involving focus on the fronted item). It is argued here that frontingdo-auxiliary marks focus on the actualization of the verbal event itself.

Risk Attitudes, Investment Behavior and Linguistic Variation: An IV Approach

This paper explores the relationship between linguistic variation and individual attitudes toward risk and uncertainty. Linguistic variation refers to differences in linguistic forms across languages. According to the linguistic relativity hypothesis, differences in grammatical structures and the vocabulary may affect how speakers of distinct languages perceive and think about the world. We develop a specific linguistic marker that classifies languages according to the number of non-indicative moods in irrealis contexts in their respective grammars. These grammatical categories express situations involving uncertainty, and the frequency of their use may be closely related to the overall degree of uncertainty perceived by individuals. Using data from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and World Value Survey (WVS), we show that speakers of languages where non-indicative moods are used more intensively are on average more risk averse. This evidence holds both across countries and within linguistically heterogeneous countries. The results are robust to the inclusion of additional set of regressors and several fixed-effect controls for individual characteristics. Finally, we use our linguistic marker to instrument individual attitudes toward risk in the structural model for financial assets accumulation.

Moods of Mehweb

This paper describes the moods of Mehweb, a lect of the Dargwa branch of East Caucasian languages, Republic of Daghestan. The data for this description was collected during several field trips to the village of Mehweb (Megeb). The forms of non-indicative moods and common constructions where these forms occur are described. Mehweb has inflectional forms for the imperative, optative, irrealis and apprehensive. The hortative and jussive are expressed by means of grammatical constructions.

Risk Attitudes, Investment Behavior and Linguistic Variation: An IV Approach

This paper explores the relationship between linguistic variation and individual attitudes toward risk and uncertainty. Linguistic variation refers to differences in linguistic forms across languages. According to the linguistic relativity hypothesis, differences in grammatical structures and the vocabulary may affect how speakers of distinct languages perceive and think about the world. We develop a specific linguistic marker that classifies languages according to the number of non-indicative moods in irrealis contexts in their respective grammars. These grammatical categories express situations involving uncertainty, and the frequency of their use may be closely related to the overall degree of uncertainty perceived by individuals. Using data from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and World Value Survey (WVS), we show that speakers of languages where non-indicative moods are used more intensively are on average more risk averse. This evidence holds both across countries and within linguistically heterogeneous countries. The results are robust to the inclusion of additional set of regressors and several fixed-effect controls for individual characteristics. Finally, we use our linguistic marker to instrument individual attitudes toward risk in the structural model for financial assets accumulation.

The Quantitative Grammar and Poetics of Finite Verb Forms in the Guslʹ Dobroglasnaia by Simeon Polotsky

The paper offers data on the quantity and structure of finite verbal forms in Simeon Polotsky’s collection Guslʹ Dobroglasnaia. The results are compared to data from twenty epinician odes by Mikhail Lomonosov and ten odes by Gavriil Derzhavin. We find 851 personal forms in Simeon’s collection, of which 214 belong to past tenses (73 to imperfect, 92 to aorist, 49 to past tense with l morpheme); 363 belong to present tense; 99 to future tense; 51 to imperative mood; 6 to conjunctive mood; and 118 to the forms with the da particle. The total percentage of past tenses in Simeon’s texts (25.1%) is close to the parameters appearing in Lomonosov’s and Derzhavin’s texts (21.4% and 23.5%, respectively), and the same is true for the percentages of non-indicative moods (20.5% vs. 19.1% and 20.5%). Simeon Polotsky’s texts contain fewer present tense forms than those written by the 18th-century poets (42.8% vs. 50.6% and 49.5%), but they contain more future tense forms (11.6% vs. 8.9% and 6.5%). Past tense forms in Simeon’s texts with l suffix include 29 forms of the third person with the auxiliary iestʹ verb, usually given in a rhyme position. In the aorist, the proportion of imperfective and perfective forms to the forms of the byti verb is 9:72:11; in imperfect, this proportion is 52:6:15; and in past tenses with l suffix, it is 8:38:3. We find 99 forms of the future tense, broken down as follows: 69 are forms of simple future; 12 are accompanied by imatʹ and similar forms; and 18 are accompanied by budet and similar forms (there is no semantic difference between these two last cases). Of the forms containing the da particle, 65 belong to present tense, 37 belong to future tense, and 16 are accompanied by byti forms.

Subject auxiliary inversion and linguistic generalization: Evidence for functional/cognitive motivation in language

AbstractThis paper provides a unified account of English subject-auxiliary inversion (SAI). It argues that SAIs, as have been called in the literature, belong to two semantically distinctive constructions. The first is the Auxiliary Subject Construction (ASC), one that merely reverses the subject and auxiliary order, without the fronting of another unit. It functions to mark non-indicative moods. The second SAI construction is the X Auxiliary Subject Construction (XASC), in which the auxiliary-subject (AS) order is accompanied by the fronting of a unit from its original, post-subject position in the canonical, SV order sentence. The XASC serves a different purpose from the ASC, i.e., to focus the fronted unit. As such, it shares both structural and functional affinity with full-verb inversion (Chen 2003), which is referred to hereafter as the X Verb Subject Construction (XVSC) for sake of consistency. The second purpose of this study is to address the issue of invertability of the subject auxiliary/verb order. Drawing on Deane (1992), I propose an Invertability Hypothesis, which applies to both the XASC and the XVSC. On this hypothesis, invertability depends on the strength of the linkage between the fronted unit and the auxiliary/verb that exists in the canonical sentence. The stronger the link, the more likely the order of the subject and the auxiliary/verb will be inversed once the unit is fronted. With this analysis – one that is decidedly different from previous accounts (e.g. Goldberg 2006) – I intend to demonstrate that the functional/cognitive approach to language is indeed capable of handling a complex construction such as inversion, the generalization of which generative linguists believe can only be stated formally (Newmeyer 1998; Borsley and Newmeyer 2009; Lidz and Williams 2009).

Morphology-based explanation of modal auxiliary syntax in present-day English

This paper addresses restrictions on the formation of verb phrases containing modal auxiliaries in present-day English. It will be argued and demonstrated below that well-known data about the English modals can be interpreted and understood as a matter of inflectional morphology. In particular, the possibility that non-indicative mood is an inherent feature of the English modals is a concept that remains to be investigated. It appears that an analysis focusing on non-indicative mood may indeed open up new explanatory perspectives on modal auxiliary syntax in present-day English. The proposal to be presented below is that we should investigate the morphology of non-indicative mood as an interesting concept for the explanation of the morphosyntactic restrictions. It may account for not only the English-internal facts, but also for certain cross-linguistic syntactic differences between English and other Germanic languages in the area of modal auxiliary syntax.

Cross-linguistic variation in modality systems: The role of mood

The St'át'imcets (Lillooet Salish) subjunctive mood appears in nine distinct environments, with a range of semantic effects, including weakening an imperative to a polite request, turning a question into an uncertainty statement, and creating an ignorance free relative. The St'át'imcets subjunctive also differs from Indo-European subjunctives in that it is not selected by attitude verbs. In this paper I account for the St'át'imcets subjunctive using Portner's (1997) proposal that moods restrict the conversational background of a governing modal. I argue that the St'át'imcets subjunctive restricts the conversational background of a governing modal, but in a way which obligatorily weakens the modal’s force. This obligatory modal weakening -- not found with Indo-European non-indicative moods -- correlates with the fact that St'át'imcets modals differ from Indo-European modals along the same dimension. While Indo-European modals typically lexically encode quantificational force, but leave conversational background to context, St'át'imcets modals encode conversational background, but leave quantificational force to context (Matthewson, Rullmann & Davis 2007, Rullmann, Matthewson & Davis 2008). doi:10.3765/sp.3.9 BibTeX info

Negation and polarity: Syntax and semantics Ed. by Danielle Forget, Paul Hirschbühler, France Martineau, and María-Luisa Rivero (review)

200 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 76, NUMBER 1 (2000) 4, "The realist paradigm' (129-77), explores the role of consciousness-marking devices in the type of novel that came to be called 'realist'. Particularly interesting here is F's discussion of the transition from drama to fiction, with the dramatic scene serving as a precursor to the narrative episode in the novel. Ch. 5, 'Reflectoralization and figuralization' (178-221), develops a new vocabulary for describing phenomena noticed by previous narratologists in their work on the notions of 'voice' and 'perspective' in narrative. Reflectorized tellers have the knowledge of a more or less omniscient narrator but the perspective and speech style of a character in the story; figuralization comes about when a narrator implicitly evokes an observer figure not actually present in the story. Ch. 6, 'Virgin terntories' (222-68), shows how experimental texts use 'odd' personal pronouns to enrich narrative's resources for the presentation of consciousness. For instance, narratives using one and it toy with the category of person, reinforcing F's overall argument that readers must 're-cognize in terms of familiar natural parameters and frames what initially appears to contravene natural or commonsense expectations' (223). Meanwhile, second-person narratives (along with stones using one) create new 'identificationaF potentials for stones, prompting readers to project themselves into the narrated action. Present tense and future tense narratives, as well as stories told in nonindicative moods (e.g. the imperative), present additional challenges for recipients who must sometimes work against all odds to narrativize such odd texts. Ch. 7, 'Games with tellers, telling and told' (269-310), studies narratives purposely designed to be inconsistent. Certain kinds of inconsistencies can be made sense of—i.e. narrativized —by recourse to the hypothesis of an incompetent narrator. Other narrative texts incorporate conflicting discourses harder to interpret by means of basic storytelling frames and parameters. Ch. 8, 'Natural narratology' (311-75), reviews the results of the discussion, compares the author's approach with those developed by previous narrative theorists, and argues for the claim that experiencing constitutes the core parameter for narrativization, subsuming plot- or action-based parameters. [David Herman, North Carolina State University.] Negation and polarity: Syntax and semantics . Selected papers from the colloquium 'Negation: Syntax and Semantics ', Ottawa, 11-13 May 1995. Ed. by Danielle Forget, Paul HirschbUhler , France Martineau, and María-Luisa Rivero. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1997. Pp. viii, 367. The editors ofthis book have brought together seventeen papers on syntactic and semantic aspects of negation and polarity. No further attempt has been made to arrange the diverse perspectives that these papers provide under specific sections or to relate or unify the ideas by proffering an introductory chapter. Nonetheless, the topics broadly fall into two categories —negative concord (NC) and negative polarity (NP). NC in relation to «-words is addressed in papers by Joäo Peres and Jacob Hoeksema; to Neg-criterion by Viviane Déprez, Liliane Haegeman, and Daniel Valois; and to A'-binding by Paul Rowlett . NP in relation to long-distance licensing is discussed in a paper by Anastasia Giannakidou and Josep Quer; to scalar models by Michael Israel; to only by Laurence R. Horn; to NP items in Maori by Elizabeth Pearce; and to focus by Eugene Rohrbaugh. The rest of the papers are "The syntax of French negative adverbs' , Anne Abeille and Daniele Godard ; "The syntax of sentential negation in French and English', Denis Bouchard; 'Non-negative negation and Wh-exclamatives', M. Teresa Espinal; 'Negation as a reflex of clause structure', Aafke Hulk and Ans van Kemenade; 'La négation comme expression procédurale', Jacques Moeschler; 'De partitif et la négation', Claude Müller. There are examples from dozens of different languages, and many language families are involved in cross-linguistic studies of these notions. Turning to NC, a conventional wisdom suggests that languages can typically be divided into negative concord languages and double negation languages, according to an appropriate categorization on the behavior of their «-words. This view is extended in JoAO Peres's paper 'Extending the notion of negative concord', where certain parametric variation on the licensing of «-words is seen to give rise to three different dimensions for slicing up languages. No...

Clause subordination structures in language decline

AbstractThe field of language-death studies has invited a growing number of researchers to explore what happens to the internal structure of a language as it declines. However, little work has been done to date on minority varieties of French in the context of language-death studies. This paper examines some intergenerational changes in subordination (conditionals and subjunctive clauses) in a Cajun French community, exploring the gradual loss of non-indicative moods and the abandonment of finite clauses in subjunctive contexts in favour of innovative non-finite clause types via a continuum of variation.

Concerning a vocalic alternation in North Omotic verb paradigms

Examination of the verb paradigms of Omotic can easily engender a sense of bewilderment; there is such a variation from language to language, even when, in other respects, the languages concerned appear to be quite closely related. Coming to Omotic from a language group such as Eaśt Cushitic, the contrast is especially striking. For example, when investigating any little known East Cushitic language (and there are a few left!), one starts out with a strong expectation of finding in the verbal system certain morphological elements and patterns (e.g., t ‘2nd person, 3rd feminine singular’; n ‘1st person plural’ a palatal vowel signalling ‘perfect’; a guttural verb signalling ‘imperfect’; a rounded vowel signalling a ‘subordinate function’ or ‘non-indicative mood’; etc.), and one is never entirely disappointed; the well known formatives, along with the anticipated patterns of distribution, crop up with an almost monotonous regularity. Similar predictabilities are not obviously the case when we look at Omotic. With virtually every new language investigated, new and unfamiliar features emerge. I have remarked on this before (Hayward, 1984: 324), but I am not alone in having done so; Andrzej Zaborski has also emphasized the high degree of innovation seen in the Omotic verb (Zaborski, 1986: 528). But I think the essence of the problem is not that there are no identifiable cognate formatives so much as that we have been unable to understand their historical significance, andso supply them with meaningful labels.

Davidson's paratactic analysis of mood

According to Davidson's paratactic analysis of mood an uttered sentence in a non-indicative mood should be thought of as two utterances: an utterance of the corresponding indicative sentence, and an utterance of what he terms the moodsetter. The moodsetter of, for example, an imperative, is expressible by the sentence ‘That utterance is a command’. There are a number of problems with this analysis. Firstly, the fact that it derives two speech acts from the utterance of every sentence makes the matter of determining the force of any given uttered sentence an unworkably complex affair. Secondly, in giving mood a purely semantic characterisation it unacceptably weakens the connection between mood and force.