English Dept

It is argued that two different types of concept are often intermingled in discussions of Aktionsart. The most common type of classification is one of situation types, relating to the potential actualisation of a situation, although some of the definitions have to do with the actual realization of the situation. This distinction, adequately captured by the notions (a)telicity and (un)boundedness , is explored and it is shown how NPs, PPs and tense influence a sentence's classification as (un)bounded.

In this paper we aim to show how distinct semantic and pragmatic layers of modal interpretation can be fruitfully integrated within a constructionist approach. We discuss in detail a number of cases from the Simpsons where a modal verb, as part of a longer expression, has a short-circuited interpretation, that is, where it is conventionally associated with a context-specific modal semantic value and, in some cases, with added pragmatic information. Short-circuitedness is evidenced by the humorous effect that is obtained when a character wilfully or unknowingly ignores standard aspects of interpretation of such a modal verb construction.

In this paper we aim to show how distinct semantic and pragmatic layers of modal interpretation can be fruitfully integrated within a constructionist approach. We discuss in detail a number of cases from the Simpsons where a modal verb, as part of a longer expression, has ashort-circuited interpretation, that is, where it is conventionally associated with a context-specific modal semantic value and, in some cases, with added pragmatic information.Short-circuitednessis evidenced by the humorous effect that is obtained when a character wilfully or unknowingly ignores standard aspects of interpretation of such a modal verb construction.

When an ambiguous lexical item appears within a familiar string of words, it can instantly receive an appropriate interpretation from this context, thus being saturated by it. Such a context may also short-circuit illocutionary and other pragmatic aspects of interpretation. We here extract from the British National Corpus over 500 internally highly collocating and high-frequency lexical n-grams up to 5 words containing have to, must, need to, and/or should. These contexts-as-constructions go some way toward allowing us to group these four necessity modals into clusters with similar semantic and pragmatic properties and to determine which of them is semantico-pragmatically most unlike the others. It appears that have to and need to cluster most closely together thanks to their shared environments (e.g., you may have/need to…, expressing contingent, mitigated necessity), while should has the largest share of unique n-grams (e.g., rhetorical Why shouldn’t I…?, used as a defiant self-ex...

L’apprentissage de la deuxième langue (L2) est un processus progressif dans lequel l’apprenant améliore sa maîtrise au fur et à mesure de l’apprentissage. L’analyse de productions d’apprenants intéresse les chercheurs et les enseignants car cela permet d’avoir une meilleure idée des difficultés et les facilités d’apprentissage et de faire des programmes didactiques plus adaptés. Cela peut également donner des indications sur les difficultés cognitives à maîtriser les notions grammaticales abstraites dans une nouvelle langue. Nous proposons de travailler sur un corpus de productions langagières d’apprenants d’anglais provenant de différents pays et donc ayant différentes langues maternelles (L1). Notre objectif consiste à catégoriser ces productions langagières selon six niveaux de langue (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2). Nous utilisons différents ensembles de descripteurs, y compris les verbes et expressions modaux. Nous obtenons des résultats intéressants pour cette catégorisation multicla...

The aim of this article is to improve the description of root (or non-epistemic) possibility meanings. In previous accounts, the defining criteria are not applied systematically; there is a tendency towards definition by exemplification (especially when it comes to meanings that are ‘not permission’ and ‘not ability’) and certain categories (permission, for instance) tend to be defined in a circular way. We will argue that there are three criteria which are necessary and sufficient to distinguish five subclasses of root possibility meaning. The three criteria are: (a) the scope of the modal meaning, (b) the source of the modality and (c) the notion of potential barrier; the five meanings are: (a) ability, (b) opportunity, (c) permission, (d) general situation possibility (GSP) and (e) situation permissibility. The article offers an in-depth analysis of the three defining criteria and the root possibility meanings that their systematic application gives rise to. This approach clearly...

This paper tries to reveal the constraints on the use of the present perfect progressive (PPP) in combination with numerical object NPs. Existing accounts tend to take situation type classes as a basis for the description of the PPP. It is shown that such an approach does not yield adequate results. (Un)boundedness (Declerck, 1991; Depraetere, 1995) plays an equally important role as (a)telicity in determining whether the progressive can be used or not. (Un)boundedness, as opposed to (a)telicity, is concerned with actual terminal points (of situations referred to) rather than potential (inherent) endpoints. It will be shown in this paper that, in some cases, the conflict between the unboundedness inherent in the progressive form and the boundedness often brought about by numerical object NPs that are used in nonstative sentences results in unacceptability. Considerable attention is first paid to the constraints on the use of the past progressive with numerical object NPs. The second...

This article offers a description of the sources associated with the necessities expressed byhave toandmustin the ICE-GB corpus. It provides detailed comments on semantic and pragmatic features of the different sources, which are shown to be more diverse than has previously been claimed. The corpus analysis proves that the traditional distinction in meaning between so-called ‘objective’have toand ‘subjective’mustis not as outspoken as is assumed, and therefore results in a more accurate description of the similarities and differences in meaning between the two modal markers.

The parameters of source and strength are often presented as crucial for the semantic profile of modal verbs expressing root necessity such as 'should', 'ought to' and 'be supposed to'. Their role, however, is hard to assess because of the lack of clear definitions. This article offers a new perspective on the nature of subjectivity and strength that is grounded in detailed, qualitative corpus analysis of sentences with 'should', 'ought to' and 'be supposed to'. It operationalises and refines both parameters and applies them to an extensive corpus of 1200 Present-day English sentences with 'should', 'ought to' and 'be supposed to', which results in an updated and more accurate picture of the meaning distinctions between them. More generally, the study shows that an accurate interpretation of modal meanings is to a large extent dependent on the discourse context, and that a detailed corpus analysis is required to understand the complexity of the parameters interacting in the establishment of modal meanings in context.

One of the features of meaning commonly attributed to present perfect is that of indicating results (I have had a bath. Result: I am clean, I have caught a cold. Result: I have a cold). This article is aimed at determining the status of the resultative propositions associated with present perfect sentences: are they the externalization of the semantics of the perfect or pragmatic effects? It is shown that the results arising from processing perfect sentences may be of different kinds, which calls for a partly semantic, partly pragmatic explanation of 'current relevance'.

The aim of this article is twofold: first, we want to delineate the defining criteria of the foreground. In order to list its necessary and sufficient characteristics, critical observations are made on the claim that the rule of foregrounding is an implicature and that foregrounding only occurs in pasttense main clauses. The issue whether it is (un)boundedness rather than (a)telicity that determines whether a situation belongs to the foreground is also dealt with. The second aim of this paper is to find out whether foregrounding is possible in (nonRestrictive relative clauses in English. Answering this question involves applying the criteria determined in part A to relative clauses. The observations made are based on corpus examples and on the results of an elicitation test.