Mood variation with belief predicates: Modal comparison in semantics and the common ground

This paper proposes that subjunctive in the complement of belief sen- tences in Italian expresses a relation between the attitude holder’s beliefs and the common ground. In contrast to most other Romance languages, ‘believe’ commonly and prescriptively takes subjunctive in Italian, though indicative is found as well, and as has been observed in the literature, the choice of indicative or subjunctive has semantic effects. We show that the indicative with ‘believe’ is used when the belief statement describes the personal mental state of the holder of the attitude, an interpretation that follows from the traditional Hintikkean semantics. In contrast, we show that subjunctive with ‘believe’ is used to mark a relation between the content of belief and the discourse context. To analyze these facts, we propose that the modal quantification present in attitude reports comes not from the attitude verb, but instead from the embedded verbal mood. What differentiates Italian from related languages where ‘believe’ only takes indicative, is that Italian allows the subjunctive to access the com- mon ground as a modal base, utilizing the verb’s doxastic background as an ordering source. The fact that subjunctive relates the common ground to the subject’s beliefs explains the discourse oriented meaning of this combination. We extend our analysis to several other predicates that show mood variation in Italian.

PROTAGORAS AND THE BEGINNINGS OF GRAMMAR

Offering a re-evaluation of all the available evidence, including passages from Aristotle's Rhetoric, Poetics and Sophistici Elenchi, Diogenes Laertius’ biographical sketch as well as the grammar scene in Aristophanes’ Clouds, this article argues that Protagoras’ engagement with grammatical questions must have been more sophisticated and thorough than is often assumed. In Protagoras’ discovery of grammatical gender, formal considerations – most likely inspired by the analysis of personal names – played a more fundamental role than semantic ones, and his typology of πυθμένες λόγων equally presupposes the formal recognition of at least verbal mood, if not also tense.

Subjuntivo en oraciones independientes

In this paper, three cases of grammatical variation in Spanish are studied in which a subjunctive verb alternates with another verbal mood in a main clause: optative main sentences with a bare subjunctive verb (alternating with optative main sentences introduced by a conjunction or an adverb); declarative and interrogative sentences with a subjunctive verb (alternating with a conditional verb); and «retrospective imperative» sentences (where the subjunctive mood alternates with a perfect infinitive). It is proposed that, in the varieties where these main clauses with a subjunctive verb are possible, the subjunctive mood has a performative value and satisfies the illocutionary properties in Force associated with sentential modality. The performative value of subjunctive is associated with an irrealis modal base, which is provided by the lexical meaning of a modal verb or by the past perfect temporal anchoring of tense. The proposal shows that the same conditions constraint the three constructions under study and explains the coincidence between the varieties that allow the performative subjunctive (or use it more frequently).

The grammatical basis of Verb Second

The root and embedded Verb Second constructions in German are investigated and an analysis is proposed which employs properties of the inflectional system to derive finiteness fronting. In particular, the fronting of finiteness through verb movement is traced back to the deictic variables of the inflectional categories tense (time of speech) and verbal mood (situation of speech) in the case of finite clauses. Finiteness fronts in order for these semantic variables to get access to the respective components of the discourse situation. In the case of imperatives—not featuring tense and mood—the agr variable causes verb fronting. Because formal subjects cannot be licensed in imperatives, the agr variable for [person: 2, number: a plural] does not get a semantic value. Fronting of the verb allows binding the discourse component addressee to this variable. Being bound to discourse components, the respective propositional objects are anchored on the discourse table. Embedded Verb Second constructions are derived by the same principles and their interaction with the specific properties of the higher-ordered structural configurations.

Varieties of dependent Verb Second and verbal mood

This chapter studies varieties of “dependent V2” with “broad” (bDV2) and “narrow” (nDV2) distribution—that is, “generalized” and “limited embedded V2”— arising within Icelandic. This pattern is taken to correlate with construals of verbal mood as “dominant” in the former case and “non-dominant” in the latter case, where dominance of verbal mood allows the disregarding of the illocutionary impact of V2. It further shows that the variation fits into a model of historical stages with earlier variants “recruiting” verbal mood for clause combining and drift in later stages towards “autonomous” mood, that is, towards a mood system with enhanced semantico-pragmatic transparency.

Interpreting mood choice effects in L2 and L1 Spanish: empirical evidence and theoretical implications

The rich morphology of Spanish, such as that of tense and verbal mood, encodes a range of features leading to diverse contextual effects on interpretation, some of which are examined in the light of original experimental data in the present study. Specifically, we analyse data on the interpretation of mood in concessive structures by upper-intermediate and advanced learners of L2 Spanish, with L1 French (N=48) and L1 English (N=40), and from an L1 European Spanish control group (N=35). The results of the learner-group interpretation experiment led to a follow-on study enquiring into the understanding of mood alternation in concessive clauses by another group of L1 European Spanish speakers through a metalinguistic interpretation task. Learner group findings suggested a heavier reliance on lexical information and world-knowledge than on grammatical cues, while L1 speakers’ data indicate a default association maintained between subjunctive and irrealis interpretations, leading to a greater measure of variability in describing presuppositional uses of this mood. The native speaker data may reflect challenges posed by representing and describing, using metalinguistic knowledge, structures whose interpretation requires the integration of linguistic, discourse and extralinguistic information. Findings are discussed in relation to current linguistic descriptions and potential contributions of our empirical data.

Zur Autonomie indirekter Redewiedergabe – Eine diachrone Perspektive

Regarding verbal mood and complementation patterns of reporting verbs, the distinction between direct and indirect reported speech is well established in present-day German. This paper looks into the history of German: Common knowledge has it that both the use of verbal mood as well as the quality of clause linkage undergo considerable changes giving rise to the question how these changes affect the manifestations of indirect reported speech in earlier stages of German. The historical record of the 16th century (with an outlook on the 17th century) shows that the distinction between direct and indirect reported speech is not yet grammaticalized in historical sources at the time. In particular with respect to dependent (in)direct reported speech, both types prefer V2-complements with only verbal mood differentiating between the types. Although present and past subjunctive have a much wider distribution in earlier stages of German, the occurrence of free indirect speech likewise testifies to its increasing use as a marker of indirect reported speech. The growing conventionalization of patterns of indirect reported speech in the course of Early Modern German may be considered as an example for an increase of subjectification in its development.

Paradigmatics, semantics and pragmatics of the imperative in German

The article studies the imperative, one of the most significant linguistic means of expression of incentive in the German language. Traditionally the imperative belongs to forms of a verbal mood and is a morphological unit. Forming a special type of the sentence, an incentive sentence, the imperative can also be recognized as a syntax unit. The paradigm of the imperative in a narrow sense consists of the forms of the 2nd person singular and plural. In a broad sense it also includes polite forms (with Sie pronoun) and forms of joint action (with wir pronoun). From the semantic point of view, the imperative has such features as deictivity, controllability of action, beneficiation, subordination, aim-orientation and futurity. The imperative is involved in the considerable repertoire of speech acts. In the studied corpus of examples extracted from direct speech of characters of fictional discourse it is frequent in such speech acts of incentive character as request, advice, demand, order, permission, offer, invitation and some other. Besides, it is widespread in the contactive and metacommunicative speech acts which are characterized by the blurred imperativeness. In rare cases the imperative can be involved in the non-incentive speech acts of the modal-evaluative and informing character.