Refine
Year of publication
Document Type
- Article (24) (remove)
Language
- English (24) (remove)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (24) (remove)
Keywords
- Adverbs (2)
- evidentiality (2)
- modal verbs (2)
- modality (2)
- pragmaticalisation (2)
- Ideologues (1)
- function (1)
- functional unit (1)
- grammar (1)
- grammatography (1)
- language and thought (1)
- meaning (1)
- oppositions (1)
- sign (1)
Institute
This paper intends to explore the interaction between aspect and lexical means, in this case temporal adverbials, in the bounding of representations of situations. First, the theoretical basis is outlined, followed by the results of a corpus analysis of coccurrences with adverbs that limit situations. The term situation encompasses all representable processes, states, events, or actions. Finally, some theoretical conclusions are drawn concerning the cognitive category of bounding, using the example of aspectuality. The imperfective verb forms maintain their aspectuality in delimiting connections with adverbs, resulting in a complex, multi-dimensional aspectuality. In nongrammaticalized forms, such as lexical markers, the speaker is free to make a temporal localization or an aspectual perspective. Lexical expressions can make temporal and aspect markings even more precisely and clearly than tenses. They can also limit or extend situations and thus express aspect. Aspectuality thus presents itself as a compositional category, in which external bounding and the internal representation of a course of action or development can interact.
Meaning and Function
(2022)
The use of the word functional in the most diverse theories and approaches has contributed in no small measure to the confusion in linguistics today. This article does not claim to give an overview of the different directions of functionalism in linguistics. Rather, the aim is to present what Coseriu‘s view characterised as functional in his time and to what extent his theory outlined a path that still makes sense in functional-cognitive linguistics today. This will involve an examination of Coseriu‘s difficult-to-identify concept of function. Furthermore, the article will also show that functional thinking is relevant for current grammatography.
The name Ideologues refers to a group of philosophers, psychologists, grammarians, educational theorists and medical specialists who for a short period from 1795 to 1805 determined the intellectual climate in France and sought to develop a science of ideas (idéologie). The Ideologues had a rather reserved attitude to Condillac’s (1714–1780) ideas and his sensualist sign theory. They strove for the perfection of language for the needs of thought and of scientific knowledge. The connections with the Ideologues can also be discerned in Russia. In the educational theory, Jean-Baptiste Maudru (1740–1808) was close to the Ideologues and, despite his insufficient knowledge of the Russian language, made some interesting remarks on the connection between the language and the national character. According to Maudru and in agreement with the Ideologues, different typologies of word order are not just an indication of greater or lesser closeness to the natural order. Rather, they indicate differences in national character, which manifest themselves in the specific character of individual languages. Maudru taught at the military academy in Saint Petersburg and published the first Russian grammar in France (Maudru 1802). In his grammar, he sought to link mechanically the specific features of languages and of national characters with the climatic influences. His attempt to revive the theory of climatic influences was criticized by Karamzin. Karamzin also treated the discussion of the metaphoric extension of word meanings as an absurd undertaking, which had no place in grammar.
In this paper evidential and modal adverbs will be studied, such as French apparemment, évidemment, visiblement, Italian apparentemente, evidentemente, ovviamente, and Spanish aparentemente, evidentemente and visiblemente. The development of their signification will be discussed, including German adverbs like offensichtlich. In these means of expression, the functional-semantic categories evidentiality and epistemic modality seem to overlap: on the one hand, they are used if the state of affairs talked about cannot be verified, that is, if there is still a moment of insecurity concerning the transmitted information. Then adverbials with a special structure (preposition + article + nominal form of a verb) will be analysed, and we will examine if they behave in the same way.
The assumption of linguistics relativity and the definition of languages as epiphenomena are certainly known as two contradictory positions from the last century. But I will start my discussion of them in the period of their appearance and then use this as a basis to evaluate the heuristic value of these positions in present day linguistics. I will start with the definition of language as an epiphenomenon and then I will go on with the linguistic relativity.
The notion of ʽepiphenomenon’ is usually used to exclude certain aspects of a scientific object because they are considered to be deduced from others. In linguistics, restrictions of the research object were made, invoking the notion of ʽepiphenomenonʼ, which was partially done with a polemical attitude, and was always responded to polemically.
In recent years, the category of evidentiality has also come into use for the description of Romance languages and of German. This has been contingent on a change in its interpretation from a typological category to a semantic-pragmatic category, which allows an application to languages lacking specialised morphemes for the expression of evidentiality. We consider evidentiality to be a structural dimension of grammar, the values of which are expressed by types of constructions that code the source of information which a speaker imparts. If we look at the situation in Romance languages and in German, drawing a boundary between epistemic modality and evidentiality presents problems that are difficult to solve. Adding markers of the source of the speaker's knowledge often limits the degree of responsibility of the speaker for the content of the utterance. Evidential adverbs are a frequently used means of marking the source of the speaker's knowledge. The evidential meaning is generalised to marking any source of knowledge, what can be regarded as a result of a process of pragmaticalisation. The use of certain means which also carry out evidential markings can even contribute to the blurring of the different kinds of evidentiality. German also has modal verbs which in conjunction with the perfect tense of the verb have a predominantly evidential use (sollen and wollen). But even here the evidential marking is not without influence on the modality of the utterance. The Romance languages, however, do not have such specialised verbs for expressing evidentiality in certain contexts. To do this, they mark evidentiality - often context bound - by verb forms such as the conditional and the imperfect tense. This article shall contrast the different architectures used in expressing evidentiality in German and in the Romance languages.
Introduction
(2012)
Introduction
(2008)