Article2007

Anatomy of a Modal Construction

157 citations0/0 files storedLinguistic Inquiry

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Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation Logic, Reasoning, and Knowledge Categorization, perception, and language

Abstract

Languages can express the existence of an easy way of achieving a goal in a construction we call the sufficiency modal construction (SMC), which combines a minimizing/exclusive operator like only or ne … que and a goal-oriented necessity modal like have to or need to, asin To get good cheese, you only have to go to the North End. We show that the morphosyntactic makeup of the SMC is crosslinguistically stable. We show that the semantics of the construction poses a severe compositionality problem. We solve the problem by giving the negation and the exclusive operator differential scope. For only, this means decomposing it into negation and an exclusive other than component.

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References

2013Verb Movement, Universal Grammar, and the Structure of IP, 1989 2002The Notional Category of Modality 1989Stage-Level and Individual-Level Predicates 2000Phrasal Movement and Its Kin 2001Presupposition and Assertion in Dynamic Semantics 1997The generic book . Ed. by Gregory N. Carlson and Francis Jeffry Pelletier. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1995. Pp. x, 463.2000Degree Operators and Scope 2004Positive Polarity – Negative Polarity

Cited by

2022Negative Concord is syntactic agreement 2015A "de-Fregean" semantics (and neo-Gricean pragmatics) for modified and unmodified numerals 2011Negative DPs, A-Movement, and Scope Diminishment 2012Connectives without truth tables 2020The Oxford Handbook of Negation 2022Negation and Negative Dependencies 2020The Typology of Negation

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