<div dir="ltr">Hi all,<div><br></div><div>I'm not sure this is what you're looking for, but Modern Hebrew has a set of predicates that inflect like adjectives, and convey epistemic possibility or 'is likely' but with a 'desirable' or 'undesirable' flavor:</div><div><br></div><div>ze <b>asui</b> likrot [it likely to.happen] 'It's possible/likely to happen (neutral or favorable outcome).'</div><div>ze <b>alul</b> likrot [[it likely to.happen] 'It's possible/likely to happen' (undesirable outcome)</div><div><br></div><div>A recent example: "The healthcare system hasn't collapsed. ze od <b>alul</b> likrot "it's still likely to happen." </div><div><br></div><div>There are plenty of recent examples with <b>alul</b> that the COVID-19 epidemic provide us with (the virus <b>alul</b> to make men sterile, or <b>alul</b> to damage hearing).</div><div><br></div><div>I'm not aware of any recent treatments of this, and I'm not sure if anyone has looked at corpora in recent times.</div><div><br></div><div>Eitan</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Oct 19, 2020 at 7:15 PM Wiemer, Bjoern <<a href="mailto:wiemerb@uni-mainz.de">wiemerb@uni-mainz.de</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Dear Bastian,<br>
do you have in mind such things like so-called modal particles which express surprise about some pleasant/unpleasant event? For instance, Russian "razve", "neuželi" used in yes/no questions:<br>
<br>
(1a) Razve on prišel?<br>
(1b) Neuželi on prišel?<br>
'Is it really the case that he has come?'<br>
<br>
The translation is only approximative, but it holds for both. The difference is that (1a) is about a surprise concerning an event that the speaker evaluates positive, while in (1b) the speaker implies that for him/her the event is not so pleasant. Thus, a kind of combination of counterexpectation and evaluation. However, the point is whether counterexpectation/surprise weakens epistemic support, or whether (full) epistemic support remains unaffected and the speaker simply accepts a fact, but nonetheless expresses her/his surprise (+ evaluation). Of course, differences of epistemic support might be modified (and indicated) by intonation.<br>
Similar things exist in German, e.g.<br>
<br>
(2) Ist er etwa gekommen?<br>
Ist er wirklich gekommen?<br>
Ist er tatsächlich gekommen?<br>
(same translation as with 1a-1b)<br>
<br>
However, there is no contrast as for positive--negative evaluation of the unexpected event; all these particles (etwa, wirklich, tatsächlich) can be used in either case (also depending on intonation).<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Björn.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----<br>
Von: Lingtyp [mailto:<a href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>] Im Auftrag von Bastian Persohn<br>
Gesendet: Montag, 19. Oktober 2020 16:51<br>
An: <a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a><br>
Betreff: [Lingtyp] Epistemic possibility plus affective evaluation?<br>
<br>
Dear colleagues,<br>
<br>
I was wondering if you know of any examples of expressions of epistemic possibility - especially adverbials - that additionally contribute an element of affective evaluation, i.e. expressions that could be paraphrased in English along the lines of ʻmaybe (and I hope that is the case)ʼ or ʻmaybe (but hopefully that's not the case)ʼ.<br>
<br>
Thanks so much!<br>
<br>
Bastian<br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div>