24.2942, Review: Pragmatics; Semantics; Typology: Narrog (2012)

linguist at linguistlist.org linguist at linguistlist.org
Fri Jul 19 15:41:04 UTC 2013


LINGUIST List: Vol-24-2942. Fri Jul 19 2013. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 24.2942, Review: Pragmatics; Semantics; Typology: Narrog (2012)

Moderator: Damir Cavar, Eastern Michigan U <damir at linguistlist.org>

Reviews: Veronika Drake, U of Wisconsin Madison
Monica Macaulay, U of Wisconsin Madison
Rajiv Rao, U of Wisconsin Madison
Joseph Salmons, U of Wisconsin Madison
Mateja Schuck, U of Wisconsin Madison
Anja Wanner, U of Wisconsin Madison
       <reviews at linguistlist.org>

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Do you want to donate to LINGUIST without spending an extra penny? Bookmark
the Amazon link for your country below; then use it whenever you buy from
Amazon!

USA: http://www.amazon.com/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlist-20
Britain: http://www.amazon.co.uk/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlist-21
Germany: http://www.amazon.de/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlistd-21
Japan: http://www.amazon.co.jp/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlist-22
Canada: http://www.amazon.ca/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlistc-20
France: http://www.amazon.fr/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlistf-21

For more information on the LINGUIST Amazon store please visit our
FAQ at http://linguistlist.org/amazon-faq.cfm.

Editor for this issue: Joseph Salmons <jsalmons at linguistlist.org>
================================================================  

Visit LL's Multitree project for over 1000 trees dynamically generated
from scholarly hypotheses about language relationships:
          http://multitree.linguistlist.org/
					
					

Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 11:38:30
From: Aynat Rubinstein [ar1029 at georgetown.edu]
Subject: Modality, Subjectivity, and Semantic Change

E-mail this message to a friend:
http://linguistlist.org/issues/emailmessage/verification.cfm?iss=24-2942.html&submissionid=14846096&topicid=9&msgnumber=1
 
Discuss this message: 
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=14846096

Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/23/23-4160.html

AUTHOR: Heiko Narrog
TITLE: Modality, Subjectivity, and Semantic Change
SUBTITLE: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2012

REVIEWER: Aynat Rubinstein, Georgetown University

“Modality, subjectivity, and semantic change” marks the culmination of a
decade of Heiko Narrog’s research, starting from his 2002 Tokyo University
dissertation. It aims to advance our understanding of two complex and
intertwined concepts, modality and subjectivity, through the careful
examination of the historical development of modal markers
cross-linguistically. The historical data that drive the analysis include
examples from Japanese and Chinese, languages that are historically well
documented, but seldom used to evaluate hypotheses about diachronic change.
The discussion is explicitly intended to extend beyond the confines of
particular theoretical frameworks. Although its orientation is largely
functional-typological and historical, it makes a genuine attempt to integrate
insights from formal semantic and syntactic research and the proposed
theoretical model has parallels in the recent formal semantic literature.

SUMMARY
The book is organized into an introduction, a conclusion, and six main
chapters. It also contains an appendix in which prominent terminological
choices in the literature on modality are presented side by side for
comparison.

Chapter 1 (''Introduction'') presents the book’s goals and the theoretical
approach assumed. Theoretically, it aims “to take a variety of currently
influential perspectives on modality and subjectivity/subjectification into
account, put their premises and implications on the table, evaluate them from
the point of view of empirical and historical language research, and propose a
synthesis” (p. 2). More practically, it sets to evaluate diverging hypotheses
about the directionality of change in the modal domain in light of a wide
range of data.

In Chapter 2 (“Modality and Subjectivity”), Narrog introduces modality,
subjectivity, and the involvement of subjectivity in modality. He defines
modality in terms of factuality, whereby “A proposition is modalized if it is
marked for being undetermined with respect to its factual status, i.e. is
neither positively nor negatively factual” (p. 6). Narrog recognizes nine
subcategories that are arguably relevant for how modality is expressed in the
world’s languages. These are: epistemic, deontic, teleological, preferential,
boulomaic, participant-internal (ability, physical necessity), circumstantial,
existential (quantificational), and evidential. (There is some vagueness about
the intended place of the modality of desire, known as 'bouletic' or
'buletic', in this classification. More generally, the borders between the
boulomaic, preferential, and teleological categories are not made sufficiently
clear.) Subjectivity and intersubjectivity are given a performative
interpretation, in relation to the current speech situation. Subjectivity is
defined as speaker-oriented performativity, and intersubjectivity as
hearer-oriented performativity.

The chapter culminates with a proposal of a new model of modality and mood.
Narrog describes modality using three dimensions: (i) volition, (ii)
orientation (speech-act orientation or event orientation), and (iii)
force/strength (necessity or possibility in his terms). The third dimension is
taken as given, and the model is thus presented as a two-dimensional model of
modal meaning. Two-dimensional semantic maps are used throughout to represent
the model graphically. Dimension (i) can be viewed as reflecting the familiar
distinction between 'epistemic' and 'root' modality types, where epistemic,
circumstantial and ability modalities are all classified as conceptually
non-volitive. Volitive modalities are those that involve a degree of will (cf.
Portner’s 2009 'priority' modalities). Dimension (ii), orientation, forms a
continuum with event orientation and speech-act orientation at its poles.
Speech-act orientation of a modal marker according to Narrog comes in three
varieties: one implying attention to “the speaker’s own modal judgment at the
time of speech”, one implying attention to the hearer, and one implying
attention to discourse or textual context (p. 49). An event-oriented modal, in
contrast, “expresses conditions on a participant of the described event or on
the event as a whole, in relative independence of the speaker and the present
speech situation” (p. 51).

Chapter 3 (“Modality and Semantic Change”) opens with an overview of basic
concepts and terms relating to how linguistic meanings change over time. The
author presents the types of semantic change described in the literature,
mechanisms of change (with a focus on implicatures, and the reanalysis or
conventionalization of the novel interpretations they give rise to), contexts
of change, motivations for change, and the (uni)directionality of change.

Narrog presents his own model of semantic change, centered on the orientation
dimension of modality. His central hypothesis is that semantic change of
verbal categories is characterized by (i) category climbing, and (ii)
increased speech-act orientation. At least for modals, an increase in speaker
orientation is characteristic of early stages of semantic change, and an
increase in hearer and discourse orientation is characteristic of more
advanced stages. The model is argued to account more accurately and
comprehensively for cross-linguistic tendencies of semantic change. In
particular, it calls for a reconsideration of the familiar ‘deontic to
epistemic’ hypothesis. Such a trajectory of change is supported, Narrog
claims, only to the extent that it instantiates the overall tendency of change
from event orientation to speech-act orientation.

In the following chapter (“Illustrating the Model: Some Case-Studies”),
semantic change within modality is illustrated with the historical development
of two ability-circumstantial modals: English ‘can’ and American Spanish
‘capaz’. Narrog then discusses cases in which modality is either the source or
the target of change. The Japanese markers ‘be–’ and ‘–(a)m–/–(y)oo–’
exemplify change from modality into mood and illocutionary marking. Change
from modality to illocutionary modification is also illustrated with the
Hebrew epistemic adverb ‘’ulay’ “perhaps” and the Japanese particle ‘daroo’. A
number of these examples do not fit the mold of development 'from deontic to
epistemic', but all are shown to be consistent with the idea of an increase in
speech-act orientation. Modality and mood as the targets of change are
illustrated again with data from Modern and Old Japanese.

Whether the case studies presented in Chapter 4 are representative of
cross-linguistic patterns is the focus of the following chapters.

In Chapter 5 (“Cross-Linguistic Patterns of Polysemy and Change within
Modality and Mood”), Narrog analyzes the findings of Bybee et al.’s 1994
cross-linguistic survey of historical changes in the domain of modality. He
argues that in the 78 languages surveyed there, the overall direction of
change was upward, towards more speech-act orientation. Deontic-to-epistemic
meaning extensions were rare in the sample.

Attested shifts that find a natural interpretation in Narrog’s model are those
from deontic modality to mood (imperative, hortative, prohibitive), from
future or possibility to mood, and from ability to epistemic possibility. The
author also discusses a number of less well-understood paths of change. The
first is the development of (present-oriented) likelihood/probability meanings
in future markers, as attested in the history of English ‘will’ and German
‘werden’ and ‘sollen’. A second challenging case concerns the development of
subordinating moods. Focusing on the conditional concessive use of imperatives
in Japanese, the author analyzes this development in terms of
discourse/textual orientation, the degree of speech-act orientation associated
with late or very final stages of semantic change.

Chapter 6 (“Shifts between Types of Modality in Traditional Terms”)
investigates instigators of change in the meaning of modals, making reference
to the results of a 200-language survey in Narrog’s earlier work. The topic is
approached from three different perspectives.

1. Historical changes in the force of modals. The change from possibility to
necessity is well documented and considered uncontroversial (a famous example
is *motan, the predecessor of ‘must’; but see Yanovich 2013). Developments in
the opposite direction have been a topic of debate. Narrog reviews the
historical trajectories of relevant examples, concluding that weakening from
necessity to possibility exists and seems to involve interaction with
negation, a “magnet for possibility readings with modal markers” (p .194), and
contexts in which the verb embedded under the modal is a verb of thinking or
communication. It remains largely an open question why changes in force have
up to now only been observed in volitive modals.

2. Participant-internal and participant-external modalities. Possibility
modals in Indo-European languages have motivated the view that ability
(participant-internal) meanings serve as the basis for extension to permission
and circumstantial possibility (participant-external) meanings, but not vice
versa. Narrog argues against this view, citing Thai and Japanese possibility
modals that have developed ability meanings late in their history. He further
points out a puzzling interaction with force. In the domain of necessity,
there are no known examples of an ability-to-deontic like development. If
anything, change proceeds from externally-driven (or deontic) necessity to
internally-driven necessity in certain cases (e.g., ‘need’ and its
predecessors; Loureiro-Porto 2009).

3. Deontic-epistemic polysemy. To understand why certain languages attest this
polysemy while others do not, Narrog investigates individual linguistic
constructions that have been implicated in the deontic-epistemic meaning
extension, the overall organization of modal systems, and finally also
sociocultural factors. He concludes that lack of polysemy, at least in the
case of Modern Japanese, is related to the presence of unambiguous epistemic
modals and the lack of grammaticized deontic modals. He argues that many
languages do not grammaticize modals of deontic and circumstantial necessity,
and suggests that the social and cultural background in which a language is
spoken may be responsible for this gap.

Chapter 7 (“Into (and Out of) Modality”) offers a glimpse into the grammatical
categories that modal markers develop from, and those they develop into. As
predicted by the category climbing hypothesis, voice (primarily passive,
spontaneous/‘out of control’, and middle) is shown to be a source category for
modality. It is hypothesized that negation and genericity play a role in
bridging to the modal meaning. Similarly, historical extensions occur from
possessive constructions to modality (specifically, to necessity or
obligation; see also Bhatt 1998), but modal constructions “never [come] to
denote possession as such” (p. 268). Aspect is predicted to be both a source
and a target of modality, since it is typically located at about the same
level as event-oriented modality in the hierarchy of the clause.
Bi-directional diachronic development is discussed in relation to habitual and
generic constructions that are sources of event-oriented possibility, verbs of
motion and acquisition that come to develop modal and aspectual meaning, and
the combination of modality and aspect in the meaning of prospective aspect.

The book concludes (Chapter 8) with a summary of the study’s main claims:
diachronic change of verbal categories proceeds toward increased speech-act
orientation, and semantic change typically results in category climbing in the
syntax. While multiple and partly conflicting syntactic hierarchies have been
proposed, Narrog’s claims target a coarse-grained hierarchy, which he takes to
be common to all of them. A central conclusion is that certain traditionally
assumed trajectories of change are not supported by cross-linguistic data.
These include the unidirectional development from deontic to epistemic
modality, change from possibility to necessity, and change from
participant-internal to participant-external modality.

EVALUATION
In the last paragraph, Narrog reflects on his overarching goal, “to provide a
new overall model for modal meanings and semantic change in the area of verbal
categories in general.” With extensive discussion of the grammaticalization
paths of modal meanings on the one hand, and an eye to cross-linguistic
generalizations on the other, the author delivers on this goal.

The book's empirical contribution stems from its focus on historically
well-documented but less extensively studied modal systems, in particular that
of Japanese. It is rich with data that will be new to many researchers. This
new data, however, is only one pillar among the broader cross-linguistic
foundations of the book. There is extensive discussion of previous work on
grammaticalization of modality (e.g., Bybee et al.'s seminal study, now almost
twenty years old), which the author presents in an accessible way and attempts
to integrate into his model. Theoretically, the proposal is consistent with
generative syntactic theory and also has clear connections to recent work in
formal semantics. It is therefore likely to help bridge gaps that exist
between different theoretical frameworks in which modality is studied.

The main connection to formal semantics that I would like to point out
concerns Narrog's orientation dimension of modal meaning. According to his
proposal, this is the main axis along which modal meanings evolve, starting
with event-oriented meanings and developing more speech-act-oriented meanings
over time. Since it is also proposed that semantic change typically results in
category climbing in the syntax, it follows that higher verbal categories are
more speech-act oriented. This result recalls the split between VP-level and
S-level modals in Hacquard's event-relative semantics of modality (2006 and
subsequent work). Hacquard assumes that modals of different modality types
occupy different positions in the hierarchy of the clause, proposes that they
are relativized to events, and derives their properties by making reference to
the event they are relativized to. Modals that are relativized to the speech
event (for example, epistemics) have some of the semantic properties that
Narrog associates with speech-act orientation. The two proposals differ in
their theoretical assumptions and in other important details, but the shared
intuitions they attempt to capture merit a close comparison.

Given the central role that orientation plays in the model, the concepts of
event and speech-act orientation would have benefited from a more detailed
introduction. (Relatedly, it is less than ideal that the term ''event
orientation'' is mentioned in the text on p. 34 before it is defined on p.
49.) Without further explanation, the basis for fine-grained distinctions in
orientation among notions like demand, intention, and appropriateness (Figure
4.5) remains unclear. A related comment concerns the assumed properties of
different volitive modalities. What is the basis for the greater speech-act
orientation attributed to preferential and deontic modalities in comparison to
teleological modality, for example (p. 54)? This split between teleological
and other priority-type modalities is not elaborated on but is intriguing,
since the two categories are often considered to be conceptually very similar.

Narrog is careful to note that an increase in speech-act orientation of a
modal marker may, but need not, be accompanied by an increase in
(morphological, syntactic, and phonological) grammaticalization (pp. 108-9).
An analysis of the circumstances in which grammaticalization is merely
optional and those in which it is necessary would have been helpful. These
questions constitute an important avenue for further research.

Toward the end of the book, Narrog raises the important question of the
diachronic relationship between modality and the two cartographically adjacent
categories of voice and aspect. The interaction between these categories is a
topic that has garnered considerable interest recently (for example, in the
debate surrounding the source of 'actuality entailments' of modals in certain
grammatical configurations). Before generalizations about directionality of
diachronic development are attempted, however, it is necessary to rigorously
delineate the boundaries between these categories. The very classification of
a given marker as denoting voice or modality may be contentious, as in the
case of 'out of control' marking discussed in Section 7.1.1. (Narrog treats
the relevant marker in Thompson as denoting voice, but others have treated
markers of this kind in closely related languages as modal; see Davis et al.
2009.)

It is precisely in this context that evidence about the syntactic position of
a marker and arguments showing that it 'climbs' up the tree become crucial.
This kind of evidence is necessary in order to complete the argumentation in
Chapter 7 about changes into and out of modality.

Overall, Narrog's writing is engaging and the organization of the book is
logical and clear. This makes it an exceptionally accessible read and a
reference text that is easy to navigate on a second and third reading.
Examples are generally provided with complete glosses and presented
strategically as means of advancing the argumentation. One disappointing
aspect concerns the copyediting of the text, which regrettably contains many
distracting typos and errors. (The list I compiled is too long to be included
in this review, but will be communicated to the author.)

In sum, the book contains a wealth of cross-linguistic observations, a
thought-provoking synthesis of theoretical proposals, and many questions for
further research. It is an invaluable resource for any student or researcher
with an interest in modality, grammaticalization, and the interplay of grammar
and context in the evolution of language.

REFERENCES
Bhatt, Rajesh. 1998. Obligation and possession. In Papers from the UPenn/MIT
roundtable on argument structure and aspect, ed. Heidi Harley. MITWPL, 21-40.

Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins, and William Pagliuca. 1994. The evolution of
grammar: Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. University
of Chicago Press.

Davis, Henry, Lisa Matthewson, and Hotze Rullmann. 2009. ‘Out of control’
marking as circumstantial modality in St’át’imcets. In Cross-linguistic
semantics of tense, aspect, and modality, eds. Hogeweg, Lotte, Helen de Hoop
and Andrej Malchukov. John Benjamins, 205-244.

Hacquard, Valentine. 2006. Aspects of modality. Doctoral Dissertation, MIT.

Loureiro-Porto, Lucía. 2009. The semantic predecessors of need in the history
of English (c750-1710). Wiley-Blackwell.

Portner, Paul. 2009. Modality. Oxford University Press.

Yanovich, Igor. 2013.Variable-force modals on the British Isles: Semantic
evolution of *motan. Slides of talk presented at Semantics and Linguistic
Theory (SALT) 23.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Aynat Rubinstein received a PhD in linguistics from the University of
Massachusetts Amherst in 2012 and is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the
Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University. Her research interests are
in formal semantics and the semantics-syntax interface, with a special
interest in the interpretation of modals and other context dependent
expressions.



----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-24-2942	
----------------------------------------------------------
Visit LL's Multitree project for over 1000 trees dynamically generated
from scholarly hypotheses about language relationships:
          http://multitree.linguistlist.org/
					
					



More information about the LINGUIST mailing list