32.2200, Review: General Linguistics; Pragmatics; Semantics; Syntax: Abraham (2020)
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Subject: 32.2200, Review: General Linguistics; Pragmatics; Semantics; Syntax: Abraham (2020)
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Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2021 14:17:38
From: MARIA SOLER [mariaams at ucm.es]
Subject: Modality in Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics
Discuss this message:
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/31/31-3552.html
AUTHOR: Werner Abraham
TITLE: Modality in Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics
SERIES TITLE: Cambridge Studies in Linguistics
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2020
REVIEWER: MARIA AMPARO SOLER, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
SUMMARY
This book is a specific study on the domain of modality, which covers a number
of different aspects of language. Its author, Werner Abraham, presents a
collection of ideas summarized into a proposal for defining modality in even
better terms than those proposed in attempts up to this point.
Abraham is aware that the study of modality is complex, as he explains through
his research and compiled results. Nevertheless, such complexity is not a
reason to avoid an attempt at conveying the investigations and approaches this
researcher has found to prove effective in explaining such a difficult aspect
of linguistics.
Some of the ideas we find in the book have been published previously in some
other book chapters, papers and presentations (Abraham 2002, 2011; Abraham and
Leiss 2008, 2012; Leiss and Abraham 2014.). In these cases, Abraham reports
that this is an approved compilation with the permission of other editors. All
content is organized by topic.
The volume contains an accurate Introduction and four meticulously constructed
parts. The first of these, Modes of Modality (with three chapters), focuses on
how we can recognize the speaker orientation of messages through modality,
Foreign Consciousness Alignment (FCA) and its relation to
(inter)subjectification, and the conception of modality as distance, one of
the most relevant proposals of Abraham in the volume. The second part, Verbal
Modality (with four chapters), explores the importance of a number of
linguistic levels such as syntax and semantics in the expression of modality
through modal verbs, with special attention paid to German, Dutch and English
cases. The third part, Adverbial Modality (with four chapters), looks at modal
particles and adverbs as traditional paradigmatic examples of this kind,
usually referred to as adverbial modality. There is an explanation of how
attitudinal force is displayed with these linguistic units and how they deal
with phenomena such as mirativity, (conventional) implicatures and
grammaticalization, to offer a few examples. The fourth and final part, Covert
Modality (which only contains a single chapter), sums up situations in which
modality is not openly recognized, although it is operative. Apart from this,
the volume has some other relevant sections including a list of tables, a list
of abbreviations and special symbols, a nourished bibliography list and,
finally, an alphabetical index with the most important and utilized concepts.
Below is a summary of the main contents of the four substantial parts of the
book under review.
I. Modes of Modality
This is the first content part that opens the volume. It is focused on
describing various ways in which modality is displayed in languages from a
general point of view. The first chapter discusses what differentiates human
from animal communication. Abraham explains here how we manage phenomena such
as deixis (Abraham 2011), orientation, and modality (Kratzer 1981), with
distance (so crucial in our communication system) between speaker and hearer
being recognized as evident. In fact, this concept (constructed from a reading
of Hockett’s categorial displacement, Jakobson’s shifting, Pierce’s distancing
deixis and Bühler’s natural origo) forms the basis of human language
capability. Furthermore, this is the core feature of modality.
Humans need to anchor our mental representation. We are able to do this thanks
to linguistic tools which involve complex displacement techniques; in fact,
Abraham recognizes these as being aspect, tense, mood and modality. Throughout
the first chapter, there is an explanation of how those displacements can be
simple or double (for example in modality), along with the dependence of this
human process from the application of the Theory of Mind (ToM) (Papafragou
2002). In addition, there is a description of the relationship between
modality and certainty based on the difference between experience and
knowledge.
The last difference is commented on in greater depth in the second chapter,
where Abraham reflects on how the (inter)subjectification phenomenon is
connected to what he refers to as the Foreign Consciousness Alignment (FCA).
Following on, in the third chapter we observe the differences between
epistemic, root or deontic, dynamic and boulomaic modality and we take a
detailed look at linguistic procedures that express these situations: the
traditional sort, verbal modals, modal (discourse) particles, and covert
modality. Finally, here we start to see examples of these kinds of modality in
the German language extracted from a psalms corpora that the author compares
in different languages.
II. Verbal Modality
The second part of the volume focuses on verbal modality and its traits at
syntactic, semantic and pragmatic level. The first chapter studies the
different structural positions of modal verbs in German as evidentials,
epistemics, roots, and the lexical transitive usage of other cases (Coates
1995). The author determines groups of usage characteristics which serve as a
relevant difference between the domains of epistemicity and evidentiality, as
well as the negation thereof.
The next chapter takes a deeper look at other specific behaviors of verb
modality in German. However, the third chapter of this part becomes more
interesting with a look at how syntax presents individual differences in
German, Dutch and English. Here we can see how temporality, event time-speech
act relation, aspectuality and reference all affect modality. We appreciate
that these are important aspects worthy of study. Moreover, Abraham discusses
the relevance of definiteness in modal paradigms (Akiba 2014, Jäger 2012).
The last chapter deals with modal verb semantics. Here we can see the
relationship between perfectiveness and the root or modal readings of modal
verbs, along with a number of other observations in German and English (in
connection with other results in the bibliography such as Giannakidou and Mari
2018, Divjak 2009, among others).
III. Adverbial Modality
This and the first part of the book are the most extensive in the volume, with
four chapters devoted to each. It starts with a revision of all categories
that have been normally classified as modal particles (Degand, Cornillie and
Pietrandrea 2013). These are units that can be expressive, although we need to
describe them in a more specific way. Some features of modal particles are
their polyfunctionality, their illocutionary potentials and their complexity.
These are the reasons why the second chapter talks about the attitudinal force
of the macrocategory of these modal particles. In this chapter we can also
read some characteristics of epistemic modality, as well as contrasts between
languages.
The third chapter tells us that modal particles can produce some conventional
implicatures (Verstratete 2005) and explains the concept of mirativity as a
rhetorical category, which encodes surprise or unexpectedness on the part of
the speaker. This strategy is directly related to the output of implicatures
in some different contexts, such as conversational situations.
The last chapter revises finiteness in modal particle uses and subjective
perspectivization in the complex journey of thoughts from the addressee to the
speaker.
IV. Covert Modality
The last part of the volume comprises a single chapter on modality in cases in
which this is not as explicit as in other situations previously analyzed in
the book. Here it is explained that the modalizing process is carried out by
implication. Constructions with attitudinal force mark the transition from
propositions to utterances and they add silent modality thanks to some lexical
predicates, infinitival directional prepositions (Jäger 2012), and syntactic
mechanisms interpretable as passive, etc. The author exemplifies these cases
in German and English, as well as in other languages including Norwegian,
Italian, French, Russian and Polish.
Finally, the chapter explains mereological decomposition [±homogeneity,
±additivity, ±divisibility] as a set of features that can be used to
differentiate root readings from epistemic modality, and the status of
necessity from the one of possibility.
EVALUATION
This volume offers a coherent read as it is presented as a summary of main
aspects related to modality, as well as proposing a specific point of view as
regards research. Abraham has designed a monographic book divided into four
parts, which are equal in terms of the complexity of the topics and subtopics
treated, although they contain different number of chapters and extensions.
It is easy to understand the progression of the explanations about modality
whether through a complete reading or one divided into parts. As Abraham
explains in the introduction to the volume, this is conceived for a wide range
of teachers and researchers who can decide between an in-depth approach to how
the modality operates through different language levels, and a more general
approximation to some general features of this domain.
Throughout the reading there is an appreciation of the relevant research
ground of this author. Abraham clearly sets out his ideas and he defends a
specific way to define and research modality. Many of these proposals can be
read alongside different papers and books he has written and edited throughout
his life as a teacher and researcher (also in collaboration with some
colleagues such as E. Leiss). A valuable aspect of this book, therefore, is
that it compiles a large number of prior studies on modality, enabling Abraham
to provide a solid overview of a topic that has, until now, proven difficult.
In relation to this, a final general summary of concepts and main ideas
described throughout the volume is perhaps lacking. Likewise, despite it being
a very complete work, the analysis could be extended to other languages
(Indo-European and Non-Indo-european) in order to obtain more conclusive
generalizations on displays of modality.
REFERENCES
Abraham, Werner. 2002. Modal Verbs: Epistemics in German and English. In: Sjef
Barbiers, Frits Beukema and Wim van der Wurff (eds.). Modality and Its
Interaction with the Verbal System, 19-50. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Abraham, Werner. 2011. Traces of Bülher’s semiotic legacy in modern
linguistics. In: Karl Bülher. Theory of Language: The Representational
Function of Language, 13-47. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Abraham, Werner and Elisabeth Leiss (eds.). 2008. Modality-Aspect Interfaces:
Implications and Typological Solutions. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Abraham, Werner and Elisabeth Leiss. 2012. Modality and Theory of Mind
Elements across Languages. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Akiba, Daigo. 2014. Interpreting modals by phase heads. In: Abraham Werner and
Elisabeth Leiss (eds.). Modes of Modality: Modality, Typology, and Universal
Grammar, 19-42. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Coates, Joan. 1995. The expressions of root and epistemic possibility in
Modern English. In: Joan Bybee and Suzanne Fleischman (eds.). Modality in
Grammar and Discourse, 55-66. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Degand, Liesbeth, Bert Cornillie and Paola Pietrandrea (eds.). 2013. Discourse
Markers and Modal Particles: Categorization and Description. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Divjak, Dagmar. 2009. Mapping between Domains: The Aspect-Modality Connection
in Russian. London: Routledge.
Giannakidou, Anastasia and Alda Mari. 2018. The semantics roots of positive
polarity Epistemic modal verbs and adverbs in English, Greek and Italian.
Linguistics and Philosophy 41/6. 623-664.
Jäger, Anne. 2012. The emergence of modal meanings from haben with
zu-infinitives in Old High German. In Gabriele Diewald, Leena Kahlas-Tarkka
and Ilse Wischer (eds.). Comparative Studies in Early Germanic Languages: With
a Focus on Verbal Categories. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Kratzer, Angelika. 1981. The notional category of modality. In: H-J Eikmeyer
and H Rieser (eds.). Words, Worlds, and Contexts: New Approaches in Word
Semantics, 38-74. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.
Leiss, Elisabeth and Abraham Werner (eds.). 2014. Modes of Modality: Modality,
Typology, and Universal Grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Papafragou, Anna. 2002. Modality and Theory of Mind: Perspectives from
language development and autism. In: Sjef Barbiers, Frits Beukema and Wim van
der Wurff (eds.). Modality and Its Interaction with the Verbal System,
185-204. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Verstraete, Jean Christophe. 2005. Scalar quantity implicatures and the
interpretation of modality: Problems in the deontic domain. Journal of
Pragmatics 37, 1401-1418.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Maria Amparo Soler Bonafont is an Assistant Professor at Universidad
Complutense de Madrid (UCM) in Madrid, Spain, where she teaches Pragmatics,
Intercultural Pragmatics and Dialectology of Spanish language. Her research is
focused on language variation (topic she has worked on in some different
projects: La atenuación pragmática en el español hablado and La atenuación
pragmática en su variación genérica, in Universitat de València (UV); as well
as Análisis de la Variación Lingüística en Entornos Audivisuales, in Valencian
International University (VIU)). She has published contributions about
epistemic modality phenomena in Spanish (propositional attitude verbs and
discourse markers behaviour) and goes on a discursive and functional analysis
of interaction from a cognitive approach.
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