Call for papers SLE workshop on "Covert patterns of modality"

Thu Nov 11 17:12:04 UTC 2010

Call for papers

Workshop proposal
for the 44th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, 8-11
September 2011, at the Universidad de La Rioja, Logroño, Spain.

Convenors:
Werner Abraham/Vienna & Munich - Elisabeth Leiss/Munich

Covert patterns of modality

The main concern of this workshop is covert patterns of modality in a
cross-linguistic perspective. We assume that covert, or silent, modality
is far more frequent than its overt expression. In this respect, modal
categories behave completely different com-pared with their aspectual and
temporal counterparts. The main reasons for this be-havior are the far
more complex functions of modality and the strategies used to en-code
these functions in an economical way. Modality uses parasitically less
complex categories as building blocks to encode the illocutive functions
of a sentence. This might be the very reason why aspect seems, at first
sight, to be the most frequent grammatical overt category in a
cross-linguistic perspective followed by tense, whe-reas mood and modality
are quite rare.
	Patterns of modality may be hidden for two reasons: First, they are
formed by intricate patterns yet undiscovered. Second, the functions of
modality are not yet well enough defined, and they are additionally
blurred by different terminologies due to different descriptive
linguistic traditions. Thus, the functional equivalents of modal
particles in languages without overtly expressed modal particles are yet
to be discovered. Third, modality seems to be the most ubiquitous
category of language. For this very reason, it is difficult to perceive
and conceive its presence in discourse. The overarching raison for modal
expressivity is the existence of, and the expressive reference to, a
common ground of knowledge and assumptions shared, or not shared, between
Speaker and Hearer. The strategy for the Speaker to fathom out such
common knowledge ground on the Hearer’s part is Foreign Conscience
Alignment/FCA (Abraham to appear). FCA will be the leading methodological
criterion uniting all approaches to the topic of modality as represented
by an autonomous type of illocutive force.
	We invite contributions to the following topics concerning the intricate
patterns of modality:

1.	Aspect and tense and their respective features as building blocks of
modality.
2.	Covert epistemicity in evidentials, and covert evidentiality in
epistemic modals.
3.	Sources of illocutive force in subordinate clauses.
4.	Covert modality in pronouns and applicative datives.
5.	Modality in non-finite contexts such as root infinitives and
infinitival relatives.

	Recent linguistic literature on modality discusses links with aspect,
primar¬ily in languages that have a scarcer representation of direct
expressions of modality such as modal verbs and, in particular, their
systematic epistemic readings (see Kotin 2008 and the volu¬mes edited by
W. Abraham & E. Leiss 2008, 2009).  We expect a large amount of still
undisclosed patterns of modality, where aspect is involved as a trigger
of readings related to modality.
	Aspectual selectional restrictions are also regularly at the core of
studies on evidentials and epistemics. Far better attested are epistemic
readings in evidentials, as well as evidential readings in epistemics.
Here, the common function of both categories might be blurred by
different descriptive traditions.
	Another most intriguing phenomenon concerning modality is the fact that,
counter to prior convictions, we find dependent clauses that react
sensitively to the insertion of epi¬stemic modal elements forcing the
conclusion that they have the root property of independent clauses, i.e.
an autonomous Illocutive function. Subor-dinate clauses are
conventionally taken to carry no illocutive power of their own (e.g., you
cannot express imperativity or interrogativity through dependent clause
status). But there are three types of dependent clauses that autonomously
bear illocutive power: non-fact¬ive complement clauses,
causal/adversative adverbial clauses, and non-restrictive relative
clauses (Kayne 2005, Haegeman 2006, Coniglio 2009, Abraham (submitted),
Introductions in Abraham&Leiss (eds.) 2008, 2009). We invite
contributions which disclose the patterns of hidden modality in dependent
clauses.
	Quite a new field of study is the amount of illocutionary force
transported by pronouns such as (ein) gewis¬ser (X), which, in contrast
to (ein) bestimmer (X), refers to the common knowledge ground of both
speaker and hearer (Aloni in prep., Alon-so-Ovalle & Menen¬dez-Benito
2010, Port 2010, Van der Auwera & Van Al¬senoy 2010). Phenomena of this
kind give additional support to the hypothesis that modality might
ubiquitously found in all sentences and even constituents we produce. 
Other candidates for covert modality are applicative dative objects in
Polish as discussed by Rivero et al. (2010). As appears, Polish human
datives are ame-nable to modal readings under specific contextual
circumstances. One might argue that, on a similar line, the German(ic)
ethical dative may be regarded as a modal particle leaving undecided, or,
more precisely, making assessable to the hear¬er, the truth value of the
proposition. There seem to be islands of modality in sentences yet to be
undisclosed. We invite the investigation of such islands of modality.
	A classical field of covert modality are embedded infinitives (with or
without a preposition): There appears to be a general occurrence of
covert modality in root infi-nitives and infinitival relatives (this is
to be done soon / this has to be so / middle con-structions such as this
field plays well with the notion “can/may be played upon well”; see in
detail and for examples Bhatt 2006 as well as others). The phenomenon
appears to be a cross-linguistic one (shown to also hold for German,
French, and Hindi-Urdu). Co¬vert modality is not as¬so¬cia¬ted with any
lexical item in the structure that is interpreted as above. The main
question to solve is: Where does the modal flavor come from? What is its
source: Is it syn¬tactic, semantic, or unsystematically pragmatic?

References
Abraham, Werner (submitted): Fremdbewusstseinsabgleich in Syntax und
Semantik. Paper presented at the workshop on modality, University of
Hannover, June 2010.
Abraham, Werner & Leiss, Elisabeth (eds.) 2008. Modality-aspect interfaces
– impli-cations and typological solutions. [Typological Studies in
Language 79]. Amster-dam: Benjamins.
Abraham, Werner & Leiss, Elisabeth (eds.) 2009. Modalität. [Studien zur
deutschen Grammatik 77]. Tübingen: Stauf¬fenburg
Aloni, Maria (in prep.). Notes on indefinites in comparatives. Manuscript,
University of Amsterdam.
Alonso-Ovalle, Luis & Paula Menendez-Benito 2010. Plural epistemic
indefinites. Presentation at the DGfS-Meeting Berlin February 2010.
Auwera, Johan van der & Lauren Van Alsenoy 2010. Map¬ping the any’s of
English, German, and Dutch. Presentation at the DGfS-Meeting Berlin
February 2010.
Bhatt, Rajesh 2006. Covert modality in non-finite contexts. [Interface
Explorations 8]. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Coniglio, Marco 2009. Deutsche Modalpartikeln in Haupt- und Nebensätzen.
In: Ab-raham, Werner & Leiss, Elisabeth (eds.) 2009.
Haegeman, Liliane 2006. Conditionals, factives, and the left periphery.
Lingua 116: 1651-1669.
Kayne, Richard 2005. Silent syntax. Oxford: OUP.
Kotin, Michail 2008. Zu den Affinitäten zwischen Modalität und Aspekt:
Eine germa-nisch-slavische Fallstudie. Die Welt der Slaven 53: 116-140.
Port, Angelika 2010. Epistemic specificity and knowledge. Presentation at
the DGfS-Meeting Berlin February 2010.
Rivero, María Luisa; Ana Arregui & Ewelina Frąckowiak 2010. Variation
in circums-tantial modality: Polish vs. St’át’imcets. Squib Linguistic
Inquiry 41.4 .

Please send a short description of the topic of your intended presentation to
werner.abraham at lmu.de and to elisabeth.leiss at lmu.de.

Full abstracts are to be submitted by 15 January 2011, once the workshop
has been accepted. Notification will be given by March 31, 2011.

Presentations will be 20 minutes plus ten minutes question time.

Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Leiss
Lehrstuhl für Germanistische Linguistik
Department für Germanistik, Komparatistik und Nordistik, Deutsch als
Fremdsprache
LMU München
Schellingstraße 3/RG
80799 München
Tel.: +49 (0)89 2180 2339 (Büro)
Tel.: +49 (0)89 2180 5744 (Sekr.: Frau Grebner)
Tel.: +49 (0)89 769 969 23 (priv.)
http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~GL/Leiss