[Lingtyp] Epistemic possibility plus affective evaluation?

[Sebastian Nordhoff]

Dear all,
one obvious example which came to my mind was inshallah in Arabic (and 
ojalá in Spanish). Both have an epistemic value of uncertainty, but a 
positive attitudinal stance.
Best wishes
Sebastian


On 10/20/20 12:55 PM, paolo Ramat wrote:
> Volker's mention of Span. /a lo mejor / lets me think of the Ital. 
> opposite/alla peggio /"at worst", "in the worst" (while it doesn't exist 
> an adverbial corresponding to /a lo mejor):/
> It's terribly raining; let's hope that the bus comes on time, /alla 
> peggio/ we'll have to go on foot". However, it does not seem that/alla 
> peggio/ has an epistemic value.
> 
> Best,
> Paolo
> 
> 
> Il giorno mar 20 ott 2020 alle ore 12:14 Kilu von Prince 
> <watasenia at gmail.com <mailto:watasenia at gmail.com>> ha scritto:
> 
>     Hi Bastian,
> 
>     that is pretty much the definition of apprehensive or timitive mood.
> 
>     Best,
>     Kilu
> 
>     On Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 11:45 AM Volker Gast
>     <volker.gast at uni-jena.de <mailto:volker.gast at uni-jena.de>> wrote:
> 
> 
>         The specific variety of Spanish that I learned (Mexico/Chiapas)
>         has an expression "a lo mejor" which is basically an adverbial of
>         epistemic possibility ("perhaps"), but which seems to come with
>         a positive
>         connotation ("hopefully"). But it is possible that the positive
>         connotation is due to my imagination, triggered by "mejor"
>         ("better").
>         There are certainly native speakers of Spanish on this list who can
>         clarify that.
> 
>         Volker
> 
>         _____________
>         Prof. V. Gast
>         http://linktype.iaa.uni-jena.de/VG
> 
>         On Mon, 19 Oct 2020, Bastian Persohn wrote:
> 
>          > Dear colleagues,
>          >
>          > 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.
>          >
>          > Thanks so much!
>          >
>          > Bastian
>          >
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