[Lingtyp] Epistemic possibility plus affective evaluation?

[Volker Gast]

Hi Sebastian,
I was wondering about these expressions ("inshallah", "ojalá" < 
"washallah") too, but I somehow felt that they belong in the domain of 
desiderative or deontic modality, rather than epistemic modality (cf. 
also "magari", which seems to be widespread across the Balkans). 
"Inshallah" seems to have specific religious implications which are not 
primarily related to ignorance. But sub-types of modality are hard to 
keep apart, of course, and perhaps Bastian's question could be rephrased 
by asking whether there are elements that convey both epistemic 
possibility and desiderative modality. Btw Lichtenberk uses the term 
"apprehensional epistemic" for "fear of a future situation" (cf. Kilu's 
message), and English 'lest' is often used as an example of that 
category. At the end of the day, I'm afraid we're back to the question 
of how to define linguistic categories within and across languages, but 
imho we shouldn't restart this discussion.

Best,
Volker

On 20/10/2020 13:00, Sebastian Nordhoff wrote:
> 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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