[Lingtyp] the favorative clitic -> approbative

[Christian Lehmann]

Thanks to all of you who bothered to help me with data and suggestions. 
For me, the following insights emerged:

  * Apparently, there is - viz. in Cabecar - a positive counterpart to
    the apprehensive, which latter has been known chiefly from Oceanic
    and Australian languages. This might be a binary paradigm with the
    peculiarity that languages commonly choose to incorporate either of
    its values in their system.
  * A good term for the positive counterpart seems to be approbative. It
    was apparently brought up by Bolinger (1957) for English, but its
    use as in Kibrik et al. 1977 seems well taken.
  * Given the polarity, it is possible for such an item to have
    contrastive uses.
  * An approbative or apprehensive may start out as an evaluative item.
    If the speaker evaluates an unreal situation positively, this gives
    rise to the inference that he would want to see the situation
    happen; and analogously for negative evaluation. This inference may
    become part of the meaning of the item; and in this way, something
    that starts out as an evaluative may be grammaticalized to a modal
    item and even a mood.

Best to all of you,
Christian
-- 

Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
Rudolfstr. 4
99092 Erfurt
Deutschland

Tel.: 	+49/361/2113417
E-Post: 	christianw_lehmann at arcor.de
Web: 	https://www.christianlehmann.eu
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