Mood selection in Romance and Balkan

Siegel, Laura

doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2008.11.006

Cited by 35 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…The difficulty of arriving at a unified semantics, already amply illustrated in the prescriptive literature, has led some (e.g. Portner 1997) to conclude that the subjunctive has no semantics, or has a vacuous semantics, to be used in case the indicative would have triggered a presupposition failure (Schlenker 2005) or resulted in redundancy (Siegel 2009).…”

Section: Contemporary Linguistic Treatmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolving grammar of the French subjunctive

Poplack¹,

Lealess

Dion

2013

Probus

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This paper compares the evolution and contemporary distribution of subjunctive and indicative in spoken Quebec French with the development of normative injunctions on variant choice over five centuries of grammatical tradition. The subjunctive has been prescribed with hundreds of lexical governors, verb classes and semantic readings since the 16th century, but in spontaneous speech, it is virtually limited to a handful of matrix and embedded verbs. Our analysis shows that the overriding determinant of variant choice is not meaning, as most would claim, but the lexical identity of the governor. The only other factors that play a role are those pertaining to the construal of the context as canonical for subjunctive (e.g. suppletive morphology, presence of the complementizer que, and adjacency of main to embedded clause); where these are present, subjunctive is favored. Quantitative discrepancies among governors and embedded verbs, their previously undocumented associations (or lack thereof) with the subjunctive, and the unpredictable mood preferences they display at different points in time have all conspired in obscuring community patterns. Once actual usage facts are systematically analyzed, however, the grammar of subjunctive selection emerges as regular and stable. Its discrepancies with respect to both normative and theoretical linguistic accounts stem from attempts to impose the doctrine of form-function symmetry on a phenomenon which is inherently variable.

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Section: Contemporary Linguistic Treatmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolving grammar of the French subjunctive

Poplack¹,

Lealess

Dion

2013

Probus

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“…[+_sbjv] appears when more contentful mood features, such as [+_ind], are unavailable; in this sense it serves as a semantic default (Portner 1997;Schlenker 2005;Marques 2009;Siegel 2009;Portner and Rubinstein 2012). The indicative feature, [+_ind], is the semantically marked case.…”

Section: Background and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To a first approximation, indicative-selecting predicates are treated as implying that the speaker/subject takes the complement to be true (Noonan 1985;Palmer 1986;Farkas 1992;Giannakidou 1999;Marques 2009;Siegel 2009), or bears some suitably strong epistemic attitude toward the complement (Smirnova 2011). Persistent challenges for these accounts include subjunctive-selection with emotive factives (though see Siegel 2009), indicative-selection with fiction verbs and commissives, and indicative-selection with 'hope'.…”

Section: Literature Comparisonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I focus on the factors affecting the selection of indicative versus subjunctive mood in the complements of attitude verbs and speech-act verbs in French, as in (1) A common approach is to explain the contrast between indicative-versus subjunctiveselecting attitude predicates in terms of a notion of commitment: 1 Attitude ascriptions with indicative complements express judgments of truth, whether according to the attitude subject or the speaker (Bolinger 1968;Noonan 1985;Palmer 1986;Farkas 1992Farkas , 2003Giannakidou 1999;Schlenker 2005;Marques 2009;Siegel 2009;Smirnova 2011;Anand and Hacquard 2013); they describe attitudes that are "prototypically factive" (Portner 1997). Attitude ascriptions with subjunctive complements lack such a commitment (Schlenker 2005;Siegel 2009): they evaluate the complement not by assessing its truth, but by comparing it to a set of alternatives (Farkas 1992(Farkas , 2003Giannakidou 1999;Giorgi and Pianesi 1997;Villalta 2000Villalta , 2008Marques 2009;Anand and Hacquard 2013); they describe "non-representational" attitudes (Bolinger 1968), like preferences. Details of implementation aside, treating mood selection in terms of commitment to the embedded proposition captures many examples well.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Commitment and states of mind with mood and modality

Silk

2018

Nat Lang Semantics

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This paper develops an account of mood selection with attitude predicates in French. I start by examining the "contextual commitment" account of mood developed by Portner and Rubinstein (in: Chereches (ed) Proceedings of SALT 22, CLC Publications, Ithaca, NY, pp 2012). A key innovation of Portner and Rubinstein's (P&R's) account is to treat mood selection as fundamentally depending on a relation between individuals' attitudes and the predicate's modal backgrounds. I raise challenges for P&R's qualitative analysis of contextual commitment and explanations of mood selection. There are indicative-selecting predicates that are felicitous in contexts where there isn't contextual commitment (in P&R's sense); and there are subjunctive-selecting predicates that involve no less contextual commitment (in P&R's sense) than certain indicative-selecting verbs. I develop an alternative account of verbal mood. The general approach, which I call a state-of-mind approach, is to analyze mood in terms of whether the formal relation between the predicate's modal backgrounds and an overall state of mind represents a relation of commitment. Indicative mood in French presupposes that the informational-evaluative state determined by the predicate's modal backgrounds is included in the informational-evaluative state characterizing the event described by the predicate. The account provides an improved explanation of core mood-selection puzzles, including subjunctive-selection with emotive factives, indicative-selection with fiction verbs, indicative-selection with espérer 'hope' versus subjunctive-selection with vouloir 'want', and indicative-selection with commissives versus subjunctive-selection with directives. Subjunctive-selection with modal adjectives is briefly considered. The mood-selection properties of the predicates

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“…More recent comparative studies about mood and modality can be found in Palmer (2001), Quer (2009), Roussou (2009), Giorgi (2009), Siegel (2009), Giannakidou (2009, Kempchinsky (2009) and the volume edited by B. Rothstein & R. Thieroff (2010) about mood in the languages of Europe, with articles by Thieroff, Bergs/ Heine, De Mulder, Becker, Laca, Quer, and Squartini. This article compares some uses of the present subjunctive (Spanish) and the Konjunktiv I (German) in noun clauses in order to find out if there is a common denominator and what distinguishes the usage in the two languages.…”

Section: Mood -A Universal Category?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The subjunctive, a marker of 'subordinance'? A comparison between German and Spanish

Busch

2014

Borealis

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ABSTRACT. By comparing Spanish and German, it can be shown that the subjunctive in Spanish (as well as in German) has only a very general grammatical meaning. This meaning can be called 'procedural,' and is defined as 'subordinance' (= syntactic and semantic subordination under the main predicate or another explicit or implicit contextual element) or 'contextual alternative.' In both languages the subjunctive/Konjunktiv is used in noun, adjective and adverb, as well as (pseudo)independent, clauses. This article compares only noun clauses. The focus is on the present subjunctive/Konjunktiv I. It is used in German in direct noun clauses and clauses that are introduced by the conjunction dass ('that'). In direct noun clauses, the Konjunktiv I is mandatory in distinguishing direct and reported (indirect) speech. In clauses introduced by dass, the element 'reported speech' is signaled by the conjunction and followed by the typical word order with the finite verb at the end of the sentence. Therefore, especially in spoken German, there is a strong tendency to use the indicative in this case. Another use of the Konjunktiv I in German is after wishes. In direct noun clauses, the use of the Konjunktiv I is rare and also signals indirect speech. The Konjunktiv I is often replaced by the Konjunktiv II (past subjunctive), but especially with dass-clauses and the indicative.Keywords. Mood, Subjunctive, Konjunktiv, Subordination, Contextual alternative, Spanish, German RESUMEN. Mediante una comparación con el alemán, vamos a mostrar que el subjuntivo en español (tal como en alemán) tiene solo un significado gramatical muy general, que se ha calificado de 'procedural', y que vamos a definir como 'subordinancia' (subordinación sintáctica y semántica bajo el predicado principal u otro elemento contextual explícito o implícito) o 'alternativa contextual'. En ambas lenguas, el subjuntivo/Konjunktiv se puede usar en cláusulas nominales, adjetivales, adverbiales, tal como en cláusulas (pseudo)independientes. En este artículo solo se compara el uso en cláusulas nominales. Además se centra en el Konjunktiv I, que en alemán se puede usar en cláusulas nominales directas y cláusulas introducidas por la conjunción dass ('que'). En cláusulas nominales directas, el Konjunktiv I es obligatorio para distinguir el habla directa de la indirecta. En cláusulas introducidas por dass, el elemento 'habla indirecta' es señalado por la conjunción y el orden de palabras típico con el verbo conjugado al final de la oración. Por eso, particularmente en alemán hablado, hay una tendencia muy I would like to thank the editor and reviewers of Borealis for their extensive comments on the first draft of this article that were very useful in the preparation of the final manuscript. I also would like to thank Ruth Tauber for checking the English part of this article. I am responsible for any remaining errors or omissions.

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Mood selection in Romance and Balkan

Cited by 35 publications

References 25 publications

The evolving grammar of the French subjunctive

The evolving grammar of the French subjunctive

Commitment and states of mind with mood and modality

The subjunctive, a marker of 'subordinance'? A comparison between German and Spanish

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