Explains the fundamental ideas and some of the most significant results of modern semantic theory. The book, first published by the oxford university press in 2009, lays out the basic problems in linguistic modality and some of the standard approaches to solving them bibliography. Portner is associate professor of linguistics and director of the interdisciplinary program in cognitive science at georgetown university. The book gives readers valuable insights into topics such as definiteness, specificity, genericity aspect, aktionsart and mood. Modality is a nonfiction book by the semanticist paul portner. Paul portners accessible guide to this key area of current research will be welcomed by students of linguistics at graduate level and above, as well as by researchers in philosophy, computational science, and.
Fundamentals of formal semantics is a concise introduction to the field of semantics as it is actually practiced. The treatment allows a combination of the central idea that the progressives meaning has a major modal component with insights of other theories. The introduction describes the variety of grammatical phenomena associated with modality, explaining why modal verbs, adjectives, and its main goal is to explain and evaluate important contemporary theories within linguistics and to discuss a wide range of linguistic phenomena from the perspective of these theories. Portner, paul and raffaella zanuttini, the characterization of exclamative clauses in paduan, language 761, 12332. Abstract this article argues that the logical paraphrases used to describe the meanings of must, need, may, and can obscure the naturallanguage semantic interaction between these verbs and negation. My specializations within linguistics are semantics and pragmatics, and their interfaces with one another and with syntax. Imperatives may be interpreted with many subvarieties of directive force, for example as orders, invitations, or pieces of advice. This is a book about semantic theories of modality.
Modality paperback paul portner oxford university press. These indepth articles from leading names in their fields cover the core concepts of sentential semantics such as tense, modality, conditionality, propositional attitudes, scope, negation, and coordination. The introduction describes the variety of grammatical phenomena associated with modality, explaining why modal verbs, adjectives, and adverbs represent the core. M6p67 2009 415dc22 2008041664 typeset by spi publisher services, pondicherry, india printed in great britain on acidfree. The proposal made here draws much for the extended now theory mccoard 1978 and others, but improves on it by showing that. This section provides information on the readings of the course. Portner editor paul portner is associate professor of linguistics and acting director of the interdisciplinary program in cognitive science at georgetown university. He is the author of numerous articles on topics such as mood and modality, tense and aspect, and the syntaxsemantics interface. The english perfect involves two fundamental components of meaning. Its main goal is to explain and evaluate important contemporary theories within linguistics and to discuss a wide range of linguistic phenomena from the perspective of these theories.
Paul portner is professor of linguistics at georgetown university. Paul portner is associate professor of linguistics and acting director of the interdisciplinary program in cognitive science at georgetown university. Modality oxford surveys in semantics and pragmatics. The temporal semantics and modal pragmatics of the perfect. Using a more sophisticated background theory of modality allows natural solutions for the problems raised for the modal account. Palmers first edition of mood and modality in 1986, when the topic of modality was fairly unfamiliar, there has been considerable interest in the subject as.
The proposal made here draws much for the extended now theory mccoard 1978 and. Toward finegrained annotation of modality in text core. I argue that the range of meanings that imperatives can convey should be identi. Includes introductory materials and readings on propositional attitudes, modality, conditionals, tense, and intensional semantics. Modality oxford surveys in semantics and pragmatics paul. Partee, blackwell, 2002 as well as the author of numerous articles on topics such as mood and modality, tense and aspect. The proposal made here draws much for the extended now theory mccoard 1978 and others, but improves on it by showing that many aspects of the perfects meaning may be factored out. Modify, remix, and reuse just remember to cite ocw as the. In addition modality means also the way of the speakers in one condition to speak or to behave in a comunication. Instead, as we will see, the existence of pairs like. It contains an introduction and 15 previously unpublished state of the art articles. Portner, paul and raffaella zanuttini, the force of negation in wh exclamatives and interrogatives.
Explore books by paul portner with our selection at. He is the author of numerous articles on topics such as mood and modality, tense and aspect, and. Modality oxford surveys in semantics and pragmatics paul portner. The notional category of modality formal semantics wiley. Based on linguistic experiments informed by native speakers, we distill these effects according to the type of modality and negation. Instead, as we will see, the existence of pairs like 1 and 3 is so common as to require an explana tion. We show that each type has a specific effect on the opinion expression in its scope.
Paul portner, modality oxford surveys in semantics and. The temporal semantics and modal pragmatics of the. Mode disambiguation modal disambiguation this disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title modality. Deontic modality makes an invaluable contribution by collecting together the very best recent work done to pursue this project in both linguistics and philosophy. Ordering combination for modal comparison graham katz georgetown university paul portner georgetown university aynat rubinstein georgetown university abstract the wellknown ordering semantics for modality has recently been challenged by a number of puzzles which may cast doubt on the viability of this approach. The notional category of modality formal semantics. Here portner manages to explain both the forest and the trees, illuminating, for each theory, both its intuitive appeal and its formal details. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended. Some of the expression of modality can be shown in j. Join facebook to connect with paul portner and others you may know. Deontic modality, lexical aspect and the semantics of imperatives. Paul portner this is a book about semantic theories of modality.
Diagnosing modality in predictive expressions journal of. Paul portner s accessible guide to this key area of current research will be welcomed by students of linguistics at graduate level and above, as well as by researchers in philosophy, computational science, and. Modality is also an expression of fact and possibility. Oxford surveys in semantics and pragmatics isbn 9780199292431 isbn 9780199292424 1. Oxford surveys in semantics and pragmatics, paul portner. Modality oxford surveys in semantics and pragmatics by paul portner pp. Its main goal is to explain and evaluate important contemporary theories within linguistics and to discuss a wide range of linguistic phenomena from the. Modality therapy, a method of therapeutic approach modality diagnosis, a method of diagnosis modality medical imaging, a type of equipment used to acquire structural or functional images of the body, such as radiography, ultrasound, nuclear medicine, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and visible light. Request pdf on mar 1, 2010, ferenc kiefer and others published paul portner, modality oxford surveys in semantics and pragmatics find, read and cite all the research you need on researchgate. The purported nonnegatability of must is argued to be an illusion created by the indicativemood paraphrase is necessary, which treats the necessity as a reality rather than a nonreality. Paul portner, modality oxford surveys in semantics and pragmatics.
Modality serves as an introduction, giving an overview of the main theories of modality, from modal logic, through angelika kratzers seminal work, to more recent approaches. Semanticssentence and information structure by paul. We present a linguisticallyinformed schema for annotating modal expressions and describe its application to a subset of the mpqa corpus of english texts wiebe et al. Mustneed, maycan and the scope of the modal auxiliary. Readings advanced semantics linguistics and philosophy. What is meaning fundamentals of formal semantics wiley. Morphology, syntax, and semantics of modals bibliography. Citeseerx toward finegrained annotation of modality in text.
The book, first published by the oxford university press in 2009, lays out the basic problems in linguistic modality and some of the standard approaches to solving them. At the same time, it provides fresh impetus to more general linguistic issues such as grammaticalization, colloquialization, or the interplay between sociolinguistic and syntactic constraints. One of attributes dicom modality, that represents dicom file type. By aynat rubinstein, hillary harner, elizabeth krawczyk, daniel simonson, graham katz and paul portner abstract we present a linguisticallyinformed schema for annotating modal expressions and describe its application to a subset of the mpqa corpus of english texts wiebe et al. Download citation on mar 1, 2010, ana arregui and others published modality. I argue that the range of meanings that imperatives can convey should be identified with the variety of interpretations that are possible for nondynamic root modals what i call priority modals, including deontic, bouletic, and teleological readings. Paul portner, toward finegrained annotation of modality in.
Clear explanations of significant recent research bring complex issues to life, with expert guidance on topics of debate within the field. In addition, each attribute also has a value multiplicity to indicate the number of data elements contained in the. Diagnosing modality in predictive expressions peter klecha. Pdf modality and meaning download full pdf book download. Modality, a 2009 book by the semanticist paul portner. The author concludes by discussing the relation between modality and other topics, especially tense, aspect, mood, and discourse meaning. Nov, 2007 imperatives may be interpreted with many subvarieties of directive force, for example as orders, invitations, or pieces of advice. A dicom data object consists of a number of attributes, including items such as name, id, etc. Download pdf select article the linguistic legacy of spanish and portuguese. Sandy might be home says that there is a possibility. In section 1, i provide three empirical arguments for a treatment of predictive expressions as modals.
Citeseerx document details isaac councill, lee giles, pradeep teregowda. This book offers original theoretical accounts and a wealth of descriptive information concerning modality in presentday english. Modality and language modality is a category of linguistic meaning having to do with the expression of possibility and necessity. Click and collect from your local waterstones or get free uk delivery on orders over.
Read this book to get a deeper understanding of a wide range of semantics research on complex sentences and meaning in discourse. This short paper argues that predictive expressions will, gonna are modals. Presents a semantic analysis of english progressive as an intentional operator within the framework of modal semantics. Gain a deeper understanding of essential research on the semantics of noun phrases and verb phrases. Stefan kaufmann, angelika kratzer, marcin morzycki, alan munn, paul portner, cristina schmitt, yael sharvit, judith tonhauser, and audiences at chronos 9 and the university of chicago workshop on semantics and philosophy of language. In linguistics, modality is what allows speakers to evaluate a proposition relative to a set of other propositions. A modalized sentence locates an underlying or prejacent proposition in the space of possibilities the term prejacent was introduced by medieval logicians. Journal of linguistics has as its goal to publish articles that make a clear contribution to current debate in all branches of theoretical linguistics. Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the. In this paper, we propose to study the effects of negation and modality on opinion expressions. He studied philosophy and linguistics at princeton university and at the university of. Through simple examples, pictures, and metaphors, paul portner presents the fields key ideas about how language works.
279 879 564 470 188 645 961 573 1480 242 1007 54 943 53 41 280 542 1273 1494 793 682 1041 763 1342 379 349 1387 1424 430 717 491 1325 396 965 1413 545