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Just you wait! Temporal expressions as the source of grammaticalised apprehensive markers| old_uid | 14281 |
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| title | Just you wait! Temporal expressions as the source of grammaticalised apprehensive markers |
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| start_date | 2017/09/08 |
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| schedule | 09h30-10h30 |
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| online | no |
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| summary | The grammatical category of apprehensive (also labelled admonitive, timitive or evitative), encodes the modal meaning of undesirable possibility, with the pragmatic function of threats or warnings. Until recently, this category has not received a great deal of attention in typological or formal semantic research on modality, despite being widespread cross-linguistically, e.g. in Australian, Papuan and Austronesian languages, and in Carib and Pano-Takanan languages of South America (Vuillermet, accepted). Correspondingly, little research exists on the diachronic sources of such markers. Attested sources include complementisers with main verbs of fear and the lexical verb ‘look, watch’ (Lichtenberk 1995), as well as general modal markers of possibility (Bybee et al. 1994: 211; Verstraete 2005; Pakendorf & Schalley 2007). In this paper, we present the first cross-linguistic exploration of the grammaticalisation of temporal connectives as apprehensive markers. Attested cases are found in Pidgin Hawaiian (Roberts 2013), Germanic languages (German nachher ‘afterwards’; Dutch straks ‘soon, later’ (Boogaart 2009)), and Australian languages (e.g. Nhanda urda(mundi) ‘soon, directly’ (Blevins 2001: 80; 103-104); Mangarrayi barlaga ‘now’ (Merlan 1982: 147)). Furthermore, three English-lexified creole languages of the Pacific, Hawai’i Creole, Norf’k, and Northern Australian Kriol, employ a grammaticalised reflex of English by and by in apprehensive function (Mühlhäusler 2010: 356–357; Sakoda and Siegel 2008: 536; Siegel 2011: 545; Angelo & Schultze-Berndt 2016). We propose that the semantic link between the temporal and the apprehensive function involves pragmatic enrichment in the form of a Conventionalised Invited Inference (e.g. Geis and Zwicky 1971; Traugott and Dasher [2001] 2004: 34–40; Traugott 2004: 552–553). The extension of a marker of temporal succession to an apprehensive function builds on the well-established invited inference from temporal succession to causation, in a clausal sequence where the first clause has the illocutionary force of a directive, and the second spells out the undesirable consequence of not heeding the directive, with the temporal marker inviting the inference of a causal link between the two, e.g. Don’t go near that dog! In a moment it will bite you! Indeed, clauses with apprehensive markers are often described as predominantly occuring in the context of a precautionary measure clause, to the extent that they have frequently been classified as subordinate clause markers even if there is strong evidence for their main clause status. A diagnostic of the conventionalisation of the apprehensive function is the potential of the marker to occur without explicit mention of the precautionary measure, and, furthermore, with an unambiguous interpretation of a negative consequence even if the context does not strongly suggest such an interpretation. |
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| responsibles | Coupé |
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