is paper investigates existing proposals for the apparent correlation between modal flavour and temporal orientation, through the lens of attitude verbs. Work thus far has focussed on modal auxiliaries, but attitude verbs with modal-quantificational analyses can shed new light on understanding the temporal orientation of modals elements. Landau (2000) notes that complements of partial control a...

This paper presents ‘source’ as the distinctive feature for a twofold semantic categorization for Chinese modal expressions. Previous studies have characterized Chinese modals as words used to express the speaker’s opinion or attitude. Yet given the absence of morphological and syntactic distinctions in Chinese, there has been little consensus among different accounts as to within what limit th...

This paper describes work in progress on a corpus-based study, comparing seemingly similar registers in two languages: English and German newsgroup texts, collected in the Bremen Translation Corpus. Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG, Halliday 1994 [1985]) provides a theoretical framework for categorizing empirical findings. I will focus on three systems of the finite verbal group, i.e. tense, mo...

Many current generativist theorists suggest that young children possess the grammatical principles of inversion required for question formation but make errors because they find it difficult to learn language-specific rules about how inversion applies. The present study analyzed longitudinal spontaneous sampled data from twelve 2-3-year-old English speaking children and the intensive diary data...

PURPOSE The study of auxiliary acquisition is central to work on language development and has attracted theoretical work from both nativist and constructivist approaches. This study is part of a 2-part companion set that represents a unique attempt to trace the development of auxiliary syntax by using a longitudinal elicitation methodology. The aim of the research described in this part is to t...

In recent work it has been demonstrated by various scholars that the use of modal verbs has changed in past decades (Krug 2000, Leech 2003, Smith 2003, and especially Leech et al. 2009). In earlier work Close and Aarts (2010) and Aarts, Close and Wallis (forthcoming) looked at the changing use of the modal and semimodal auxiliaries in spoken English. While the results of these investigations ar...

Studies in modality comprise a complex canon of functional, formal, sociological and diachronic analyses language. The current understanding how English language speakers use is unclear; while some research argues that core modal auxiliaries are decline, they reported as increasing elsewhere. A lack contemporary representative spoken data has rendered it difficult to reconcile such differing pe...