Locating the subjunctive at the interface of mood and modality, this book presents a systematic description of the use of the English subjunctive in main clauses, noun clauses, relative clauses, and ...adverbial clauses. It explores the factors which governed its competition with other verbal expressions in texts ranging from the 9th to the beginning of the 18th century. Employing close reading alongside analysis of corpus data and the use of descriptive statistics, it offers new insights into the research landscape of English subjunctive use and into the fields of historical English linguistics and corpus linguistics.
In this article, the authors intended to give an overview of the use of the italian subjunctive with a special emphasis on the most frequent mistakes in expressing subjectivity and personal opinion ...as opposed to the objectivity expressed by the indicative. The main goal of the paper is to emphasize the key moment needed to distinguish these two grammatical voices and the prism through which a foreign speaker should observe the sentence in order to correctly use the subjunctive in speaking and writing. The authors wanted to place special emphasis on the most frequent mistakes in the use of the subjunctive in Italian language in general, especially the present subjunctive and the subjunctive imperfect, and despite the fact the subjunctive is increasingly being replaced by the indicative in the spoken language, such a trend should be taken with attention and insist on the regular use of Italian and the peculiarities that affect the richness of its linguistic expression. Therefore, in response to the tendencies present in the spoken language, the authors emphasize that the difference between the subjunctive and the indicative is of a semantic nature and that the use of subjunctive results in an essential difference in meaning compared to sentences written in the indicative, and any pseudo naturalness of the spoken language as opposed to grammatically correct one can lead to the impoverishment of the language corpus in the long run.
U ovom članku, autori su željeli dati presjek korištenja konjuktiva i njegove upotrebe u talijanskom jeziku s posebnim naglaskom na najučestalijim pogreškama u korištenju konjuktiva kao načina ...subjektivnosti i osobnog mišljenja nasuprot objektivnosti koju sa sobom nosi indikativ. Osnovni cilj rada je naglasiti koji je to ključni trenutak potreban za razlikovanje ovih dvaju gramatičkih načina i na što bi strani govornik trebao obratiti pozornost kako bi ispravno koristio konjuktiv u govoru i pisanju. Poseban naglasak želi se staviti na najučestalijim pogreškama pri upotrebi konjuktiva u talijanskom jeziku općenito, a posebice konjuktiva prezenta i konjuktiva imperfekta te na činjenicu da, bez obzira što se u govornom jeziku konjuktiv sve više zamjenjuje indikativom, takav trend treba uzeti s rezervom i inzistirati na pravilnoj uporabi talijanskog jezika i posebnosti koje utječu na bogatstvo njegova jezičnog izričaja. Stoga, kao odgovor na tendencije prisutne u govornom jeziku, autori naglašavaju da razlika između konjuktiva i indikativa jest semantičke prirode te da kroz primjenu konjuktiva dolazi do suštinske razlike u značenju u odnosu na rečenice napisane u indikativu, a svaka pseudo prirodnost govornog jezika nasuprot onom književnom i gramatički ispravnom može dugoročno dovesti do osiromašenja jezičnog korpusa.
In this article, the authors intended to give an overview of the use of the italian subjunctive with a special emphasis on the most frequent mistakes in expressing subjectivity and personal opinion as opposed to the objectivity expressed by the indicative. The main goal of the paper is to emphasize the key moment needed to distinguish these two grammatical voices and the prism through which a foreign speaker should observe the sentence in order to correctly use the subjunctive in speaking and writing. The authors wanted to place special emphasis on the most frequent mistakes in the use of the subjunctive in Italian language in general, especially the present subjunctive and the subjunctive imperfect, and despite the fact the subjunctive is increasingly being replaced by the indicative in the spoken language, such a trend should be taken with attention and insist on the regular use of Italian and the peculiarities that affect the richness of its linguistic expression. Therefore, in response to the tendencies present in the spoken language, the authors emphasize that the difference between the subjunctive and the indicative is of a semantic nature and that the use of subjunctive results in an essential difference in meaning compared to sentences written in the indicative, and any pseudo naturalness of the spoken language as opposed to grammatically correct one can lead to the impoverishment of the language corpus in the long run.
Abstract
The paper offers a cognitively oriented approach to the Spanish subjunctive. This verb form is examined in light of Langacker’s grounding theory. In my understanding, the ground is defined ...as the communication situation with three inherently interrelated components: temporality, modality and evidentiality. The subjunctive is then analysed in relation to these three categories. Particular attention is paid to the evidential component of the ground and its relationship to the Spanish subjunctive. I define the contexts in which the subjunctive appears as grounding inhibitors. Consequently, the subjunctive is understood as a verb form lacking temporal, modal and evidential grounding (in opposition to the indicative, which denotes fully grounded processes).
This study discusses the impact of interactionist output-oriented approaches, specifically, the effects of collaborative text reconstruction on subjunctive recognition and production in the written ...modality by English-dominant Spanish second-language learners. It also examines whether students’ text length and text complexity increase after treatment. A total of 104 fifth-semester Spanish learners participated in the study and were assigned to three conditions: control (n = 36), dictogloss (n = 33) and dictogloss plus explicit instruction (n = 35). In order to measure target form recognition and production as well as text quality, participants completed a pre-, post- and delayed-post-test that included a guided written task and a recognition task. Results indicated that participants in both treatment groups increased their production of the subjunctive mood in the written modality in expected contexts at similar rates, which was also maintained over time. Participants also increased recognition rates, irrespective of group, pointing to a lack of relationship between this type of collaborative text reconstruction and subjunctive recognition. Lastly, an effect of group and time was also observed for text length and syntactic complexity, as participants in the treatment groups produced significantly longer texts, as well as a higher number of complement clauses.
Remarks on counterpossibles Brogaard, Berit; Salerno, Joe
Synthese (Dordrecht),
03/2013, Letnik:
190, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Since the publication of David Lewis' Counterfactuals, the standard line on subjunctive conditionals with impossible antecedents (or counterpossibles) has been that they are vacuously true. That is, ...a conditional of the form 'If p were the case, q would be the case' is trivially true whenever the antecedent, p, is impossible. The primary justification is that Lewis' semantics best approximates the English subjunctive conditional, and that a vacuous treatment of counterpossibles is a consequence of that very elegant theory. Another justification derives from the classical lore than if an impossibility were true, then anything goes. In this paper we defend non-vacuism, the view that counterpossibles are sometimes non-vacuously true and sometimes non-vacuously false. We do so while retaining a Lewisian semantics, which is to say, the approach we favor does not require us to abandon classical logic or a similarity semantics. It does however require us to countenance impossible worlds. An impossible worlds treatment of counterpossibles is suggested (but not defended) by Lewis (Counterfactuals. Blackwell, Oxford, 1973), and developed by Nolan (Notre Dame J Formal Logic 38:325-527, 1997), Kment (Mind 115:261-310, 2006a: Philos Perspect 20:237-302, 2006b), and Vander Laan (In: Jackson F, Priest G (eds) Lewisian themes. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004). We follow this tradition, and develop an account of comparative similarity for impossible worlds.
Subjunctives are typically used in intensional, or modal, contexts to talk about possible worlds, but they can also be licensed in negative contexts. While prior work has sought to unify these ...'polarity' subjunctives with 'intensional' subjunctives, in this article I build a case that they represent, in German and Russian at least, a distinct use as negative polarity items (NPIs). This usage fills a gap in the typology of NPIs: unlike known items such as any or ever, which are taken to activate alternatives consisting of individuals, eventualities, or times, these items activate alternatives consisting of worlds.
Este artículo aborda los usos de las formas verbales cantara y hubiera cantado en el discurso oral de los hablantes de español peninsular noroccidental con el objetivo de explicar el entramado de ...valores no estándares con que estos tiempos se sustancian en esta variedad y desenmascarar patrones geográficos que revelen no solo su distribución, sino también los vínculos que contraen estas formas a nivel gramatical en el castellano dialectal. Para ello se analizan 150 entrevistas del Corpus Oral y Sonoro del Español Rural procedentes de enclaves gallegos, asturianos, leoneses y zamoranos. Mediante su estudio se mostrará cómo y en qué circunstancias las formas cantara y hubiera cantado son empleadas con valor de antepretérito y pretérito de indicativo, significados que se disputan también con la forma canté, y cómo las áreas de vitalidad de estos usos dibujan un mapa coherente que pone de relieve la interrelación de estos fenómenos, a menudo tratados de forma separada. De acuerdo con ello, se insistirá en la necesidad de adoptar una perspectiva de conjunto para detectar relaciones no siempre evidentes entre los empleos esencialmente orales de ciertas formas verbales.
The Romanian and Bulgarian languages share common features stemming from the Balkan linguistic aria. Among the distinctive grammatical constructions in Balkan languages is the new-type analytic ...subjunctive, a replacement for the infinitive in various languages such as Romanian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Albanian, and Greek. The subjunctive can manifest in present, imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect tenses in most languages. However, Romanian has more limited combinations, employing only the present and perfect tenses. Despite these differences, the subjunctive shares structural, semantic, and usage similarities across Balkan languages. The use of the subjunctive in optative sentences is a common feature in Balkan languages, conveying achievable desires in the present and strong but unrealizable wishes in the past. This paper aims to broaden the research on the Balkan-type subjunctive by illustrating parallels in the modal values of this mood in Romanian and Bulgarian in independent optative sentences. The research underscores numerous correspondences in the use of the subjunctive in optative sentences in Romanian and Bulgarian. In both languages, within the optative context, the subjunctive expresses various sentiments such as desire, wishes, regret, protest, and indignation. The expression of both factual and counterfactual desires using present and past subjunctive forms is also similar in both languages. The present forms of the subjunctive express a factual desire, meaning an achievable wish that could be fulfilled in the future. The present subjunctive forms are very often encountered in idiomatic expressions that convey wishes and imprecations. Many similarities are noted between expressions in the two languages, both in terms of structure and in semantics and lexical means. The use of present subjunctive forms is not typical for expressing counterfactual wishes (unrealizable or difficult to achieve) but occurs in specific contexts. Wishes expressed through past subjunctive forms are counterfactual because the circumstances in which they could have been realized are omitted. Such statements convey the speaker's regret regarding an unfulfilled desire. In Romanian grammar, detailed treatment of the uses of the perfect subjunctive is lacking, but it is noted to have optative value. In Bulgarian, counterfactual wishes are expressed using three past tenses of the subjunctive – pluperfect, imperfect, and perfect. In this regard, the capabilities of the perfect subjunctive in Romanian stand out for expressing multiple meanings. With the exception of some meanings of the imperfect subjunctive in Bulgarian, the perfect subjunctive in Romanian can convey nearly all the meanings of the three past tenses in Bulgarian. The study highlights numerous similarities in the use of the subjunctive in Romanian and Bulgarian in optative sentences, offering observations that contribute to a deeper understanding of this mood within the field of Romanian, Bulgarian, and Balkan linguistics.
