|
Solf workshop (ScanDiaSyn 2006 Grand Meeting)
Epistemic Modal Verbs, Functional Projection and Tense
Andrea Padovan, Università di Padova
(Pdf-version available here)
In my talk I will summarise some problems concerning the interpretation
of epistemic modal verbs and their relation with tense, the semantic
properties of the embedded verb and other elements which can
affect the verbal complex in some way. I will be starting with
some German, Italian, Dutch and Norwegian data, which apparently
challenge the hierarchy of functional pro jections proposed in Cinque
(1999).
In particular the so-called Absolute Temporal Reference – i. e. the
temporal relation between the time expressed by the modal verb and the
time of the utterance – is expected to be peculiar to root modal verbs,
as can be seen in the German examples in (1),
(1) a. Das Kind muss seine Hausaufgabe machen.
b. Das Kind musste seine Hausaufgabe machen.
c. Das Kind hat seine Hausaufgabe machen müssen.
d. Das Kind wird seine Hausaufgabe machen müssen.
and not to epistemic modals, since they usually get a Relative Temporal
Reference more naturally, i. e. a relation between the epistemic
evaluation time and the time expressed by the embedded verb. Boogaart
(2003) and Eide (2003) provide evidence that epistemic modals can occur
in past tenses and allow for a true past reading (or, more genarally, a
temporal shift) in Dutch and Norwegian, respectively.
(2) a. Hij moest ziek zijn.
he must-PAST ill be
b. Han har måtta arbeidd med det i heile natt. (Norw. dial.)
He has must-PERF worked on it whole night
c. Han har skullet bo i Århus (Dan.) [“misplaced perfect”, Vikner(1988)]
He is said to have lived in Århus
Thus, starting with the “strange” form of Italian imperfect, that we can find in an epistemic sentence like (3),
(3) Il tuo cane doveva essere molto intelligente.
your dog must-IMPF be very intelligent
which is very similar to (4),
(4) Il tuo cane deve essere stato molto intelligente.
your dog must have been very intelligent,
I will try to demonstrate that these Italian constructions seem to
share the same properties of their Dutch counterparts which are
intrinsically imperfective in Boogaart’s analysis. Nonetheless, I will
also slightly modify it in order to support the validity of Cinque’s
hierarchy of functional projections.
References
– Boogaart Ronny. 2003. Can epistemic modals be past? Paper presented at
the ESSLLI Workshop on Conditional and Unconditional Modality, August
25-29, 2003, Vienna.
– Cinque Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and Functional Heads. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
– Eide Kristin Melum. 2003. Modals and tense, in: Matthias Weisgerber (ed.): Proceedings of the Conference “sub7 – Sinn und Bedeutung”. Arbeitspapier Nr. 114, FB Sprachwissenschaft, Universität Konstanz.
– Vikner Sten. 1988. Modals in Danish and Event Expressions, in: Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 39
|
