The meaning of modals: a view from pragmatics. Plenary talk

Depraetere, Ilse

Document type :

Autre communication scientifique (congrès sans actes - poster - séminaire...): Communication dans un congrès avec actes

Title :

The meaning of modals: a view from pragmatics. Plenary talk

Author(s) :

Depraetere, Ilse [Auteur]

Savoirs, Textes, Langage (STL) - UMR 8163 [STL]

Conference title :

Fifth International Conference of the International Society for the Linguistics of English (ISLE)

City :

London

Country :

Royaume-Uni

Start date of the conference :

2018-07-17

HAL domain(s) :

Sciences de l'Homme et Société/Linguistique

English abstract : [en]

In this talk, I will address questions in the semantics/pragmatics interface taking modals as a test case. Given the range of meanings that can be expressed by possibility modals as well as necessity modals, and the ...
Show more >In this talk, I will address questions in the semantics/pragmatics interface taking modals as a test case. Given the range of meanings that can be expressed by possibility modals as well as necessity modals, and the continuing debate whether modals are polysemous or, rather, whether their meanings should be considered as indeterminate, this area of English grammar constitutes a very fertile ground to assess approaches to ‘meaning in context’. I will illustrate and discuss various ways in which the meaning of modals can be said to be ‘contextual’, and what this means for specific views on pragmatics. I will address the concepts of saturation, free pragmatic enrichment and will also bring into the discussion the notion of construction: I will reflect on their usefulness to get a firmer grip on the meaning of modals as well as on how modal meaning can shed light on and help delineate specific pragmatic concepts.Show less >

Language :

Anglais

Peer reviewed article :

Oui

Audience :

Internationale

Popular science :

Non

ANR Project :

Vers une nouvelle conception des constructions modales en anglais : des paradigmes basés sur des traits distinctifs à la représentation probabliliste basée sur l'usage.

Collections :