Timeline for Are sentences the only constituents that "sentence adverbs" modify?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
10 events
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| Nov 1, 2013 at 1:24 | vote | accept | James Grossmann | ||
| Oct 31, 2013 at 4:22 | comment | added | jlawler | Desirability is usually thought of as only one deontic sense of a modal; the deontic sense of will, in fact -- the one that's required in hypothetical classes. But that's only one of the several deontic interpretations of modals. And, once again, how does one fashion tests to see whether given lexical items are or are not "words that explicitly indicate antithesis, importance, expectation, etc"? Not that your description is wrong, but it's not categoric and it's contingent. It's an effect or a goal, rather than a description. | |
| Oct 31, 2013 at 3:55 | comment | added | Cerberus | Modality comprises desirability and possibility. That's why I suggested that adverbs like fortunately, when expressing desirability from the perspective of the author, could be called modal. Discursive is commonly used to refer to words that explicitly indicate antithesis, importance, expectation, etc. from the perspective of the author—in short, ordering arguments/elements within and with respect to a discourse. As in discourse particles and discourse markers. | |
| Oct 30, 2013 at 17:18 | comment | added | jlawler |
Modality has a technical definition involving either Possible or Necessary; judgements about good results (fortunately) aren't really "modal". But and however both have presuppositions of unexpectedness, though the details are all contextual; I don't see how calling them discursive helps, since I don't know what it's sposta refer to.
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| Oct 29, 2013 at 23:50 | comment | added | Cerberus | I suggested modal (fortunately) and discursive (however) categories in my answer. I think those describe the attitude of a speaking in the examples given in a special and direct way that other adverbs do not. | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 20:44 | comment | added | jlawler | It's a totally ubiquitous element. Every word uttered "describes the attitude of the speaker towards his statement". It's like saying it "is audible to the addressee" or "conveys a meaning". Since it's true of everything, it doesn't serve to distinguish anything special unless "attitude" is pinned down much more clearly in semantic and pragmatic terms. | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 18:59 | comment | added | Cerberus | Don't you think "describes the attitude of the speaker towards his statement" is a common element? | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 18:25 | comment | added | jlawler |
Yeah, I kinda thought that was what you intended. That's why I don't think it's worthwhile to pay attention to "what are commonly called X", where X is any grammatical term at all. There simply isn't any consistency to be drawn from commonality, because there is so much BS in the system. It's like discussing comparative religion in Syria at the moment.
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| Oct 29, 2013 at 18:07 | comment | added | Cerberus | I think we basically come to the same conclusion: it's not a very useful label for a word, but merely for a construction. What I tried was going by what are commonly called sentence adverbs and see whether I could make anything consistent out of them (and I couldn't). | |
| Oct 29, 2013 at 16:56 | history | answered | jlawler | CC BY-SA 3.0 |