St’át’imcets frustratives as not-at-issue modals
This paper provides an analysis of the ‘frustrative’ marker séna7 in St’át’imcets (Lillooet Salish), and compares it to similar elements cross-linguistically. Séna7 appears in a range of discourse contexts, including when events have an unexpected outcome, fail to continue, or fail to take place opt...
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De Gruyter
2022-09-01
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| Series: | Linguistics |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2020-0211 |
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| author | Davis Henry Matthewson Lisa |
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| description | This paper provides an analysis of the ‘frustrative’ marker séna7 in St’át’imcets (Lillooet Salish), and compares it to similar elements cross-linguistically. Séna7 appears in a range of discourse contexts, including when events have an unexpected outcome, fail to continue, or fail to take place optimally. We argue that séna7 felicitously applies to a proposition p only if there is a salient true proposition q and the speaker did not expect p and q to both be true. Séna7 encodes epistemic modality, refers only to the speaker’s epistemic state (ignoring the common ground), and has no effect on at-issue truth conditions (séna7(p) entails p). We show that séna7 provides a diagnostic for distinguishing between entailments and implicatures in the language, and a clear diagnostic for the distinction between futures and prospective aspects. We compare séna7 with similar elements in Tohono O’odham, Kimaragang and Tagalog. We argue that séna7 and the Kimaragang frustrative can be captured by the same analysis once independent features of their tense/aspect systems are taken into account. Following Kroeger (2017. Frustration, culmination and inertia in Kimaragang grammar. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 2(1). 56. 1–29), but pace Copley and Harley (2014. Eliminating causative entailments with the force-theoretic framework: The case of the Tohono O’odham frustrative cem. In Bridget Copley & Fabienne Martin (eds.), Causation in grammatical structures (Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics 52), 120–151. Oxford: Oxford University Press), we argue that frustratives should not be unified with non-culminating accomplishments, and can be analyzed without appealing to causality or efficacy. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-88a3c97dcb914d3ca9b4c7c094607534 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 0024-3949 1613-396X |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2022-09-01 |
| publisher | De Gruyter |
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| series | Linguistics |
| spelling | doaj-art-88a3c97dcb914d3ca9b4c7c0946075342025-02-02T15:46:00ZengDe GruyterLinguistics0024-39491613-396X2022-09-016051337139710.1515/ling-2020-0211St’át’imcets frustratives as not-at-issue modalsDavis Henry0Matthewson Lisa1Department of Linguistics, University of British Columbia, Totem Field Studios, 2613 West Mall, Vancouver, BCV6T1Z4, CanadaDepartment of Linguistics, University of British Columbia, Totem Field Studios, 2613 West Mall, Vancouver, BCV6T1Z4, CanadaThis paper provides an analysis of the ‘frustrative’ marker séna7 in St’át’imcets (Lillooet Salish), and compares it to similar elements cross-linguistically. Séna7 appears in a range of discourse contexts, including when events have an unexpected outcome, fail to continue, or fail to take place optimally. We argue that séna7 felicitously applies to a proposition p only if there is a salient true proposition q and the speaker did not expect p and q to both be true. Séna7 encodes epistemic modality, refers only to the speaker’s epistemic state (ignoring the common ground), and has no effect on at-issue truth conditions (séna7(p) entails p). We show that séna7 provides a diagnostic for distinguishing between entailments and implicatures in the language, and a clear diagnostic for the distinction between futures and prospective aspects. We compare séna7 with similar elements in Tohono O’odham, Kimaragang and Tagalog. We argue that séna7 and the Kimaragang frustrative can be captured by the same analysis once independent features of their tense/aspect systems are taken into account. Following Kroeger (2017. Frustration, culmination and inertia in Kimaragang grammar. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 2(1). 56. 1–29), but pace Copley and Harley (2014. Eliminating causative entailments with the force-theoretic framework: The case of the Tohono O’odham frustrative cem. In Bridget Copley & Fabienne Martin (eds.), Causation in grammatical structures (Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics 52), 120–151. Oxford: Oxford University Press), we argue that frustratives should not be unified with non-culminating accomplishments, and can be analyzed without appealing to causality or efficacy.https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2020-0211epistemic modalityfrustrativesnon-culminating accomplishmentsprospective aspectsalish |
| spellingShingle | Davis Henry Matthewson Lisa St’át’imcets frustratives as not-at-issue modals Linguistics epistemic modality frustratives non-culminating accomplishments prospective aspect salish |
| title | St’át’imcets frustratives as not-at-issue modals |
| title_full | St’át’imcets frustratives as not-at-issue modals |
| title_fullStr | St’át’imcets frustratives as not-at-issue modals |
| title_full_unstemmed | St’át’imcets frustratives as not-at-issue modals |
| title_short | St’át’imcets frustratives as not-at-issue modals |
| title_sort | st at imcets frustratives as not at issue modals |
| topic | epistemic modality frustratives non-culminating accomplishments prospective aspect salish |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2020-0211 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT davishenry statimcetsfrustrativesasnotatissuemodals AT matthewsonlisa statimcetsfrustrativesasnotatissuemodals |