In:Surprise at the Intersection of Phenomenology and Linguistics
Edited by Natalie Depraz and Agnès Celle
[Consciousness & Emotion Book Series 11] 2019
► pp. 43–56
Chapter 3The representation of surprise in English and the retroactive construction of possible paths
Published online: 6 November 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/ceb.11.03ran
https://doi.org/10.1075/ceb.11.03ran
Abstract
The current article considers the linguistic representation of surprise in English within the framework of the Theory of Enunciative and Predicative Operations. English appears not to have any markers specialised in the expression of surprise. Here I argue that English does nonetheless possess numerous formal configurations which may be shown to derive from a recurrent schema of surprise. I consider three such configurations: the concessive YET, OF ALL + plural noun and ONLY TO + verb in narrative context. Each configuration mobilises an abstract schema involving a discontinuity between an anticipated situation and an actual situation, i.e. an opposition between a – retroactively re-constructed – virtual class of expected possibilities and a validated occurrence.
Article outline
- 0.Introduction
- 1.Theoretical perspective
- 2.Yet
- 2.1Aspectual functions
- 2.2Modal functions
- 2.3The branching path and retroactive movement
- 3.Of all + plural noun
- 4.The infinitive of result only to
- Concluding remarks
Notes Bibliography
References (12)
Culioli, Antoine. (1990). La négation: marqueurs et opérations. In Pour une linguistique de l’énonciation. Tome 1 (pp. 91–113). Gap: Ophrys.
. (1990). The Concept of Notional Domain. In Pour une linguistique de l’énonciation. Tome 1 (pp. 67–82). Gap: Ophrys.
. (1995). Cognition and representation in linguistic theory. (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science v. 112). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: J. Benjamins.
Davies, Mark, (2004). BYU-BNC. (Based on the British National Corpus from Oxford University Press). Available online: [URL].
DeLancey, Scott. (1997). Mirativity: The grammatical marking of unexpected information. Linguistic Typology 1, pp. 33–52.
De Vogüé, Sarah. (1992). Aux frontières des domaines notionnels: bien que, quoique et encore que. L’Information Grammaticale, 55, pp. 23–27.
Filippi-Deswelle, Catherine. (2015). Les degrés de la surprise. In La surprise. A l’épreuve des langues. (pp. 219–238). Paris: Hermann.
Hill, Nathan. (2012). ‘Mirativity’ does not exist: hdug in ‘Lhasa’ Tibetan and other suspects. Linguistic Typology 16 (3): pp. 389–433.
Lazard, Gilbert. (1999). Mirativity, evidentiality, mediativity, or other? Linguistic Typology 3, pp. 91–109.
Ranger, Graham. (2007). Continuity and discontinuity in discourse. Notes on yet and still. In Celle, A. et Huart, R. (ed.), Connectives as Discourse Landmarks (pp. 177–194). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Cited by (1)
Cited by one other publication
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.