In:Cognitive Approaches to Tense, Aspect, and Epistemic Modality
Edited by Adeline Patard and Frank Brisard
[Human Cognitive Processing 29] 2011
► pp. 279–310
The epistemic uses of the English simple past and the French imparfait
When temporality conveys modality
Published online: 28 July 2011
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.29.16pat
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.29.16pat
This chapter explores the connection between past tense and modality in English and French. After arguing for a temporal definition of past tenses, I reinterpret the classical opposition between temporal uses and modal uses in terms of the speakers’s referential or subjective intentionality. I further distinguish between the epistemic uses – which express the speaker’s assessment of the probability of the denoted situation – and the illocutory uses – which express the speaker’s degree of commitment in her speech act. I finally suggest an analysis of two epistemic uses of the English simple past and the French imperfect, namely their conditional use and optative use, thanks to the notion of dialogism, which refers to the heterogeneity of the enunciative sources of a given utterance.
Cited by (8)
Cited by eight other publications
Patard, Adeline
Astrid De Wit, Frank Brisard, Carol Madden-Lombardi, Michael Meeuwis & Adeline Patard
Trovesi, Andrea
Trovesi, Andrea
Trovesi, Andrea
DE WIT, ASTRID & FRANK BRISARD
Hennemann, Anja
Ayoun, Dalila & Charlene Gilbert
2017. The acquisition of modal auxiliaries in English by advanced Francophone learners. In Tense-Aspect-Modality in a Second Language [Studies in Bilingualism, 50], ► pp. 183 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 10 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.
