Cover not available

Article published In: Linguistic Variation
Vol. 25:2 (2025) ► pp.269–305

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB

Cross-linguistic dataset of force-flavor combinations in modal elements

ORCiD logo with link | University of Edinburgh
 | University of Edinburgh
 | University of British Columbia
 | University of Edinburgh
 | University of Edinburgh
Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with University of Edinburgh.

Published online: 8 August 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.23057.ueg
Abstract
We present a cross-linguistic dataset of force-flavor combinations in modal elements, which currently contains information on modal semantics in 24 languages and is accessible at https://​github​.com​/EdinburghMeaning​Sciences​/modals​_database. We discuss theoretical motivations for constructing the dataset, the data collection methodology, as well as the design and the format of the dataset. We also present four case studies using the data: (i) assessment of cross-linguistic generalizations on force/flavor variability; (ii) exploration of generalizations in the lexicalization of negative modality; (iii) investigation of the typology of the morphological encoding of modal strength; and (iv) examination of how future contributes to modality. These case studies illustrate that the dataset supports in-depth assessment of potential cross-linguistic generalizations as well as theory-informed investigations of cross-linguistic variations in modal semantics.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Dimensions in the semantics of modals
    • 2.2Existing generalizations and typology
      • 2.2.1Generalizations on force/flavor variability
      • 2.2.2Cross-linguistic generalizations in negative modality
      • 2.2.3Typology of the encoding of modal strength
    • 2.3Motivation for a cross-linguistic database
    • 2.4An existing database: Guo et al. (2022)
  • 3.Methodology of data collection
    • 3.1The modal questionnaire
    • 3.2Language sample and elicitation procedure
  • 4.Structure and format of the database
    • 4.1Content of the questionnaire documents
      • Metadata
      • Translations
      • Table
    • 4.2Accessing and contributing to the dataset
  • 5.Case studies
    • 5.1Generalizations about force/flavor variability
    • 5.2Negative modality
    • 5.3Encoding of modal strength
    • 5.4How future contributes to modality
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Glossing Abbreviations
  • References
References (50)
References
Bar-Lev, Moshe E. & Roni Katzir. 2023. Communicative stability and the typology of logical operators. Linguistic Inquiry 1–23. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bochnak, M Ryan. 2015. Variable force modality in Washo. In Proceedings of North-East Linguistics Society, vol. 451, 105–114.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cable, Seth. 2017. The expression of modality in Tlingit: A paucity of grammatical devices. International Journal of American Linguistics 83(4). 619–678. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chung, WooJin. 2019. Decomposing deontic modality in Korean. Journal of Semantics 36(4). 665–700.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Condoravdi, Cleo. 2002. Temporal interpretation of modals: Modals for the present and for the past. In David Beaver, Stefan Kaufmann, Brady Clark & Luis Casillas (eds.), The construction of meaning, 59–88. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deal, Amy Rose. 2011. Modals without scales. Language 87(3). 559–585. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. Reasoning about equivalence in semantic fieldwork. In M. Ryan Bochnak & Lisa Matthewson (eds.), Methodologies in Semantic Fieldwork, 157–174. Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
von Fintel, Kai & Sabine Iatridou. 2008. How to say ought in foreign: The composition of weak necessity modals. In Jacqueline Guéron & Jacqueline Lecarme (eds.), Time and Modality, 115–141. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2023. Prolegomena to a theory of X-marking. Linguistics and Philosophy 46(6). 1467–1510. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Frana, Ilaria & Paula Menéndez-Benito. 2023. The evidential future in Italian. Natural Language Semantics 31(2–3). 139–178. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Giannakidou, Anastasia & Alda Mari. 2018. A unified analysis of the future as epistemic modality: The view from Greek and Italian. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 36(1). 85–129. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gluckman, John & Margit Bowler. 2020. The expression of modality in Logoori. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 41(2). 195–238. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Guo, Qingxia, Nathaniel Imel & Shane Steinert-Threlkeld. 2022. A Database for Modal Semantic Typology. In Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Research in Computational Linguistic Typology and Multilingual NLP, 42–51. Seattle, Washington: Association for Computational Linguistics. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hacquard, Valentine. 2011. Modality. In Claudia Maienborn, Klaus von Heusinger & Paul Portner (eds.), Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning, 1484–1515. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Horn, Laurence R. 1989. A Natural History of Negation. Chicago: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Horn, Laurence Robert. 1972. On the semantic properties of logical operators in English: University of California, Los Angeles PhD dissertation.
Imel, Nathaniel, Qingxia Guo & Shane Steinert-Threlkeld. 2023. An efficient communication analysis of modal typology. Unpublished manuscript, University of California, Irvine and University of Washington.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ippolito, Michela & Donka F. Farkas. 2022. Assessing alternatives: the case of the presumptive future in Italian. Linguistics and Philosophy 45(4). 943–984. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jeretič, Paloma. 2021. Neg-Raising Modals and Scaleless Implicatures: New York University PhD dissertation.
Katzir, Roni & Raj Singh. 2013. Constraints on the lexicalization of logical operators. Linguistics and Philosophy 361. 1–29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika. 1977. What “must” and “can” must and can mean. Linguistics and Philosophy 11. 337–355. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1981. The notional category of modality. In H. J. Eikmeyer & H. Rieser (eds.), Words, Worlds and Contexts, Berlin, New York: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1991. Modality. In Arnim von Stechow & Dieter Wunderlich (eds.), Semantik: Ein internationales Handbuch der zeitgenössischen Forschung, 639–650. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuhn, Jeremy & Lena Pasalskaya. 2022. Multiple pressures to explain the ‘not all’ gap. Ms., Institut Jean Nicod, ENS, CNRS, EHESS, PSL University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lassiter, Daniel. 2017. Graded modality: Qualitative and quantitative perspectives. Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matthewson, Lisa. 2004. On the methodology of semantic fieldwork. International journal of American linguistics 70(4). 369–415. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. Cross-linguistic variation in modality systems: The role of mood. Semantics and Pragmatics 3(9). 1–74. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. Methods in cross-linguistic semantics. In Claudia Maienborn, Klaus von Heusinger & Paul Portner (eds.), Semantics: An international handbook of natural language meaning, 268–284. Berlin: de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. Gitksan modals. International Journal of American Linguistics 79(3). 349–394. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. Modality. In Maria Aloni & Paul Dekker (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Formal Semantics, 525–559. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mucha, Anne, Mary Amaechi, Fred Whibley & Wataru Uegaki. to appear. Future and the composition of modal meaning: the view from Igbo. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 281.
Nauze, Fabrice. 2008. Modality in typological perspective. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam PhD dissertation.
Newman, Paul. 2000. The Hausa Language. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nuyts, Jan. 2006. Modality: Overview and linguistic issues. The expression of modality 1261. 1–26. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peterson, Tyler Roy Gösta. 2010. Epistemic modality and evidentiality in Gitksan at the semantics-pragmatics interface: University of British Columbia PhD dissertation.
Portner, Paul. 2009. Modality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rubinstein, Aynat. 2012. Roots of Modality: University of Massachusetts, Amherst PhD dissertation.
. 2014. On necessity and comparison. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 951. 512–554. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2021. Weak necessity. In Daniel Gutzmann, Lisa Matthewson, Cécile Meier, Hotze Rullmann, Thomas Ede Zimmermann & Dina Voloshina (eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Semantics, 107–132. Oxford: Wiley.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rullmann, Hotze & Lisa Matthewson. 2018. Towards a theory of modal-temporal interaction. Language 94(2). 281–331. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rullmann, Hotze, Lisa Matthewson & Henry Davis. 2008. Modals as distributive indefinites. Natural Language Semantics 16(4). 317–357. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sardinha, Katie. 2022. The perils of combining translation tasks and judgment tasks. Semantic Fieldwork Methods 4(1). Article 6.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silk, Alex. 2022. Weak and strong necessity modals: On linguistic means of expressing ”a primitive concept ought”. In Billy Dunaway & David Plunkett (eds.), Meaning, Decision, and Norms: Themes from the Work of Al lan Gibbard, 203–245.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Steinert-Threlkeld, Shane, Nathaniel Imel & Qingxia Guo. 2023. A semantic universal for modality. Semantics and Pragmatics 16(1). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Uegaki, Wataru. 2022. The informativeness/complexity trade-off in the domain of boolean connectives. Linguistic Inquiry 1–23.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Uegaki, Wataru, Anne Mucha, Nathaniel Imel & Shane Steinert-Threlkeld. 2023. Deontic priority in the lexicalization of impossibility modals. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vander Klok, Jozina. 2013. Restrictions on semantic variation: a case study on modal system types. In Workshop on Semantic Variation, University of Chicago, 25–26.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2021. Revised modal questionnaire for cross-linguistic use. Open access field linguistics tool. [URL]
Vander Klok, Jozina & Vera Hohaus. 2020. Weak necessity without weak possibility: The composition of modal strength distinctions in Javanese. Semantics and Pragmatics 13(12). 1–55. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weingartz, Siena & Vera Hohaus. to appear. Variable modal strength in Afrikaans and Samoan: Deriving strong necessity from weak necessity. Proceedings of TripleA 101.
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue