Enablement and (im)possibility

This chapter proposes an analysis of the syntax, semantics, and grammatical and conceptual properties of the verbal element let. Let is examined from a stylistic point of view, within textual examples from a corpus composed of John Keats’s poetry. The chapter will explore the force-dynamic relations profiled by let, which express various forms of possibility, impossibility, and enablement. These force-dynamic relations are founded in, and express, conceptually metaphoric structure, and take place within the enunciative realm of the expression of emotion. Let’s functioning and expression in this sense provides reinforcement for the idea that it possesses syntactic, semantic, and grammatical properties highly similar to those of modals.