[SynSem] Eleni Staraki & Bridget Copley

28
juin.
2021.
11h00
13h00
Causal discourse particles in Modern Greek

visioconférence

retour Séminaire Syntaxe & sémantique

Eleni Staraki (University of Chicago) and Bridget Copley (SFL)

Causal discourse particles in Greek

Greek has a number of particles that take subjunctive clausal arguments, including as 'let, permit' and min 'not'.

(1)      a. As me aghap-uses.

               AS me love-past.imperfective.2SG

               'If only you had loved me”

           b. Min erthis

                NEG come-present.perfective.2SG

                'Don’t come!'    

While semantic contributions of these particles have been well-studied (Karantzola 1993; Roussou & Tsangalidis 2010; Chondrogianni 2011), the exact denotations remain puzzling, since counterfactual/wish construals ((1a)), quasi-imperative construals ((1b)), and (as we will see) concessive, permissive and "indifferent" construals arise. In this talk we present the different readings and analyze them in a causal model framework based on force-dynamic theories of causal meanings (Talmy 2000; Wolff 2007; Wolff et al. 2003, 2010; among others). In doing so, we take into account the speaker’s point of view to argue that for these particles, speakers do manipulations on causal relations/forces that are represented in the common ground.

References

References
Chondrogianni, M. 2011. The pragmatics of prohibitive and hortative in modern Greek. in: Kitis, E., Lavidas, N., Topintzi, N. and Tsangalidis, T. (ed.)  Selected papers from the 19th international symposium on theoretical and applied linguistics (19th ISTAL, April 2009) Thessaloniki Monochromia. pp. 135-142

 Karantzola, E. (1993) Description sémantique de la particular AS du grec moderne: Fonctions discursives, contraintes temporelles et aspectuelles.  Doctoral dissertation, E.H.E.S.S.

 Roussou, Anna & Tsangalidis, Anastasios. 2010."Reconsidering the 'modal particles' in Modern Greek". Journal of Greek Linguistics 10: 45-73

 Talmy, Leonard. 2000. Towards a Cognitive Semantics, Volume 1: Concept Structuring Systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Wolff, Phillip. 2007. Representing causation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 136(1). 82.

 Wolff, Phillip, Ga-hyun Jeon, Bianca Klettke & Yu Li. 2010. Force creation and possible causers across languages. In Barbara Malt & Phillip Wolff (eds.), Words and the Mind: How Words Capture Human Experience, 93–110. Oxford University Press.

Wolff, Phillip & Grace Song. 2003. Models of causation and the semantics of causal verbs. Cognitive Psychology 47(3). 276–332.