Constructions and Frames - Volume 8, Issue 1, 2016

In this paper we aim to show how distinct semantic and pragmatic layers of modal interpretation can be fruitfully integrated within a constructionist approach. We discuss in detail a number of cases from the Simpsons where a modal verb, as part of a longer expression, has a short-circuited interpretation, that is, where it is conventionally associated with a context-specific modal semantic value and, in some cases, with added pragmatic information. Short-circuitedness is evidenced by the humorous effect that is obtained when a character wilfully or unknowingly ignores standard aspects of interpretation of such a modal verb construction.

When speakers are confronted with modal expressions in their native language, specifically those that contain a modal verb, they are able to interpret these expressions as epistemic or non-epistemic, for example. But what enables the speakers to interpret these modal expressions instantly and accurately despite the inevitably complex explanation any linguistic theory needs to evoke to account for this? Modality, modals, and modal interpretations are among those universal tension points where the explanatory value of any theoretical construct is sorely tested.

This paper raises some questions about the adequacy of applying Construction Grammar (Goldberg 1995, 2006) as a method of analysis of expressions containing modal verbs. In particular, the following issues are discussed: (i) the necessity to postulate a great number of constructions to account for a modal utterance, (ii) the theoretically unrestricted scope of a construction, and (iii) the ever-present problem of indeterminate modal utterances.

This paper discusses how modal auxiliaries fit into a constructional view of language and how this view allows us to think in new ways about diachronic meaning change in modal auxiliaries. These issues will be illustrated on the basis of a diachronic corpus-based study of the modal auxiliary may, specifically focusing on changes in its collocational preferences during the past 200 years. The main point of this paper is the claim that a constructional view needs to take account of the mutual associations between modal auxiliaries and the lexical elements with which they occur. Changes in these mutual associations are usefully understood as change in a complex network of constructions.

My aim in this paper is to show that, in modified form, semantic connectivity maps of the kind developed in van der Auwera & Plungian (1998) and van der Auwera (2013) can be useful for showing the development over time of relationships among polysemous constructions. Since these maps pertain primarily to meaning and are intended as contributions to cross-linguistic generalizations rather than to language-specific grammars, their purpose might seem orthogonal to construction grammar, in which form–meaning pairs are the basic units of grammar. I propose that the semantic maps can usefully be rethought as being of two kinds: schema-construction maps that represent relationships between abstract, conceptual schemas linked to underspecified form, and micro-construction maps that represent relationships between specific constructions. These two kinds of maps capture both form and meaning since they represent form–meaning pairings, but at different levels of abstraction. They can also capture direction of changes, as tendencies at the schema level and specific trajectories at the micro-level. My case study is the development of the marginal modals better, rather, sooner (see Denison & Cort 2010, van der Auwera & De Wit 2010). I show that better is significantly different in distribution and meaning from rather and sooner, and that, although they form a family of micro-constructions, they do not form a tight-knit group. This can be captured well by modified semantic maps.