Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:32:48.309Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

By now: Change of state, epistemic modality and evidential inference

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 March 2020

DANIEL ALTSHULER  and
LAURA A. MICHAELIS Open the ORCID record for LAURA A. MICHAELIS [Opens in a new window]
DANIEL ALTSHULER*
Affiliation:
Hampshire College/University of Massachusetts Amherst
LAURA A. MICHAELIS*
Affiliation:
University of Colorado Boulder
*
Author’s address: School of Cognitive Science, Adele Simmons Hall, Hampshire College Amherst, MA 01002, USA[email protected]
Author’s address: Department of Linguistics, 295UBC,University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We examine the constellation of factors – lexical, aspectual, temporal and conversational – that give rise to evidential implications from assertions. We target intensional and inferential meanings associated with a certain class of present-tense state sentences: those containing a temporal adverb headed by by, e.g. The American traveling public is pretty mature by now. We ask why present-tense sentences containing by temporal adverbs (BTAs) are improved by, and sometimes appear to require, an epistemic modal, e.g. They ??(must) live in a mansion by now. Key to our analysis is the idea that BTA sentences require the onset of a resultant state described by the complement of by now to overlap some unspecified time that precedes the time described by the adverb. The indefiniteness of the unspecified time described by BTAs leads interpreters to pragmatically construe present-tense BTA reports as conjectures, guesses or suppositions. We show how our analysis can be extended to incorporate the contribution of epistemic modals. Adopting insights from von Fintel & Gillies (2010) and Mandelkern (2016), we hypothesize the manner in which the BTA change schema is instantiated in intensional contexts and discuss the relationship between intensional and evidential contexts. We see the merging of aspectual and epistemic features in BTA sentences, and in particular present-tense sentences, as the result of a semantic reconciliation procedure: the use of an epistemic modal in a BTA predication evokes an observation or act of reasoning, prior to speech time, which permits the speaker to make her assertion, and this inference trigger is identified with the ‘onset event’ in the BTA schema.

Keywords

aspectconversational inferenceEnglish time adverbsevidentialitymodalitysemantics–pragmatics interfacetense
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 56 , Issue 3: Aspect beyond time , 01 August 2020 , pp. 515 - 539
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We are grateful to Sam Carter, Paul Kay, Matthew Mandelkern, Astrid De Wit, Frank Brisard, and three anonymous referees for Journal of Linguistics for insights and observations that have enhanced and improved this paper. We have no doubt received more good advice than we were able to implement.

References

Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2004. Evidentiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Altshuler, Daniel. 2014. Discourse transparency and the meaning of temporal locating adverbs. Natural Language Semantics 22, 55–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Altshuler, Daniel. 2016. Events, states and times: An essay on narrative discourse in English. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Open access at https://www.degruyter.com/view/product/474350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Altshuler, Daniel, Hacquard, Valentine, Roberts, Thomas & White, Aaron. 2015. On double access, cessation and parentheticality. In D’Antonio, Sarah, Little, Carole-Rose, Moroney, Mary Rose & Wiegand, Mia (eds.), Proceedings of 25th Semantics and Linguistic Theory Conference (SALT 25), 18–37. Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications.Google Scholar
Altshuler, Daniel, Parsons, Terence & Schwarzschild, Roger. 2019. A course in semantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Altshuler, Daniel & Schwarzschild, Roger. 2012. Moment of change, cessation implicatures and simultaneous readings. In Chemla, Emmanuel, Homer, Vincent & Winterstein, Gregoire (eds.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 17, 45–62. Paris: ENS.Google Scholar
Altshuler, Daniel & Schwarzschild, Roger. 2013. Correlating cessation with double access. In Aloni, Maria, Franke, Michael & Roelofsen, Floris (eds.), Proceedings of the 19th Amsterdam Colloquium, 43–50. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Altshuler, Daniel & Stojnić, Una. 2015. The attention-coherence model of prominence: A look at ‘now’. Presented at the International Conference on Prominence in Language, University of Cologne.Google Scholar
Anand, Pranav & Hacquard, Valentine. 2014. Factivity, belief and discourse. In Crnic, Luka & Sauerland, Uli (eds.), The art and craft of semantics: A Festschrift for Irene Heim, vol. 1 (MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 70), 69–90. Cambridge, MA: MIT.Google Scholar
Bach, Emmon. 1986. The algebra of events. Linguistics and Philosophy 9, 5–16.Google Scholar
Boye, Kasper. 2012. Epistemic meaning: A crosslinguistic and functional-cognitive study. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J. 1996. Pragmatic markers in English: Grammaticalization and discourse functions. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, Sam & Altshuler, Daniel. 2017. ‘Now’ with subordinate clauses. In Burgdorf, Dan, Collard, Jacob, Maspong, Sireemas & Stefánsdóttir, Brynhildur (eds.), Proceedings of the 27th Semantics and Linguistic Theory Conference (SALT 27), 358–376. Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications.Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace L. & Nichols, Johanna. 1986. Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology. New York: Ablex.Google Scholar
Copley, Bridget. 2018. Force dynamics. In Truswell, Robert (ed.), Oxford handbook of event structure, 137–170. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dahl, Östen. 1985. Tense and aspect systems. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Davies, Mark. 2008–. The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA): 560 million words, 1990–present. Available online at https://corpus.byu.edu/coca/.Google Scholar
Dowty, David. 1986. The effects of aspectual class on the temporal structure of discourse: Semantics or pragmatics? Linguistics and Philosophy 9, 37–62.Google Scholar
Dry, Helen. 1979. Four temporal effects of narrative now. Texas Linguistic Forum 15, 60–69.Google Scholar
Escandell-Vidal, Victoria. 2014. Evidential futures: The case of Spanish. In De Brabanter, Philippe, Kissine, Mikhail & Sharifzadeh, Sagideh (eds.), Future tense vs. future time: An introduction, 219–246. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fillmore, Charles J., Kay, Paul & O’Connor, Mary Catherine. 1988. Regularity and idiomaticity in grammatical constructions: The case of let alone. Language 64, 501–538.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank, Michael & Goodman, Noah. 2012. Predicting pragmatic reasoning in language games. Science 336, 998.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Franke, Michael. 2011. Quantity implicatures, exhaustive interpretation, and rational conversation. Semantics and Pragmatics 4, 1–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geurts, Bart. 2010. Quantity implicatures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giannakidou, Anastasia & Mari, Alda. 2016. Epistemic future and epistemic MUST: Monveridicality, evidence, and partial knowledge. In Błaszczak, Joanna, Giannakidou, Anastasia, Klimek-Jankowska, Dorota & Migdalski, Krzysztof (eds.), Mood, aspect, modality revisited: New answers to old questions, 75–117. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Goodhue, Daniel. 2017. Must $\unicode[STIX]{x03C6}$is felicitous only if $\unicode[STIX]{x03C6}$ is not known. Semantics & Pragmatics 10, 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, Yael. 2018. A revised, gradability-based semantics for even. Natural Language Semantics 26, 51–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grice, H. Paul. 1989. Studies in the way of words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Grønn, Atle & von Stechow, Arnim. 2016. Tense. In Aloni, Maria & Dekker, Paul (eds.), Handbook of formal semantics, 313–341. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacquard, Valentine. 2009. On the event relativity of modal auxiliaries. Natural Language Semantics 18, 79–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacquard, Valentine. 2010. On the interaction of aspect and modal auxiliaries. Linguistics and Philosophy 32, 279–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooper, Joan. 1975. On assertive predicates. In Kimball, John P. (ed.), Syntax and semantics, vol. 4, 91–124. New York: Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kamp, Hans. 1971. Formal properties of ‘now’. Theoria 37, 227–273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kamp, Hans & Reyle, Uwe. 1993. From discourse to logic: Introduction to model theoretic semantics of natural Language, formal logic and discourse representation theory. Kluwer: Dordrecht.Google Scholar
Karttunen, Lauri. 1972. Possible and must. In Kimball, John P. (ed.), Syntax and semantics, vol. 1, 1–20. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kay, Paul. 1990. Even. Linguistics and Philosophy 13, 59–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kay, Paul. 1997. Words and the Grammar of Context. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Klecha, Peter. 2016. Modality and embedded temporal operators. Semantics and Pragmatics 9, 1–55.Google Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika. 1981. The notional category of modality. In Eikmeyer, Hans-Jürgen & Rieser, Hannes (eds.), Words, worlds, and contexts: New approaches in word semantics, 38–74. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika. 1991. Modality. In von Stechow, Arnim & Wunderlich, Dieter (eds.), Semantik: Ein internationales Handbuch zeitgenössischer Forschung, 639–650. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika. 1998. More structural analogies between pronouns and tenses. In Strolovitch, Devon & Lawson, Aaron (eds.), Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory Conference 8 (SALT 8), 92–109. Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications.Google Scholar
Krifka, Manfred. 2000. Alternatives for aspectual particles: Semantics of stilland already. Proceedings of the Twenty-sixth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (BLS 26): General session and parasession on aspect, 401–412. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Linguistics Society.Google Scholar
Lassiter, Daniel. 2016. Must, knowledge, and (in)directness. Natural Language Semantics 24, 117–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lau, Monica & Rooryck, Johan. 2017. Aspect, evidentiality, and mirativity. Lingua 186, 110–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Le Poidevin, Robin. 2015. The experience and perception of time. In Zalta, Edward (ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, Summer 2015 edn. Stanford, CA: Metaphysics Research Lab. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/time-experience/.Google Scholar
Mandelkern, Matthew. 2016. A solution to Karttunen’s problem. In Truswell, Robert (ed.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 21, 1–18. Edinburgh: The University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Matthewson, Lisa. 2015. Evidential restrictions on epistemic modals. In Alonso-Ovalle, Luis & Menéndez-Benito, Paula (eds.), Epistemic indefinites: Exploring modality beyond the verbal domain, 141–160. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matthewson, Lisa & Glougie, Jennifer. 2018. Justification and truth: Evidence from languages of the world. In Stich, Stephen, Mizumoto, Masaharu & McCready, Eric (eds.), Epistemology for the rest of the world, 149–186. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Michaelis, Laura A. 1996. On the use and meaning of already. Linguistics and Philosophy 9, 477–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michaelis, Laura A. 2011. Stative by construction. Linguistics 49, 1359–1399.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Musan, Renate. 1995. On the temporal interpretation of noun phrases. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Musan, Renate. 1997. Tense, predicates, and lifetime effects. Natural Language Semantics 5, 271–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ninan, Dilip. 2014. Taste predicates and the acquaintance inference. In Snider, Todd, D’Antonio, Sarah & Weigand, Mia (eds.), Proceedings of the 24th Semantics and Linguistic Theory Conference, held at New York University, May 30 – June 1, 2014 (SALT 24), 290–309. Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications.Google Scholar
Ozturk, Ozge & Papafragou, Anna. 2015. The acquisition of epistemic modality: From semantic meaning to pragmatic interpretation. Language Learning and Development 11, 191–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parsons, Terence. 1990. Events in the semantics of English: A study in subatomic semantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Partee, Barbara H. 1973. Some structural analogies between tenses and pronouns in English. Journal of Philosophy 18, 601–609.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Craige. 1995. Domain restriction in dynamic semantics. In Bach, Emmon, Jelinek, Eloise, Kratzer, Angelika & Partee, Barbara H. (eds.), Quantification in natural languages, 661–700. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Simons, Mandy. 2008. Observations on embedding verbs, evidentiality and presupposition. Lingua 117, 1037–1056.Google Scholar
Slobin, Dan & Aksu, Ayhan. 1982. Tense, aspect and modality in the use of the Turkish evidential. In Hopper, Paul (ed.), Tense-aspect: Between semantics & pragmatics, 185–200. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stojnić, Una & Altshuler, Daniel. 2019. Formal properties of now revisited. Ms., Princeton University & Hampshire College.Google Scholar
Stone, Matthew. 1994. The reference argument of epistemic must. Proceedings of International Conference on Computational Semantics1, 181–190. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Thomas, Michael & Michaelis, Laura A.. 2009. Aspect selectors and contextual operators: An analysis of by temporal adjuncts. In Leow, Ronald P., Campos, Héctor & Lardiere, Donna (eds.), Little words: Their history, phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and acquisition, 131–141. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C. 1988. Pragmatic strengthening and grammaticalization. Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (BLS 14), 406–416. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Linguistics Society.Google Scholar
Urmson, J. O. 1952. Parenthetical verbs. Mind 61, 480–496.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Fintel, Kai & Gillies, Anthony S.. 2010. Must…stay…strong! Natural Language Semantics 18, 351–383.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Stechow, Arnim. 2009. Tenses in compositional semantics. In Klein, Wolfgang & Li, Ping (eds.), The expression of time, 129–166. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar