Immediate-future readings of universal quantifier constructions
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Jack Hoeksema
Abstract
Sentences such as The train may arrive any minute (now) have a special non-universal interpretation. Similar types of sentences exist in Dutch, French, Spanish and elsewhere. I argue that they constitute a special construction, involving a universal quantifier, a temporal noun, optionally a preposition (in some languages), an achievement predicate and a modal context. Other properties are negative: The construction may not be negated, and the temporal noun may not be modified. I discuss the origin of the construction in contexts of expectation, using corpus data from Dutch and English, and describe the semantic change from universally quantified statement to a claim about the immediate-future as a change by which an implicature becomes the main assertion.
Abstract
Sentences such as The train may arrive any minute (now) have a special non-universal interpretation. Similar types of sentences exist in Dutch, French, Spanish and elsewhere. I argue that they constitute a special construction, involving a universal quantifier, a temporal noun, optionally a preposition (in some languages), an achievement predicate and a modal context. Other properties are negative: The construction may not be negated, and the temporal noun may not be modified. I discuss the origin of the construction in contexts of expectation, using corpus data from Dutch and English, and describe the semantic change from universally quantified statement to a claim about the immediate-future as a change by which an implicature becomes the main assertion.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword and Acknowledgements vii
- Editors’ introduction 1
-
Part I. Grammaticalization
- The role of historical research in building a model of Sign Language typology, variation, and change 15
- On the origin of Niger-Congo nominal classification 43
- A closer look at subjectification in the grammaticalization of English modals 67
- Subjectivity encoding in Taiwanese Southern Min 83
-
Part II. Problems in historical comparison and reconstruction
- Emergence of the tone system in the Sanjiazi dialect of Manchu 101
- Searching for undetected genetic links between the languages of South America 115
- Reconstructing the category of “associated motion” in Tacanan languages (Amazonian Bolivia and Peru) 129
- The mirage of apparent morphological correspondence 153
-
Part III. Historical development of morphosyntactic features
- Analogy as a source of suppletion 175
- The rise and demise of possessive classifiers in Austronesian 199
- Immediate-future readings of universal quantifier constructions 227
- The historical development and functional characteristics of the go-adjective sequence in English 243
- Recycling “junk” 267
- Sapirian ‘drift’ towards analyticity and long-term morphosyntactic change in Ancient Egyptian 289
- Language index 329
- Index of terms 333
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword and Acknowledgements vii
- Editors’ introduction 1
-
Part I. Grammaticalization
- The role of historical research in building a model of Sign Language typology, variation, and change 15
- On the origin of Niger-Congo nominal classification 43
- A closer look at subjectification in the grammaticalization of English modals 67
- Subjectivity encoding in Taiwanese Southern Min 83
-
Part II. Problems in historical comparison and reconstruction
- Emergence of the tone system in the Sanjiazi dialect of Manchu 101
- Searching for undetected genetic links between the languages of South America 115
- Reconstructing the category of “associated motion” in Tacanan languages (Amazonian Bolivia and Peru) 129
- The mirage of apparent morphological correspondence 153
-
Part III. Historical development of morphosyntactic features
- Analogy as a source of suppletion 175
- The rise and demise of possessive classifiers in Austronesian 199
- Immediate-future readings of universal quantifier constructions 227
- The historical development and functional characteristics of the go-adjective sequence in English 243
- Recycling “junk” 267
- Sapirian ‘drift’ towards analyticity and long-term morphosyntactic change in Ancient Egyptian 289
- Language index 329
- Index of terms 333
