Latin commitment-markers
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Josine Schrickx
Abstract
This paper gives an analysis of the Latin ‘commitment-markers’ scilicet and videlicet with the help of the research of Simon-Vandenbergen and Aijmer (2007) on English modal adverbs and Nuyts (esp. 2001) on modality and commitment. On the basis of distributional differences and translation networks one may establish the differences between these words. They are both evidential markers that give the speaker’s commitment to the content of what is said and they have a comparable origin. There are however important differences: scilicet (‘of course’) shows that the evidence is based on expectation and is strongly directed towards the addressee, whereas videlicet (‘clearly’) shows that the evidence is inferable from the context or from reasoning and is not directed towards the addressee.
Abstract
This paper gives an analysis of the Latin ‘commitment-markers’ scilicet and videlicet with the help of the research of Simon-Vandenbergen and Aijmer (2007) on English modal adverbs and Nuyts (esp. 2001) on modality and commitment. On the basis of distributional differences and translation networks one may establish the differences between these words. They are both evidential markers that give the speaker’s commitment to the content of what is said and they have a comparable origin. There are however important differences: scilicet (‘of course’) shows that the evidence is based on expectation and is strongly directed towards the addressee, whereas videlicet (‘clearly’) shows that the evidence is inferable from the context or from reasoning and is not directed towards the addressee.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Preface ix
- Introduction 1
-
Certainty
- Certainty 29
- Modes of modality in an Un-Cartesian framework 47
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(Un)Certainty as attitudinality
- Counter-argumentation and modality 65
- Explanation as a certainty marker in persuasive dialogue 83
- How to deal with attitude strength in debating situations. A survey on forewarning, argument strength, repetition, and source credibility as mediators of uncertainty 97
- The role of subjective certainty in the epistemology of testimony 121
- Uncertainty in polar questions and certainty in answers? 135
- Lying as a scalar phenomenon 153
- Persuasion pragmatic strategies in L1/L2 Italian argument-ative speech 175
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Dialogical exchange and speech acts
- What do I know as yet? 185
- On polar questions, negation, and the syntactic encoding of epistemicity 199
- Epistemic uncertainty and the syntax of speech acts 217
- Discursive functions of evidentials and epistemic modals 239
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Onomasiology
- Vagueness, unspecificity, and approximation. Cognitive and lexical aspects in English, Swedish, and Italian 265
- Latin commitment-markers 285
- Italian come se “as if” 297
-
Applications in exegesis and religious discourse
- The communication of certainty/uncertainty within a Gospel passage (John 9:1-41) 327
- Rhetorics of (un)certainty in religious discourse 343
- Subject index 363
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Preface ix
- Introduction 1
-
Certainty
- Certainty 29
- Modes of modality in an Un-Cartesian framework 47
-
(Un)Certainty as attitudinality
- Counter-argumentation and modality 65
- Explanation as a certainty marker in persuasive dialogue 83
- How to deal with attitude strength in debating situations. A survey on forewarning, argument strength, repetition, and source credibility as mediators of uncertainty 97
- The role of subjective certainty in the epistemology of testimony 121
- Uncertainty in polar questions and certainty in answers? 135
- Lying as a scalar phenomenon 153
- Persuasion pragmatic strategies in L1/L2 Italian argument-ative speech 175
-
Dialogical exchange and speech acts
- What do I know as yet? 185
- On polar questions, negation, and the syntactic encoding of epistemicity 199
- Epistemic uncertainty and the syntax of speech acts 217
- Discursive functions of evidentials and epistemic modals 239
-
Onomasiology
- Vagueness, unspecificity, and approximation. Cognitive and lexical aspects in English, Swedish, and Italian 265
- Latin commitment-markers 285
- Italian come se “as if” 297
-
Applications in exegesis and religious discourse
- The communication of certainty/uncertainty within a Gospel passage (John 9:1-41) 327
- Rhetorics of (un)certainty in religious discourse 343
- Subject index 363
