Italian come se “as if”
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Andrzej Zuczkowski
Abstract
The aim of this paper was to analyze the 109 occurrences of Italian come se “as if” in a homogenous written corpus of 780 texts, with the aim to highlight the implied evidential and epistemic aspects, not yet explicitly studied in the pertinent literature. We used an interdisciplinary approach which combines linguistics with aspects of cognitive psychology of communication: (a) a Gestalt Psychology oriented perspective, (b) J.S. Petöfi’s Text Theory, in particular his model of Atomic Text, and (c) our view on evidentiality and epistemicity. From this perspective, we found three types of come se: (1) counterfactual; (2) conjectural (on a literal level); and (3) conjectural (on a non-literal, i.e. symbolic, level).
Abstract
The aim of this paper was to analyze the 109 occurrences of Italian come se “as if” in a homogenous written corpus of 780 texts, with the aim to highlight the implied evidential and epistemic aspects, not yet explicitly studied in the pertinent literature. We used an interdisciplinary approach which combines linguistics with aspects of cognitive psychology of communication: (a) a Gestalt Psychology oriented perspective, (b) J.S. Petöfi’s Text Theory, in particular his model of Atomic Text, and (c) our view on evidentiality and epistemicity. From this perspective, we found three types of come se: (1) counterfactual; (2) conjectural (on a literal level); and (3) conjectural (on a non-literal, i.e. symbolic, level).
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Preface ix
- Introduction 1
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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
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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
