The Development of Modality in Greek and English Child Language

The Development of Modality in Greek and English Child Language
Author: Francesca Cangeri
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
Total Pages: 53
Release: 2007-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 363866984X

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2, University of Freiburg (Englisches Seminar), course: HS: The Syntax and Semantics of the English Verb Phrase, 4 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Numerous studies concerning the acquisition of modality in first language have been published. Linguists have carried out many experimental and longitudinal studies in order to find out how the modality category develops in child language. To obtain straight-forward results researcher practice pilot studies with children subjects. This method has proved to be effective for the gathering of useful data about the development of modality. The comparison and the studies of the obtained results should help to give a clear-cut insight into the ontogenesis of modality. This term paper reports about an experimental and longitudinal study of the development of modality of Greek children realized by the linguist Ursula Stephany. Further an analysis of the acquisition of modality of American English speaking children has been done in order to compare the differences and the common characteristics of the development of modality in two distinct languages. Before starting to observe the process of modality development I will give a brief introduction on modality and on its sub-types. The latter play an important role for the understanding of the process of modality acquisition. The term paper's chapter about modality is based on Frank Palmer's Mood and Modality.

Development of Modality in First Language Acquisition

Development of Modality in First Language Acquisition
Author: Ursula Stephany
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 603
Release: 2021-03-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1501504452

This book deals with the development of modality from a crosslinguistic perspective and is closely related to two earlier volumes on the development of verb and nominal inflection in first language acquisition (SOLA 21 and 30) both methodologically and theoretically. Each of the fourteen contributions studies the early development of the form and function of expressions of deontic and dynamic agent-oriented modality or epistemic and evidential propositional modality in one of fourteen languages belonging to different morphological types and language families (seven Indo-European and seven non-Indo-European). The analyses are mainly based on longitudinal observations of children in their 2nd and 3rd years of life in conversational interaction with their caregivers, mostly the mothers. Main issues addressed are the development of directives and modulations of information in terms of certainty and evidentiality, also taking into account children’s developing social-pragmatic and cognitive skills. One of the main findings is that agent-oriented and propositional modality may develop in parallel depending on the typological characteristics of the language acquired. The decisive factor is whether notions of propositional modality are grammaticized and obligatorily expressed in the language. The findings are interpreted within non-nativist theoretical frameworks (Usage-based theories, Natural Morphology).

Development of Modality in First Language Acquisition

Development of Modality in First Language Acquisition
Author: Ursula Stephany
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 685
Release: 2021-03-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1501504355

This book deals with the development of modality from a crosslinguistic perspective and is closely related to two earlier volumes on the development of verb and nominal inflection in first language acquisition (SOLA 21 and 30) both methodologically and theoretically. Each of the fourteen contributions studies the early development of the form and function of expressions of deontic and dynamic agent-oriented modality or epistemic and evidential propositional modality in one of fourteen languages belonging to different morphological types and language families (seven Indo-European and seven non-Indo-European). The analyses are mainly based on longitudinal observations of children in their 2nd and 3rd years of life in conversational interaction with their caregivers, mostly the mothers. Main issues addressed are the development of directives and modulations of information in terms of certainty and evidentiality, also taking into account children’s developing social-pragmatic and cognitive skills. One of the main findings is that agent-oriented and propositional modality may develop in parallel depending on the typological characteristics of the language acquired. The decisive factor is whether notions of propositional modality are grammaticized and obligatorily expressed in the language. The findings are interpreted within non-nativist theoretical frameworks (Usage-based theories, Natural Morphology).

Modality in Grammar and Discourse

Modality in Grammar and Discourse
Author: Joan L. Bybee
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 586
Release: 1995-08-21
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027285721

This volume brings together a collection of 18 papers that look into the expression of modality in the grammars of natural languages, with an emphasis on its manifestations in naturally occurring discourse. Though the individual contributions reflect a diversity of languages, of synchronic and diachronic foci, and of theoretical orientations — all within the broad domain of functional linguistics — they nonetheless converge around a number of key issues: the relationship between 'mood' and 'modality'; the delineation of modal categories and their nomenclature; the grounding of modality in interactive discourse; the elusive category 'irrealis'; and the relationship of modal notions and categories to other categories of grammar.

The Changing English Language

The Changing English Language
Author: Marianne Hundt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 431
Release: 2017-07-20
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1107086868

Experts from psycholinguistics and English historical linguistics address core factors in language change.

Tense-Aspect-Modality in a Second Language

Tense-Aspect-Modality in a Second Language
Author: Martin Howard
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2017-02-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027266492

Situated within the long-established domain of temporality research in Second Language Acquisition, this book aims to provide an update on recent research directions in the field through a range of papers which explore relatively new territory. Those areas include the expression of modality and counterfactuality, the effect of first language transfer, aspectuo-temporal comprehension, aspectuo-temporal marking at a wider discursive level, and methodological issues in the study of the acquisition of aspect. The studies presented explore English and French as second languages, involving both child and adult learners from a range of first language backgrounds in both instructed and naturalistic learning contexts. The studies draw on both spoken and written data which explore various facets of the learners’ second language comprehension and production. The volume offers new, but complementary insights to previous research, as well as pointing to directions for future research in this burgeoning field of study.

Bibliographie Linguistique de L'annee 1999

Bibliographie Linguistique de L'annee 1999
Author: Mark Janse
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 1484
Release: 2003
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9781402017162

Setting out the historical national and religious characteristics of the Italians as they impact on the integration within the European Union, this study makes note of the two characteristics that have an adverse effect on Italian national identity: cleavages between north and south and the dominant role of family. It discusses how for Italians family loyalty is stronger than any other allegiance, including feelings towards their country, their nation, or the EU. Due to such subnational allegiances and values, this book notes that Italian civic society is weaker and engagement at the grass roots is less robust than one finds in other democracies, leaving politics in Italy largely in the hands of political parties. The work concludes by noting that EU membership, however, provides no magic bullet for Italy: it cannot change internal cleavages, the Italian worldview, and family values or the country’s mafia-dominated power matrix, and as a result, the underlying absence of fidelity to a shared polity—Italian or European—leave the country as ungovernable as ever.

Micro-change and Macro-change in Diachronic Syntax

Micro-change and Macro-change in Diachronic Syntax
Author: Eric Mathieu
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2017
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0198747845

The chapters in this volume address the process of syntactic change at different granularities. The language-particular component of a grammar is now usually assumed to be nothing more than the specification of the grammatical properties of a set of lexical items. Accordingly, grammar change must reduce to lexical change. And yet these micro-changes can cumulatively alter the typological character of a language (a macro-change). A central puzzle in diachronic syntax is how to relate macro-changes to micro-changes. Several chapters in this volume describe specific micro-changes: changes in the syntactic properties of a particular lexical item or class of lexical items. Other chapters explore links between micro-change and macro-change, using devices such as grammar competition at the individual and population level, recurring diachronic pathways, and links between acquisition biases and diachronic processes. This book is therefore a great companion to the recent literature on the micro- versus macro-approaches to parameters in synchronic syntax. One of its important contributions is the demonstration of how much we can learn about synchronic linguistics through the way languages change: the case studies included provide diachronic insight into many syntactic constructions that have been the target of extensive recent synchronic research, including tense, aspect, relative clauses, stylistic fronting, verb second, demonstratives, and negation. Languages discussed include several archaic and contemporary Romance and Germanic varieties, as well as Greek, Hungarian, and Chinese, among many others.