From: Rolf Furuli (furuli@online.no)
Date: Sat Feb 21 1998 - 01:21:04 EST
Mari Broman Olsen wrote:
< Finally, not all the categories in the table need be marked by the same
phonological material. I have
<been speaking most of the time in terms of an "irrealis" suffix which
<can mark one or more of these meanings, but this need not be the
<case. Ancient Greek, for example, had two suffixes which were used
<both for modality marking and for other functions (such as subordinate
<clause marking). My investigations have been in terms of the marking
<of modality in general, and I have not had time to look at how
<different sub-sets of modality are marked if there is more than one
<marker. A brief glance over the material did not yield any obvious
<patterns.
snip
<The next stages of the project are: to look at irrealis marking outside
modality (in subordinate clauses, <in interrogative and negated clauses,
etc) and to look at languages where
<there is more than one irrealis marker. It seems from preliminary work
that there is no regular <grouping of modality types with particular
markers, but a wider examination may show some trends.
Dear Mari,
I found the summary of your work about irrealis very interesting. And your
future work on irrealis marking outside modality, such as in subordinate
clauses and in interrogative and negated clauses will be even more
interesting. In classical Hebrew (and other Semitic languages) we have the
situation that the most common narrative verb form (imperfect consecutive)
found in main clauses, is marked for irrealis (either being a shortened or
a prolonged form of the verb) and having the sentence initial position
which is typical for modal verbs.
Because modality is not expected to be found in main clauses in past
contexts, almost no researcher has classified these forms as modal. A study
of the forms, however, reveal that many of them really ARE irrealis (in
your definition of the word), and I believe that all of them can be
classified as non-indicative or "modal", but that the boundary and contents
of this "modal" group is different from our modern modal groups.
J.R.Searle, 1979:1-29, "Expression and Meaning. Studies in the Theory of
Speach Acts" connects modality with speech acts, and one of his groups is
"assertives" where the listener are told (truly or falsely) how things are.
F.R. Palmer, 1986:13, "Mood and Modality ", says that these "assertives" of
Searle are described in terms of the speaker`s belief or commitment, but
these "mark dimensions" so "the degree of belief or commitment may approach
or even reach zero." J. Lyons, 1982:10," Semantics" says: "Moreover,
there are some languages in which a speaker cannot utter a subjectively
unmodalized declarative sentence." So the question is rather complex.
I therefore see the importance of a study of irrealis marking outside
modality, particularly for the Greek language. To start, let me ask one
question: Is there a realis/irrealis difference in these three examples
where we in (1) find two subjunctives, in (2) one indicative and one
subjunctive and in (3) find one indicative verb? If there is no such
difference, why are different modes chosen? I would appreciate several
comments on these questions.
(1) JOHN 3:16: hINA PAS hO PISTEUWN EIS AUTON MH APOLHTAI ALLE EXHi ZWEN
AIWNION
(2) JOHN 10:28 KAGW DIDWMI AUTOIS ZWEN AIWNION OU MH APOLWNTAI EIS TON AIWNA
(3) MATT 19:29: KAI ZWEN AIWNION LHMYETAI
Regards
Rolf
Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo
furuli@online.no
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:39:05 EDT