Epistemic meaning : a crosslinguistic and functional-cognitive study / / by Kasper Boye

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910813966803321
• Autore: Boye Kasper <1972->
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Berlin ; ; Boston, : De Gruyter Mouton, 2012
• ISBN: 1-283-62761-2; 9786613940063; 3-11-021903-4
• Edizione: [1st ed.]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (392 p.)
• Collana: Empirical Approaches to Language Typology [EALT] ; ; 43; Empirical approaches to language typology, , 0933-761X ; ; 43
• Classificazione: ER 630
• Disciplina: 401/.43
• Soggetti: English language - Modality; English language - Semantics; Linguistic universals
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
• Nota di contenuto: Frontmatter -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- List of figures -- List of tables -- List of abbreviations -- 1. Preliminaries -- 2. Epistemic systems -- 3. A semantic map of epistemic expressions -- 4. Epistemic meaning and scope -- 5. A functional-cognitive analysis of epistemic meaning and the proposition -- 6. Conclusion -- References -- Language index -- Subject index
• Sommario/riassunto: This book is intended to contribute to the clarification of the linguistic research area covered by the terms modal, evidential and epistemic. It sets out to demonstrate that on cross-linguistic grounds a hitherto overlooked epistemic meaning domain must be given due recognition in linguistic theory, on a par with domains such as time and number. The relevant domain is coherent, but at the same time complex in that it consists of two subdomains: one which comprises degree-of-certainty meanings, and one which comprises information-source meanings. The book offers three arguments for giving recognition to such a meaning domain. The first argument concerns the clustering of linguistic expressions with epistemic meaning into morphosyntactically delimited systems of elements. The second argument has to do with ; the variation pertaining to the coding of epistemic meanings, as highlighted in a semantic map of epistemic expressions. The third argument turns upon the scope properties of epistemic meanings and the morphosyntactic reflections of these properties. Finally, the book proposes a unified cognitive analysis of epistemic meaning in terms of which it attempts to account for the properties of the epistemic meaning domain as well as of individual epistemic meanings.