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Aspects of modality and ellipsis have become prominent in theoretical linguistics over the last years. What has remained under-investigated is the fact that modals tend to make excellent ellipsis licensers and, conversely, that many of the naturally occurring cases of ellipsis are licensed by modals. The book concentrates on the syntax of the modal auxiliaries with special focus on English and investigates the grammatical relationship with the process of ellipsis that interacts most relevantly with the modals in grammaticalized fashion by including a special emphasis on verb-phrase ellipsis. After a critical discussion of pertinent approaches in the two domains, the book focuses on establishing the connection between the two areas by essentially drawing on the history of English and on observable effects in modern grammars, which it puts into perspective with semantically grounded features on the modals involved. Two major generalizations are proposed in the monograph. The first generalization concerns the treatment of the interaction between modals and ellipsis as determined by the features located in the licensing modal heads. To this end, the syntactic effects of the main semantic factors are explored in detail in English and partial effects obtaining in other languages are discussed. The second generalization concerns the syntactic component involved in ellipsis licensing. It is suggested that ellipsis types with the distributional features of verb-phrase ellipsis are licensed by interpretable features of the licensing head. The two generalizations are intertwined with one another and derive a series of further legitimate ellipsis licensers beyond the modals. The role of formal features that are interpretable is distinguished from agreement features, which are claimed not to be in charge of ellipsis licensing.

English language --- Grammar, Comparative and general --- Modality (Linguistics). --- Ellipsis. --- Modality. --- Syntax. --- Modality (Linguistics) --- Syntax --- Ellipsis --- Modality --- Grammar --- 801.56 --- 801.56 Syntaxis. Semantiek --- Syntaxis. Semantiek --- Anglais (Langue) --- Ellipse (Linguistique) --- Modalité (Linguistique) --- Syntaxe --- Ellipse --- Modalité --- Ellipsis (Grammar) --- Elliptical constructions --- Linguistics --- Philology --- Germanic languages --- Ellipsis (language). --- English /language.

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This volume contains thematic papers on semantic change which emerged from the second edition of Formal Diachronic Semantics held at Saarland University. Its authorship ranges from established scholars in the field of language change to advanced PhD students whose contributions have equally qualified and have been selected after a two-step peer-review process. The key foci are variablity and diachronic trajectories in scale structures and quantification, but readers will also find a variety of further (and clearly non-disjoint) issues covered including reference, modality, givenness, presuppositions, alternatives in language change, temporality, epistemic indefiniteness, as well as - in more general terms - the interfaces of semantics with syntax, pragmatics and morphology. Given the nature of the field, the contributions are primarily based on original corpus studies (in one case also on synchronic experimental data) and present a series of new findings and theoretical analyses of several languages, first and foremost from the Germanic and Romance subbranches of Indo-European (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish) and from Semitic (with an analysis of universal quantification in Biblical Hebrew).

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"Germanic languages have been recognized as having not only intensifying or focus particles, but also so-called modal particles. The relevant items are specialized discourse markers joined by characteristic syntactic properties. After an introductory overview of the complex field, the contributions of the current volume capitalize on, but also work much further beyond the baseline of the established insights. They offer analyses of (a) new data types within and sometimes across several Germanic languages (e.g. varieties/stages of German, Dutch, or Norwegian), encompassing different classes of particles and a variety of syntactic-semantic as well as usage-based aspects; (b) the classical dichotomy between languages like German and English when it comes to the availability of modal particles both synchronically and diachronically; (c) crucial integrated insight from non-Germanic languages such as French, Hungarian, Italian, Mandarin, or Vietnamese. A number of mostly interface-based proposals of several languages as well as further generalizations are put on the table for both expert and novice readers in the field"--

Grammar, Comparative and general --- Discourse markers. --- Focus (Linguistics) --- Modality (Linguistics) --- Particles. --- Discourse markers --- Particles

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The second volume of the two-volume set The Fruits of Empirical Linguistics focuses on the linguistic outcomes of empirical linguistics. The contributions present some of the insights that linguists can gain by applying the new methods: progress within language study is accelerated by the new evidence since language systems are more precisely captured. Readers will enjoy the fresh perspective on linguistic questions made possible by the evidence-based approach.

Computational linguistics --- Discourse analysis --- Methodology. --- Data processing. --- Empirical Linguistics.