Modal verbs and the feature of (non-)agentivity: a case study on the use of the Czech modal verb muset ‘must, have to’

Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F46747885%3A24510%2F23%3A00011351" target="_blank" >RIV/46747885:24510/23:00011351 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://www.jazykovednesdruzeni.cz/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Kontext_komunikace_dialog.pdf" target="_blank" >https://www.jazykovednesdruzeni.cz/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Kontext_komunikace_dialog.pdf</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
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Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Modal verbs and the feature of (non-)agentivity: a case study on the use of the Czech modal verb muset ‘must, have to’
Original language description
The paper presents a case study the purpose of which is to examine the assumption that in syntactical constructions with modal verbs, non-agentivity of the lexical verb might only allow the epistemic use of the modal (i.e. disallow the root interpretation), as was suggested by various researches. The case study is corpus-based; fifteen datasets including occurrences of the Czech modal muset ‘must, have to’ and various lexical verbs, five agentive and ten non-agentive ones, were manually annotated in terms of modality types. A total of four different modal meanings were distinguished: 1. deontic/bouletic modality, 2. the meaning of necessary condition, 3. the meaning of necessary consequence, 4. epistemic modality (with types 1 to 3 being subtypes of root modality). The results indicate that non-agentivity of the lexical verb does not generally prevent root interpretation of the modal but significantly impedes deontic/bouletic interpretation (without, however, making it impossible) which results in lower share of occurrences displaying root modality, compared to constructions with agentive lexical verbs. The research also highlighted the proximity of various modal senses, which often makes them hard to distinguish.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Project
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Continuities
I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year
2023
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

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