Models of Modals: From Pragmatics and Corpus Linguistics to Machine Learning (Topics in English Linguistics [TiEL], 110) - Hardcover

Depraetere, Ilse; Cappelle, Bert; Hilpert, Martin; De Cuypere, Ludovic; Dehouck, Mathieu; Denis, Pascal; Flach, Susanne; Grabar, Natalia; Grandin, Cyril; Hamon, Thierry; Hufeld, Clemens; Leclercq, Benoît; Schmid, Hans-Jörg

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 3110738619 ISBN 13: 9783110738612

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter, 2023

Synopsis

Modal verbs in English communicate delicate shades of meaning, there being a large range of verbs both on the necessity side (must, have to, should, ought to, need, need to) and the possibility side (can, may, could, might, be able to). They therefore constitute excellent test ground to apply and compare different methodologies that can lay bare the factors that drive the speaker’s choice of modal verb. This book is not merely concerned with a purely grammatical description of the use of modal verbs, but aims at advancing our understanding of lexical and grammatical units in general and of linguistic methodologies to explore these. It thus involves a genuine effort to compare, assess and combine a variety of approaches. It complements the leading descriptive qualitative work on modal verbs by testing a diverse range of quantitative methods, while not ignoring qualitative issues pertaining to the semantics-pragmatics interface. Starting from a critical assessment of what constitutes the meaning of modal verbs, different types of empirical studies (usage-based, data-driven and experimental), drawing considerably on the same data sets, shows how method triangulation can contribute to an enhanced understanding. Due attention is also given to individual variation as well as the degree to which modals can predict L2 proficiency level.

About this title

About the Author

Ilse Depraetere (Université de Lille), Bert Cappelle (Université de Lille), Martin Hilpert (Université de Neuchȃtel),

Ludovic De Cuypere (UGent, VUB), Mathieu Dehouck (CNRS, Lattice), Pascal Denis (Inria, MAGNET), Susanne Flach (Zürich), Natalia Grabar (CNRS, STL), Cyril Grandin, Thierry Hamon (Paris 13, LISN), Clemens Hufeld (LMU München), Benoît Leclercq (Paris 8), Hans-Jörg Schmid (LMU München)

From the Back Cover

This volume on English modals positions itself with respect to qualitative questions pertaining to the semantics-pragmatics interface and critically assesses different kinds of quantitative models. It leads off with a discussion of how the meaning of modal verbs can be captured. The authors then present different types of empirical studies (usage-based, data-driven and experimental) which draw largely on the same data sets. In doing so, they demonstrate how method triangulation can contribute to an enhanced understanding of modality in English.

Edition details

• Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3110738619
• ISBN 13: 9783110738612
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 280