Modal Verbs: Typology and Conceptualisation in Greek and English

• Authors: Evangeline Manika
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The purpose of this paper is to compare the Greek and English conceptual categories of directives and conclusions so as to present the cognitive dimension of cross-linguistic influence in Foreign Language Learning (FLL). This comparison entails a tertium comparationis, namely, a taxonomy based on cross-linguistic semantic categories, which share comparable linguistic expressions. Modality, being a general cross-linguistic semantic category, lends itself to the requirements of a comparative tool. A cross-linguistic discussion of modality, however, is not limited only to those aspects that comprise the knowledge of these linguistic units and the rules of joining them together at the level of sentence. It also seeks to anticipate possible difficulties Greek EFL learners may encounter while using specific English modal verbs in a variety of contexts, which situationally constitute representations of different conceptual aspects of the speech acts of directives and conclusions. Hence the emphasis is on the pragmatic component as well. The cognitive perspective is borne out by viewing certain English modal verbs and their Greek counterparts as interconnected members of conceptual categories, i.e. Idealised Cognitive Models (ICMs; Lakoff 1987), being run through by the unifying element of force (Talmy 1988).

Keywords

EN

modal verbs; cognitive pragmalinguistic comparison; directives; conclusions; transfer

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Journal: Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics
• Year: 2007
• Volume: 43
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 25-47

Dates

published

2007-08-01

online

2007-08-07

Contributors

author

Evangeline Manika

• Hellenic American Union, Athens

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10010-007-0002-7