On the Emergence of the Epistemic Use of Must 1
Year: 2011
Type: article
Abstract: This corpus-based study of the emergence of epistemic must in English aims to reassess Sweetser's (1990) account of the conceptual and historical links between root and epistemic meanings and defends an alternative view of the category of epistemic qualification. After discussing the problems posed by the metaphorical hypothesis, it proposes a frame-based account of modality and of the various meanings of must in the light of which the historical data is re-examined. It is then suggested that the problems with Sweetser's analysis spring from the commonly-held view that epistemic meanings are conceptually derived from root ones. The hypothesis is formulated that epistemic qualification, unlike root modality, does not pertain to the schematic system of force-dynamics and that there is no conceptual basis for postulating a general semantic category (known as modality) subsuming root and epistemic meanings. The rise of epistemic must is explained by the fact that root meanings are underpinned by complex conceptual frames which, beside their core force-dynamic structure, also contain components that pertain to epistemicity and which, in certain contexts, become so prominent that they take over the primary root interpretation.
Source: Finnish Journal of Linguistics
Author: Grégory Furmaniak
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2182900223