Summary Details
| Query: |
summary: past ability verbs
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| Author: | Debra Ziegeler | |
| Submitter Email: | click here to access email | |
| Linguistic LingField(s): |
Semantics
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| Summary: |
About 6 weeks ago I posted a request for participants in a survey on past ability verbs in English, and I have been asked to summarise the findings, so here goes. The survey focused on the following pair of sentences, which are to appear in Keith Allan's forthcoming book ('Natural Language Semantics'), as expressing constrasting implicatures. Similar sentences appear in Levinson (1995) and Horn (1989). (i) Kim was able to win the tournament. (ii) Kim had the ability to win the tournament. Participants were asked if the inferences derived from them were that in (i) Kim won, and in (ii), that she didn't win. Secondly, they were asked if the same inferences could be possible for either of the two sentences, i.e. that she lost or won in both of them. Finally, they were asked if in other languages similar pairs of sentences could be found with constrasting inferences. 19 people replied to the survey, and I would like to thank the following participants: E. Bashir; Claire Bowern; Gillian Collins; Kim Dammers; Karen Davis; Vincent Jenkins; Isa Kocher; Mai Kuha; Elsa Lattey; Paul Listen; Gerald B. Mathias; Barbara Pearson; Rob Pensalfini; Sarah Rosenzweig; And Rosta; Michael Swan; Jim Walker; Kenneth Westney; and Jim Witte (apologies for any names I might have missed). The responses were overwhelmingly in favour of the interpretation that for (i) the inference was that she won (19), and for (ii) the inference was that she didn't win, though one response considered that in (ii) she could have won, and one speaker considered that both inferences could apply to (ii). Two speakers thought that neither inference could apply to (ii). 15 participants found that (ii) meant she didn't win. In answer to Question 2, 11 participants thought that the same inferences could apply to both sentences (i.e. that she both won or lost in both), but most thought that this would depend on contextual factors. Of those who replied that contextual factors would determine this, 5 considered that both inferences would only apply to (ii), not (i). 4 did not specify which sentence such factors would apply to, and 2 did not attribute any importance to contextual factors. In reply to the question about other languages, Karen davis mentioned Slavic languages which have similar contrasts inferred in the use of aspectual distinctions, Claire Bowern thought that similar contrasts existed in German between koennen and haben die Abilitaet um, Isa Kocher thought that a Turkish translation would produce sentences in which either inference held, and Rob Pensalfini felt the same for Italian translations of the sentences. Jim Walker thought that in French, the same interpretations as the English ones (i.e. she won in (i) and she lost in (ii)) would arise. One of the most interesting responses came from E. Bashir, who suggested that 'was able to' was more semantically dense than 'had the ability to', and hence had a more permanent sense - 'having' or being in possession of an ability being more of a situation which can come to an end. There was also mention of the use of stress to differentiate the implicatures, and past time adverbs such as 'once'. References mentioned were Palmer, FR. 1986. Mood and Modality. Cambridge: UP. Other useful ones include: Horn, Laurence. 1989. A Natural History of Negation. Chicago: UP. Levinson, Stephen C. 1995. 'Three levels of meaning'. In FR palmer (ed.). Grammar and Meaning. Essays in Honour of Sir John Lyons. Cambridge: UP. Once again, thanks very much to all those who assisted. Debra Ziegeler Department of Linguistics Monash University Clayton Vic. 3168 Australia |
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| LL Issue: | 9.362 | |
| Date Posted: | 12-Mar-1998 | |
| Original Query: | Read original query | |
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