Covert Modality in Non-Finite Contexts

This dissertation investigates the distribution and interpretation of covert modality. Three environments where covert modality appears are analyzed. These environments are infinitival relative clauses, infinitival questions, and ability modals. Infinitival relative clauses are shown to not form a unified class structurally. Subject infinitival relative clauses are assimilated to the class of reduced relative clauses. They lack a CP projection. Non-subject infinitival relative are assimilated to the class of full relative clauses. Like full relatives, they have a CP projection. The infinitival [+wh] Cº is argued to be the source of the modality in a non-subject infinitival relative clause. All nonsubject infinitival relative clauses and infinitival questions involve modality because of the obligatory presence of the infinitival [+wh] Cº. Since subject infinitival relative clauses do not involve the infinitival [+wh] Cº, they are not necessarily modal. If they are modal, the source of the modality lies within the infinitival clause. The conditions under which a subject infinitival relative can receive a non-modal interpretation are analyzed. It is shown that a non-modal interpretation must be licensed and that only a limited class of modifiers (superlatives, ordinals, and only) in a particular configuration can license the non-modal interpretation. The licensing configuration obtains under reconstruction of the head NP of the relative clause. The basic result regarding themodality in infinitival questions is that despite the apparent variability in the nature (deontic vs. circumstantial) and the force of this modality, we really have just one modality. The apparent variation in force and nature falls out from the interaction between the semantics of the infinitival [+wh] C0 and contextual factors. The apparent variation in the force and nature of the infinitival questionmodality is also found in non-subject infinitival relative clauses. The proposal for capturing variable modality effects in infinitival questions is extended to non-subject infinitival relatives. A covert modal (the Generic operator) is responsible for the modality in an ability modal. The ability modal itself has the semantics of an implicative verb like manage

Focus structure and the referential status of indefinite quantificational expressions

Many authors who subscribe to some version of generative syntax account for the two readings of [...] sentences [...] in terms of LF-ambiguity. There is assumed to be covert quantifier raising (QR), which results in two distinct possibilities for the indefinite quantificational expressions involved to take scope over each other [...] In this paper, an alternative account is proposed which dispenses with the idea that there are different scope relations involved in the readings of […] sentences [...] and, consequently, with QR as the syntactic operation to be assumed for generating the respective LFs. I argue that it is rather focus structure in connection with type semantic issues pertaining to the indefinite quantificational expressions involved which result in the different readings associated with [...] sentences

Figures of Authority in Familial Corporate Bodies (The Portuguese Morgadio System from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century)

VINCULUM: ERC-2018-COG - ERC Consolidator Grant 819734 UIDB/00749/2020 UIDP/00749/2020Departing from the widespread importance in the Portuguese and Castilian territories, from the 14th to the 19th centuries, of the morgado (entail), a specific Iberian form to frame institutionally the organization of the corporate family, this article puts forward a specific understanding of the phenomenon – one that considers the figure of authority supporting it, and which, in turn, came to be supported by it: the founder. The idea and the act of founding, the figure of the founder, the founder’s authority and credited capacity to rule the future, in premodern European culture, will be at the core of the questioning on the entail system’s logic. The perspective will be one of anthropological history, seeking to describe and understand the set of background conditions and elements of various nature, which at a certain point combined to allow an important change in social behavior towards heritage and family organization. The article begins with a characterization of the figure of the founder in its main aspects, and then proceeds to a brief discussion of the ways through which the model was transmitted and incorporated by the agents involved, but also of the limits which it produced. The second part of this article offers a preliminary analysis of the origins and functions of these reference elements, their contextual usage by engaged agents in late medieval Portugal, and the social-cultural responses thus constructed. Prenant compte de l’importance du morgado (majorat), forme ibérique spécifique pour encadrer institutionnellement l’organisation de la corporation familiale dans les territoires portugais et castillan du XIVe au XIXe siècle, cet article propose une approche spécifique du phénomène, centrée sur la figure d’autorité qui lui servait de fondement, et dont, au fil du temps, il a œuvré au renforcement : le fondateur. L’idée et l’acte de fondation, la figure du fondateur, son autorité, sa capacité reconnue dans la culture européenne prémoderne à gouverner l’avenir, seront au cœur du questionnement concernant la logique du système. Selon une perspective d’anthropologie historique, nous chercherons à décrire et à comprendre l’ensemble des conditions de fond et des éléments de nature diverse qui, combinés, ont permis à un moment donné un changement important dans les approches sociales à l’égard du patrimoine et de l’organisation de la famille. L’article s’ouvre sur la description de la figure du fondateur et de ses principales dimensions, avant de se poursuivre par une brève discussion sur la manière dont le modèle a été transmis et incorporé par les agents concernés, et sur les limites auxquelles il s’est trouvé confronté. La deuxième partie offre une analyse préliminaire des origines et des fonctions de ces éléments de référence, de leur utilisation par des agents dans le contexte du Moyen Âge tardif au Portugal, et des réponses socioculturelles ainsi élaborées.publishersversionpublishe

Az adverbiumok mondattani és jelentéstani kérdései = The syntax and syntax-semantics interface of adverbial modification

A határozószók és a határozók alaktani, mondattani és funkcionális kérdéseit vizsgáltuk a generatív nyelvelmélet keretében, főként magyar anyag alapján. Olyan leírásra törekedtünk, melyből a különféle határozófajták mondattani viselkedése, hatóköre, valamint hangsúlyozása egyaránt következik. A különféle határozótípusok PP-ként való elemzésének lehetőségét bizonyítottuk. A határozók mondatbeli elhelyezése tekintetében a specifikálói pozíció (Cinque 1999) ellen és az adjunkciós elemzés (Ernst 2002) mellett érveltünk. Megmutattuk, hogy a határozók szórendjének levezetéséhez bal- és jobboldali adjunkció feltételezése egyaránt szükséges. A különféle határozófajták szórendi helyét mondattani, jelentéstani és prozódiai tényezők összjátékával magyaráztuk. A jelentéstani tényezők között pl. a határozók inkorporálhatóságát korlátozó típusmegszorítást, a negatív határozók kötelező fókuszálását előidéző skaláris megszorítást, egyes határozófajták és igefajták komplex eseményszerkezetének inkompatibilitását vizsgáltuk. Az ige mögötti határozók szórendjét befolyásoló prozódiai tényező például a növekvő összetevők törvénye. Megfigyeltük az intonációskifejezés- újraelemzés kiváltódásának feltételeit és jelentéstani következményeit is. A helyhatározói igekötők egy típusát a mozgatási láncok sajátos fonológiai megvalósulásaként (a fonológiailag redukált kópia inkorporációjaként) elemeztük. A tárgykörben mintegy 60 tanulmányt publikáltunk. Adverbs and Adverbial Adjuncts at the Interfaces (489 old.) c. könyvünket kiadja a Mouton de Gruyter (Berlin). | This project has aimed to clarify (on the basis of mainly Hungarian data) basic issues concerning the category "adverb", the function "adverbial", and the grammar of adverbial modification. We have argued for the PP analysis of adverbials, and have claimed that they enter the derivation via left- and right-adjunction. Their merge-in position is determined by the interplay of syntactic, semantic, and prosodic factors. The semantically motivated constraints discussed also include a type restriction affecting adverbials semantically incorporated into the verbal predicate, an obligatory focus position for scalar adverbs representing negative values of bidirectional scales, cooccurrence restrictions between verbs and adverbials involving incompatible subevents, etc. The order and interpretation of adverbials in the postverbal domain is shown to be affected by such phonologically motivated constraints as the Law of Growing Constituents, and by intonation-phrase restructuring. The shape of the light-headed chain arising in the course of locative PP incorporation is determined by morpho-phonological requirements. The types of adverbs and adverbials analyzed include locatives, temporals, comitatives, epistemic adverbs, adverbs of degree, manner, counting, and frequency, quantificational adverbs, and adverbial participles. We have published about 60 studies; our book Adverbs and Adverbial Adjuncts at the Interfaces (pp. 489) is published in the series Interface Explorations of Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin