L’interaction entre modalité et temps verbaux en anglais

Cet article se veut une réflexion sur des emplois particuliers de temps verbaux qui engendrent une interprétation modale. L’auteur explique deux mécanismes qui sont à la base de l’interprétation modale et de ce fait indique les raisons pour lesquelles ces implications modales sont uniquement associées à certaines formes verbales. Il défend l’hypothèse que le premier mécanisme, un choix marqué de ’temporal focus’, est aussi utilisé différemment dans le système verbal en anglais, ce qui implique que la forme verbale en question est tout d’abord un indicatif. Mais le deuxième mécanisme, appelé « modal distancing », ne fait pas partie intégrante du système verbal en anglais. Ce constat implique qu’en anglais, il est nécessaire de distinguer un ’mode indicatif modal’ à coté du mode indicatif. L’analyse proposée permet à l’auteur de souligner l’importance d’un type de modalité épistémique qui est souvent négligé, à savoir l’idée que la situation n’est pas encore réalisée au moment du repère.This article examines a number of cases in which the special use of a tense form produces a modal interpretation. The author describes two mechanisms leading to such an interpretation and in doing so explains why only some tenses can yield modal readings. He argues that the first mechanism (viz. a marked choice of ’temporal focus’) is also used in other ways in the English tense system, so that the resulting tense forms are normal indicative forms. However, the second mechanism (called ’modal distancing’) dœs not form part of the English tense system. This supports the view that next to the indicative mood we also need to posit a ’modal indicative mood’ in English. One of the interesting features of the article is that it draws attention to an epistemic modal value that is usually neglected, namely the idea that a situation is ’not-yet-factual at t’

Distinguishing between the aspectual categories '(a)telic', '(im)perfective' and '(non)bounded'

The linguistic literature often makes use of the terms '(im)perfective', '(a)telic' and/or '(non)bounded' (as well as other terms like 'terminative', 'conclusive', etc.). However, there is a lot of confusion about the definitions as well as the applicability and relevance of these concepts. In this article we aim to resolve this confusion. We will argue that, at least in English, these distinctions are a matter of 'grammatical aspect', 'ontological (lexical) aspect' and 'actualization aspect', respectively. We will define these categories carefully and show the relevance of each of them by identifying the level of analysis on which they are operative. The three aspectual categories all somehow have to do with the presence or absence of reference to a terminal point of a situation type or of the actualization of a situation on some linguistic level. On the morphological level, there is grammatical aspect (signalled by the verb form), which involves the distinction between perfective and imperfective aspect. In English this distinction happens to coincide with the distinction between nonprogressive and progressive aspect, respectively, because progressive aspect is the only kind of imperfective aspect that can be expressed by a special verb form. On the level of the conceptualization of situation types there is the distinction between telic and atelic situation-templates (which are verbs, verb phrases or larger predicate constituents) and between telic and atelic situation types. On the level of reference to actualization of situations there is the distinction between bounded and nonbounded clauses and between bounded and nonbounded actualizations of situations. The article shows not only how the three aspectual categories should be kept apart but also how they interact to constitute the aspectual interpretation of a sentence

A propos de modèles temporels. Réponse à F. Brisard

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