Modals, tense and mood

AbstractA lack of consensus has existed regarding the interaction of English modals with categories such as tense, and individual modal forms can vary in the extent to which they make assertions regarding temporal reference. The present work attempts to provide a compositional semantic account of English modals by proposing that these forms may be inflected both for tense and for mood. The crosslinguistic status of inflectional moods such as the subjunctive is examined; it is argued that an inflectional subjunctive exists in Modern English with semantic properties similar to those of comparable forms in older Indo-European languages, and the extent to which linguistic cues would permit learners of English to acquire such a category is discussed. Data on English modals are reviewed in light of the analysis proposed here to determine its compatibility with observed usage. It is suggested that the analysis proposed here has certain advantages over models in which the observed semantic range of English modals is presented in terms of an unprincipled heterogeneity.</jats:p

The perfect in Old English and Old Saxon: the synchronic and diachronic correspondence of form and meaning

The additional files accompanying this thesis are described in Appendix B.Most of the Germanic languages developed new tense forms allowing the grammatical expression of fine semantic distinctions, including periphrastic perfects and pluperfects; previously, the preterite alone had been used to express semantic content of this sort. In the absence of robust quantitative data regarding the subsequent development of these forms and distribution in the early Germanic languages, a relatively uncomplicated model has generally been assumed, in which there is little synchronic variation in their use and a steady, though not necessarily continuous, diachronic progress toward the state observed in the modern languages. The goal of this work is to provide accurate quantitative data regarding the apportionment of these semantic domains among the available grammatical forms in Old English and Old Saxon, in order to provide meaningful measurements of the synchronic and diachronic use of the periphrastic forms. Very different patterns were found in the use of these forms in the two languages. In Old Saxon the periphrastic forms are used freely, with a frequency similar to or greater than that of the preterites. In Old English there are no significant diachronic trends, but considerable variation exists synchronically among texts, with some making free use of the periphrastic forms and others preferring the preterite almost exclusively. A number of factors potentially responsible for this variation have been investigated, but none can account for the entire range of observed variation on its own. In the absence of any other account for the observed variation, the hypothesis is proposed that the periphrastic forms and the preterite differed in their perceived stylistic value, in a manner whose exact nature may be no longer recoverable; such a hypothesis would be in keeping with previous findings regarding languages such as Middle English and Middle High German. Old English and Old Saxon would therefore differ in the extent to which they make use of the potential for variation created by the absence of a paradigmatic opposition among the relevant grammatical categories.This work was supported by a St. John's College Benefactors' Scholarship

Spoon-Feeding Giant Stars to Supermassive Black Holes: Episodic Mass Transfer from Evolving Stars and Their Contribution to the Quiescent Activity of Galactic Nuclei

Stars may be tidally disrupted if, in a single orbit, they are scattered too close to a supermassive black hole (SMBH). Tidal disruption events are thought to power luminous but short-lived accretion episodes that can light up otherwise quiescent SMBHs in transient flares. Here we explore a more gradual process of tidal stripping where stars approach the tidal disruption radius by stellar evolution while in an eccentric orbit. After the onset of mass transfer, these stars episodically transfer mass to the SMBH every pericenter passage giving rise to low-level flares that repeat on the orbital timescale. Giant stars, in particular, will exhibit a runaway response to mass loss and "spoon-feed" material to the black hole for tens to hundreds of orbital periods. In contrast to full tidal disruption events, the duty cycle of this feeding mode is of order unity for black holes with mass greater than approximately 10 million solar masses. This mode of quasi-steady SMBH feeding is competitive with indirect SMBH feeding through stellar winds, and spoon-fed giant stars may play a significant role in determining the quiescent luminosity of local SMBHs.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure