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Copyright of Diachronica is the property of John Benjamins Publishing Co. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explores the nature of the final particle uè in Longxi Qiang, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in China. Previous studies have briefly described the uses of sentence final particles in 'tail-head' construction in Qiang varieties such as Longxi, Ronghong, and Puxi Qiang. Other studies indicate that the distribution of uè is not restricted to 'tail-head' construction. More features of the Qiang language are found by analyzing the uses of uè in narratives and conversations. First, the absence and presence of uè reflect the realis and irrealis distinction. The Qiang language lacks grammatical tense, but uè serves as a temporal reference to distinguish future and non-future. The choices of the final particle and person marker do not depend on aspect, but rather the realistic status of the events. Second, the use of uè signals the interlocutor's/narrator's evaluation from a third-party perspective, as well as his/her strong epistemic certainty or personal viewpoint regarding an entity or proposition. • Unlike previous studies on varieties of Qiang, I found that the distribution of uè is not restricted to 'tail-head' constructions. • In terms of a narrative discourse composed of sequential actions, uè functions to identify temporal junctures for narrative advancement. • The choices of the final particle and person marker do not depend on the time reference, but the realistic status of the events. • The use of uè in narratives and conversational stories signals the narrator's evaluation and viewpoint of the proposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northern Mao, an Omotic-Mao language of Ethiopia, exhibits three partially overlapping but distinct subject-marking paradigms in its verbal system: subject prefixes on realis verbs which correspond closely to free pronouns, subject suffixes on irrealis negative non-future verbs which exhibit regular changes from the realis prefixes, and a third, more divergent, subject suffix system on irrealis future verbs which exhibits an [m] form not attested as a person marker elsewhere in the language or extended family. It is argued (from internal evidence) that the irrealis future verbs developed from a periphrastic subordinate + final verb complexes and that the intrusive [m] was, at an earlier stage, part of a subordinating morpheme.

Copyright of Diachronica is the property of John Benjamins Publishing Co. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The nature and the typological validity of the categories ‘realis’ and ‘irrealis’ has been a matter of intensive debate. In this paper we analyse the realis/irrealis dichotomy in Tundra Yukaghir (isolate, north-eastern Siberia), and show that in this language realis is associated with a meaningful contribution, namely, existential quantification over events. This contribution must be expressed overtly by a combination of syntactic and prosodic means. Irrealis is the default category: the clause is interpreted as irrealis in the absence of the marker of realis. This implies that the relevant typological question may turn out to be the semantics of realis, rather than irrealis. We further argue that the Tundra Yukaghir realis is a hybrid category composed of elements from different domains (information structure, lexical semantics, and quantification) unified at the level of interpretation via pragmatic enrichment. The concept of notional mood must therefore be expanded to include moods which come about in interpretation and do not constitute a discrete denotation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the structural characteristics and the semantic properties of realis and irrealis mood in Iquito, a highly endangered Zaparoan language spoken in the northern Peruvian Amazonia. The grammatical expression of mood is conveyed through a typologically unique strategy, word order change and vowel-hiatus resolution. The assignment of realis vs. irrealis reflects the speaker's assessment of factuality or time. This study adds another dimension to the close connections among tense and mood, and contributes to linguistic documentation of Iquito and Amazonian languages, and to research on crosslinguistic variation of temporal semantics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper is about the semantics of English clause-types and of the subsentences (a generic term for subclauses and clause or sentence fragments) that function like clauses. The formal defining characteristics for declarative, interrogative, imperative, hypothetical, and expressive clauses and subsentences, and their exclamative counterparts, are described in terms of lexical, morphosyntactic and prosodic marking, their characteristics in main and subordinate clauses, and under negation. The main focus is upon their semantic properties identified in terms of their typical primary illocution (PI). The PI is the semantics (rather than pragmatics) of the clause-type; the PI is often identifiable with ‘mood’; but we shall see that the traditional term mood does not adequately fit what we find. The binary category realis–irrealis is more appropriate. I discuss relations between mood, the realis–irrealis distinction, clause-type, and illocution in English. Declaratives (PI T), interrogatives (PI Q) and imperatives (PI I) are in contrast with one another, and all three in contrast with one very small set of just two hypotheticals (PI H) and a somewhat larger set of idiomatic subsentences that have the primary illocution of expressives (PI X). Most hypotheticals occur within the scope of T, Q, I or X where they modify the interpretation to hypotheticality. Although hypotheticals have sometimes been called ‘subjunctives’, there is a conflict with traditional notions of the exclusivity of moods. Exclamatives all occur as modifications of the other five clause-types or subsentences. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This is the second part of a two-part article which critically reviews eight recent works in the field of mood and modality. Part I explored three different theoretical approaches – generative, cognitive–pragmatic, and typological – with the main focus on languages other than English. It also examined an in-depth account of the modal verb system in Danish. In Part II, the emphasis is on (mostly corpus-driven) work in relation to (primarily) English and on non-verbal as well as verbal carriers of modal meanings. Thus, description and analysis move purposefully towards a more comprehensive account of the field, to embrace modal expressions such as modal lexical verbs, modal adverbs, and modal adjectives. The pragmatics of modality; the discursive functions of modal expressions, especially modal adverbs; and the treatment of modality in modern descriptive grammars of English are also covered. The article reflects mounting interest in recent years in modality studies. Whilst broadening the scope of modality studies to include treatment of non-verbal modal expressions is to be welcomed, comparatively little attention has so far been given to how different types of modal expression may combine in text to create modal synergy. Following a case study investigation into pragmatics and modality, the paper ends by outlining an agenda for further research within a discourse and pragmatic perspective. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]