The role of semiotics in the unification of langue and parole: an Agentive Cognitive Construction Grammar approach to English modals.

Thus, the first level comprises the association of a modal with a full verb in a cluster, which can be basically interpreted as a form-functional operation, and a second level in which the semantics of the cluster fuse with argument structure constructions encoding embodied-agentive content. As shown in Table 3, by attaching modal meaning to core (central modal) verbs, the boundary between the possible meanings (epistemic, deontic, or both) of these items becomes fuzzy (see [50]). This embodied linguistic process requires abstract templates that organize in a recognizable manner the flux of referent objects emerging in and moving across mental spaces (arguments are arranged in specified syntactic patterns, e.g., X Verb Y, X verb Y Z SB LOC sb , etc.). 3.1.2 Modal intransitive-motion ASCs Modal intransitive-motion ASCs describe motion schemas in a modal space (the meaning expressed represents the intended literal or metaphorical movement of an agent along a path). Keywords: agency; Agentive Cognitive Construction Grammar; argument structure constructions; embodiment; modal agentive constructions; modal referential constructions; Peirce; sign; triadic construction EN agency Agentive Cognitive Construction Grammar argument structure constructions embodiment modal agentive constructions modal referential constructions Peirce sign triadic construction 195 225 31 02/18/22 20220101 NES 220101 1 Introduction In this article, I pursue an agentive cognitive construction grammar characterization of the English central modals I can-could, must, have got to, should, ought to, need to i and I will-would i . [Extracted from the article]