ABSTRACT. This thesis aims to explore the semantic area of Modality, in particular the sub-area of

Transcript

1 The use of epistemic modality markers as a means of hedging and boosting by L1 and L2 speakers of Modern Greek: A corpus-based study in informal letter-writing Lia Efstathiadi A dissertation submitted to the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, School of English, Faculty of Philosophy, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Supervisor: Dr. Marina Mattheoudaki Aristotle University of Thessaloniki August 2009

2 ABSTRACT This thesis aims to explore the semantic area of Modality, in particular the sub-area of Epistemic Modality in Modern Greek, by means of a corpus-based research. The genre selected is that of informal letter-writing. A comparative, quantitative study was performed between written corpora of non-native informants with various language backgrounds and Greek native speakers that constitute the control group. A number of epistemic markers were selected for further qualitative investigation on the grounds of their high frequency. Their contextualisation revealed the ways epistemic markers (grammatical as well as lexical) are used in order to express the speaker s stance (Biber & Finegan, 1989) while performing a number of discourse-pragmatic functions without violating the societal norms of politeness. The present study made use of the literature on EM (Coates, 1983 & 1985; Nuyts, 2006; Palmer, 1986 & 2001; Perkins, 1983; Traugott, 2006), the facemanagement theory of politeness (Brown & Levinson, 1987) and the notion of metadiscourse (Hyland, 1998): in particular, the interpersonal features that relate to the expression of one s stance, known as hedges and boosters, which respectively tone down or further emphasise one s argument. An attempt was made to partly explain the differences witnessed between the two groups on the grounds of transfer of non-native informants different L1 cultural values (Hofstede, 1986). Key words: Epistemic modality, learner corpora, hedges, boosters, face, cultural variation

3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Marina Mattheoudaki, for her truly insightful remarks and her continual support from the very first moment of this MA endeavour. It has been a real pleasure working with her. I would like to thank the Centre for the Greek Language, Niovi Antonopoulou and Marina Mattheoudaki for giving me the opportunity to collect the raw data of my study. The former gave me access to past exam papers of the Certificate of Attainment in Greek, whereas the last two to the audiences of their courses during the winter semester Taking this opportunity, I also wish to thank the Greek native informants for their written contributions. I am grateful to my instructors in the MA programme for widening my linguistic horizon and knowledge. I owe a great deal to Eliza Koutoupi-Kitis, Ianthi Tsimpli, Despina Papadopoulou and Popi Katsika for our illuminating and helpful discussions. Also, Tasos Tsangalidis, Dionysis Goutsos and Johan van der Auwera deserve special thanks for giving me access to part of their work relevant to my thesis. I would also like to thank Elizabeth Sakellaridou, the Head of the School of English, for her understanding and support as well as my colleagues Chryssoula Papiopoulou, Fotini Stavrou, Dafni Moustaklidou, Effie Kapetanaki, Kleoniki Skoularika, and Stella Katsarou for always being there for me. Finally, I feel I owe a thousand thanks to my family for their encouragement and patience and for just being who they are.

4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT...2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...3 GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS...6 INTRODUCTION...7 CHAPTER ONE: THE SEMANTIC FIELD OF MODALITY THE DEFINITION OF MODALITY CLASSIFYING MODALITY THE DEVELOPMENTAL PATH OF MODALITY IN L1 ACQUISITION The L2 acquisition of Modality ALTERNATIVE DIVISIONS OF THE SEMANTIC DOMAIN OF MODALITY EXPRESSIONS OF MODALITY...23 CHAPTER TWO: GRAMMATICAL AND LEXICAL EXPONENTS OF GREEK EM GREEK MODAL MARKERS The grammatical realisations of Greek ΕΜ The lexical realisations of Greek ΕΜ...42 CHAPTER THREE: HEDGES, BOOSTERS AND THE NOTION OF FACE THE NOTION OF FACE THE METADISCOURSAL FEATURES OF HEDGING AND BOOSTING...56 CHAPTER FOUR: CORPUS LINGUISTICS, LEARNER CORPORA AND FLLT...60 CHAPTER FIVE: THE PRESENT STUDY AIMS AND PROCEDURE THE METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY The material The informants The data and the compilation of the corpora PROCEDURE RESULTS Parataxis, hypotaxis and main clause production The distribution of the selected markers of the study QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS The two modal verbs πρέπει and µπορεί The uses of θα The lexical verbs γνωρίζω, θεωρώ, νοµίζω, ξέρω, πιστεύω The adverbs βέβαια, ίσως, µάλλον, σίγουρα CHAPTER SIX: DISCUSSION OF THE FINDINGS SOME GENERAL REMARKS ON THE STUDY THE FINDINGS OF THE STUDY THE LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUDING REMARKS REFERENCES WEBSITE RETRIEVALS APPENDIX 1: THE L1 BACKGROUNDS OF THE NON-NATIVE INFORMANTS APPENDIX 2: THE TOPICS OF THE TWO LETTERS FOR NS AND NNS CORPORA APPENDIX 3: FREQUENCIES OF PARATACTIC CONJUNCTIONS ACROSS THE CORPORA APPENDIX 4: FREQUENCIES OF HYPOTACTIC CONJUNCTIONS ACROSS THE CORPORA...153

5 Lia Efstathiadi 5 APPENDIX 5: THE OBSERVED FREQUENCIES OF MARKERS OF GREEK EM IN THE CORPORA APPENDIX 6: THE POSITIONAL PREFERENCES OF ΒΕΒΑΙΑ, ΙΣΩΣ, ΜΑΛΛΟΝ, ΣΙΓΟΥΡΑ IN THE CORPORA APPENDIX 7: ΠΡΕΠΕΙ AND ΜΠΟΡΕΙ: THE RETRIEVED CONCORDANCES APPENDIX 8: THE FUTURE AND MODAL PERIPHRASES OF ΘΑ: THE RETRIEVED CONCORDANCES APPENDIX 9: ΓΝΩΡΙΖΩ, ΘΕΩΡΩ, ΝΟΜΙΖΩ, ΞΕΡΩ, ΠΙΣΤΕΥΩ: THE RETRIEVED CONCORDANCES APPENDIX 10: ΒΕΒΑΙΑ, ΙΣΩΣ, ΜΑΛΛΟΝ, ΣΙΓΟΥΡΑ: THE RETRIEVED CONCORDANCES...176

6 GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS Abbreviation / Acronym CAG CGL CLC COBUILD DM DSPGL EM FLLT FG FTA(s) GRICLE HNC ICLE IL L1 L2 LCL LEXVB(s) MG MODVB(s) NEM Meaning Certificate of Attainment in Greek Centre for the Greek Language Computer Learner Corpus Collins Birmingham University International Language Database Deontic modality Division for the Support and Promotion of the Greek Language Epistemic modality Foreign Language Learning and Teaching Functional Grammar Face-threatening act(s) Greek International Corpus of Learner English Hellenic National Corpus International Corpus of Learner English Interlanguage Language 1 = mother tongue Language 2 = foreign language Learner Corpus Linguistics Lexical Verb(s) Modern Greek Modal Verb(s) Non-epistemic Modality NS-C Native speakers (Topic C) NS-D Native speakers (Topic D) NNS-C Non-native speakers (Level C) NNS-D Non-native speakers (Level D) SAT SLA SoA TAM Speech-act Theory Second Language Acquisition State of Affairs Tense-Aspect-Mood

7 INTRODUCTION The primary aim of this thesis is to conduct a comparative study of written corpora with respect to Epistemic Modality (EM) between native and non-native speakers (NS and NNS) of Modern Greek (MG). To this end, a number of epistemic markers will be investigated with respect to their pragmatic reading within the text as either hedging or boosting devices that tone down or further strengthen the force of the speaker s argumentation line respectively. The present study is pragmatically oriented as it adopts a communicativefunctional approach. It seeks to explore the most frequently used epistemic modal markers in the written discourse of L2 speakers 1 of MG. The genre examined is that of informal letter-writing. The study examines the ways NNS express personal attitude towards a State of Affairs (SoA). It investigates the range of pragmatic functions the modal forms perform within the L2 discourse and evaluates their role as hedges, boosters, and face-protection devices. The data are cross-examined to locate similarities and differences in the ways the L2 informants and the Greek native informants (the control group) of the study convey the epistemic stance. The term stance is hereby used following Biber and Finegan s (1989: 93) definition: By stance we mean the lexical and grammatical expression of attitudes, feelings, judgments, or commitment concerning the propositional content of a message. Before proceeding, it is wise to briefly define the notion of EM as well as explain why the focus of the study rests upon the epistemic (rather than the nonepistemic) side of the huge area known as Modality. In simple terms, EM expresses the speaker s belief of the degree of certainty in the truth of the proposition expressed. Lyons (1977) proposes the following definition: 1 Although this study concerns written corpora, the terms speaker-hearer will be used throughout the paper in a broad sense to include the terms writer-addressee. Furthermore, the speaker is assumed to bear the female identity throughout the thesis.

8 The use of Greek EM markers in L1 and L2 corpora: a corpus-based study 8 Any utterance in which the speaker explicitly qualifies his commitment to the truth of the proposition expressed by the sentence he utters, whether this qualification is made explicit in the verbal component., or in the prosodic or paralinguistic component 2, is an epistemically modal, or modalized, utterance. (p. 797) This study views EM within the framework set by modal logic, where two notions are central in the speaker s reasoning, namely possibility and necessity (Coates, 1983; Lyons, 1977: 787; Palmer, 1986 & 2001). So far, many scholars (Coates, 1983: 10ff; Halliday, 1985: 335; Salkie, in preparation; Traugott, 2006: 128) have adopted a scalar-polar (rather than categorical) view of the semantic field of Modality that covers both the epistemic and the non-epistemic areas. In particular, the gradient model of EM recognises the existence of a continuum which in its positive side ranges from absolute certainty via probability to fairly neutral possibility that the SoA is real, while its negative side moves from improbability to absolute certainty that the SoA is not real. Given the fact that EM is concerned with the attitudes and opinions of the speaker towards what she is saying, the issue of subjectivity 3 is by definition most relevant to the study of this conceptual category (Palmer, 1986: 102). According to Kuryłowicz (1964, as cited in Lyons, 1977, p. 792), subjectivity is one of the features that most sharply distinguish epistemic from deontic modality (emphasis added). The situations described in the two letters of the study foreground the issues of subjectivity and speaker attitude. Very briefly, the two written corpora under investigation (Chapter Five gives a detailed account of their compilation) include informal letter-writing by NNS and NS of MG. The NNS data comes from the papers of adult candidates who passed the exams and were thus issued the Certificate of 2 This statement concerns oral discourse. 3 Traugott (2006: 122) uses the term subjectification to refer to the speaker s attitudes and evaluations.

9 Lia Efstathiadi 9 Attainment in Greek (CAG), levels C and D. C-level candidates were asked to produce an argumentative letter in order to ask for a donation for the construction of a homeless shelter (see Appendix 2, Topic C). Similarly, candidates for level D were required to produce an argumentative letter in order to discourage a friend from gambling (see Appendix 2, Topic D). Note that the term Level is relevant only to learner corpora whereas the corresponding term Topic is more suitable for NS corpora. The area of EM was found promising for a number of reasons. First of all, the epistemic modal meaning is a huge area of investigation in itself. The notion of EM is quite complex and difficult to grasp (even in one s L1) because a person s attitude can be expressed in a variety of ways that reflect only subtle semantic nuances within the epistemic semantic field (Hyland & Milton, 1997). Typological studies in the field of Modality (De Haan, 2006; Palmer, 1986 & 2001) show that languages tend to realise EM through prosody or a wide variety of linguistic devices that can be either grammatical or lexical. Secondly, EM is directly associated with socio-cultural issues such as politeness norms and the notion of face (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Thirdly, previous studies in the acquisition of EM (see section 1.3) show that EM is acquired at a later stage than its non-epistemic counterpart, i.e. deontic/root modality. This has been attested to hold both for L1 acquisition and L2 learning. The fact that the topics of the two letters raise sensitive issues automatically foregrounds the use of two central pragmatic devices, namely hedges and boosters. Epistemic hedges like ίσως (=perhaps), µάλλον (=rather, more), νοµίζω (=I think) and boosters such as βέβαια (=surely), ξέρω (=I know), πιστεύω (=I believe), πρέπει (=must), enable the speaker to keep a balanced attitude in her discourse. When necessary, the speaker either mitigates the force of what she proposes or places extra emphasis on her arguments to successfully deliver her message to the recipient of the

10 The use of Greek EM markers in L1 and L2 corpora: a corpus-based study 10 letter (a close friend). In addition, the two pragmatic devices in question allow her to perform face-threatening acts (FTAs) such as requesting or advice-giving while she conforms to the societal norms of politeness, the violation of which would mean the initiation of an open warfare between the two participants. On the basis of what has been mentioned so far, the hypotheses of this paper are the following: a) the L2 informants will epistemically modalise their utterances to a lesser degree than Greek NS, b) NNS will favour the use of lexical rather than grammatical forms in order to be as explicit as possible in the expression of EM to avoid misunderstandings. As for the pragmatic reading of the epistemic markers of the study, this remains to be investigated, since the non-native informants come from a wide variety of cultures as well as languages. However, due to the controversiality of the situations described in the letters, the expectation is that the L2 informants will show a preference towards hedging. It remains to be seen if the findings of the research will disprove or verify the hypotheses just mentioned. One should be aware of the fact that the scope of this thesis is too limited to capture the whole range of the EM operators used in the corpora. Thus, it was decided that the items to be investigated should satisfy certain conditions. They should be a) one-word constructions that epistemically modify an utterance in a grammatical or lexical way, b) found in all four corpora to facilitate quantitative and qualitative comparisons between them, and c) be relevant to the discussion of hedging, boosting and the notion of face. The thesis focuses on a limited set of epistemic markers that satisfy the abovementioned criteria: a) the two Greek modal verbs πρέπει/prepi (=must) and µπορεί/bori (=may), b) the mental state predicates γνωρίζω/γnorizo (=I come to know), θεωρώ/θeoro (=I presume), νοµίζω/nomizo (=I think), ξέρω/ksero (=I know), πιστεύω/pistevo (=I believe), and c) the modal adverbs βέβαια-βεβαίως/vevea-veveos

11 Lia Efstathiadi 11 (=surely), σίγουρα/siγoura (=certainly), ίσως/isos (=perhaps), µάλλον/malon (=rather, more). Although the modal uses of θα, namely the epistemic θα, θα followed by the imperfective past or the perfective non-past 4 (henceforth θα+ε, θα+imp, θα+d respectively, see Appendix 5 for their description), apparently violate the first criterion of single-word items, they will be investigated on the grounds of their direct association to the notions of EM, hedging and boosting. Having made clear the objectives of this study, I will now present the chapters that follow: Chapter One is exclusively dedicated to the description of the semantic category of Modality and the categories it is classified into. Issues related to the L1 or L2 acquisition of Modality will only be touched upon. Alternative views of Modality will also be reported. Chapter Two focuses on EM and the various ways it realises in MG. Chapter Three deals with two communicative strategies, namely hedging and boosting, and their employment to protect the participants face. Chapter Four gives a historical account of corpora and discusses the contribution of learner corpora to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching (FLLT). Chapter Five presents the corpusbased study. The first section is dedicated to the description of the study s methodology and procedure, i.e. the selection of the informants, the compilation of the corpora, etc. The following sections present the quantitative and qualitative analyses. The comparison of frequencies and semantic or syntactic uses of the items contributes to a better understanding of the learner data and further illuminates the researcher as well as the reader. Chapter Six discusses the findings of the research, outlines its limitations and closes with some pedagogical implications that relate to the L2 teaching and learning of EM. Chapter Seven presents the concluding remarks. The References section and the Appendices immediately follow Chapter Seven. 4 Traditionally known as the aorist subjunctive, it has been termed the dependent in Holton, Mackridge and Philippaki-Warburton (1977, see Φιλιππάκη-Warburton & Σπυρόπουλος, 2006: 129).

12 CHAPTER ONE: The semantic field of Modality 1.1 The definition of Modality The term Modality derives from the latin modus which means way, manner. The notion of modality has been the object of continual scrutiny and reformulation by philosophers and linguists since the days of Aristotle. And yet, it has been neither possible nor easy to delineate and define the notion in clear-cut terms. According to Van der Auwera and Plungian (1998: 80), there is no one correct way of defining Modality: The only requirement is that one makes clear how one uses one s terms. A few years before that statement, Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca (1994, as cited in Nuyts, 2006, p. 1) had explicitly put forward a similar word of caution: it may be impossible to come up with a succinct characterization of the notional domain of modality. Although this seems to be the case, I will attempt to give a small, albeit representative, sample of the ways scholars have approached the notion of Modality so far. Lyons (1977: 452) uses the term Modality to refer to the speaker s opinion or attitude towards the proposition that the sentence expresses or the situation that the proposition describes. The list that follows presents only some of the definitions found in the literature that relate to Modality: When a proposition is made subject to some further qualification of such a kind that the entire resulting complex is itself once again a proposition, then this qualification is said to represent a modality to which the original proposition is subjected. Rescher (1968, as cited in Perkins, 1983, p. 8) Modality is the speaker s assessment of the probabilities inherent in the situation or, in a derived sense, of the rights and duties. Halliday and Hasan (1976: 135)

13 Lia Efstathiadi 13 Modality represents the speaker s angle, either on the validity of the assertion or on the rights and wrongs of the proposal; in its congruent form, it is an adjunct to a proposition rather than a proposition in its own right. Halliday (1985: 340) We propose to use the term modality for those semantic domains that involve possibility and necessity as paradigmatic variants, that is, as constituting a paradigm with two possible choices, possibility and necessity. Van der Auwera and Plungian (1998: 80) The notion of modality is occasionally used in a very broad sense, such as to refer to any kind of speaker modification of a state of affairs, even including dimensions such as tense and aspect. Nuyts (2006: 1) Modality is a gradient notion, semantically as well as morphosyntactically. it is an enormously complex system that directly expresses speakers beliefs and evaluative attitudes,... Traugott (2006: 128) It is clear that some of these definitions are very vague. In fact, scholars in the field of linguistics have faced great difficulty in delineating the notion which, to my mind, is not unjustified if one thinks of the multi-functionality of language. Language is not just about giving and receiving information. People use language in order to a) express emotions, desires, needs, ideas, intentions, evaluations, etc., or b) influence other people s attitudes and behaviour. Although one may find a number of different terminologies or taxonomies proposed so far relevant to the functions of language (Crystal 1997, as cited in Harley, 2001, p. 1; Leech & Svartvik, 2002: 159; Halliday, 1973), the fact remains that language sets us apart from other animals and gives meaning to our property of being humans. It is a tool at our disposal that best serves our communicative needs and purposes. When we do not wish to simply state what we see in the real world but also want to add our own, or for

14 The use of Greek EM markers in L1 and L2 corpora: a corpus-based study 14 that matter, other people s assessment regarding a proposition, language offers us the means to do so. Among other things, it provides us with a repertoire of modal expressions, from which we can choose the ones that best qualify our proposition. Halliday (1985: 340) argues that the structure of the whole modal system is an apparent paradox on which the entire system rests the fact that we only say we are certain when we are not. In our daily interpersonal exchanges, we like to play all kinds of linguistic games through the use of highly elaborated forms. In doing so, we may choose to give prominence to our point of view by presenting a SoA categorically, or alternatively, we may present a SoA as highly probable or merely possible, assigning an element of doubt as to its materialisation. The pervasiveness of modality in our everyday language-behaviour is wisely depicted in Fawcett s (1983: ix) words: To seek to understand modality is to set out on a fascinating voyage of discovery in the human mind. Perkins (1983: 10) also illustrates this by noting that the number of modalities one decides upon is to some extent a matter of different ways of slicing the same cake. Nuyts (2006: 19) views modality as a supercategory that includes the totality of the ways in which speakers choose to situate themselves in relation to the actual world. Thus, the modal qualification of one s utterances requires the active involvement of the grammatical categories of tense and aspect. Although the three categories (Tense-Aspect-Mood) are clearly distinct at a theoretical level, in actual usage they cannot be studied in isolation from one another, for they are all concerned with what is being reported by the utterance. Their difference, though, lies on their nature and the scope of their operation. Tense and aspect are grammatical categories that affect the verbal system of the language by situating or specifying the SoA in the world. Tense relates to the time of the reported event, while aspect indicates types of actions (Palmer, 1986: 45) and is

15 Lia Efstathiadi 15 concerned with their internal temporal constituency (Comrie, 1976, as cited in Palmer, 2001, p. 1). Modality, on the other hand, is not directly concerned with the event as such, but with the status of the proposition that describes the event. In other words, it is concerned with the attitude the speaker adopts when presenting a SoA as certain, probable, possible, necessary, impossible, etc. In this sense, the speaker makes a conscious choice to ground herself to the discourse through the use of a number of linguistic constructions that express intentions, assessments, evaluations, etc. It is clear from the above that the modal meaning is indissolubly related to the discussion of Pragmatics 5. Palmer 6 (1986: 14) argues that the distinction between proposition and modality is very close to that of locutionary and illocutionary act. Speech Act Theory (SAT) was first introduced in 1962 into the philosophy of language by Austin and was further developed by Searle in SAT provides a useful semantic framework for the discussion of Modality as the illocutionary force of the speaker s utterance and the recognition of the social or interpersonal dimension of language-behaviour lie at its heart (Lyons, 1977: 725; Palmer, 1986: 15). The speaker always expresses some attitude while performing an illocutionary act with a propositional content. Clearly, it is one thing to say something and quite another to do something when uttering a proposition. Indirect speech-acts are just an example which shows that very often the literal and the intended meaning of the speaker s utterance do not coincide. In discussing the semantic area of Modality, Ιακώβου (1999) gives the following definition 7 : Modality is a conceptual category that provides the semantic framework within which language codifies the relations that characterise the logical 5 we will take the term pragmatics to cover the study of language use (and in particular the study of linguistic communication) in relation to language structure and context of utterance (Akmajian, Demers, Farmer & Harnish, 1995: 343). 6 Palmer s two books on Mood and Modality (1986 & 2001) look into the area of Modality from a typological perspective, and have become standard reference works. 7 The translation of Ιακώβου s definition bears the responsibility of the author of this paper.

16 The use of Greek EM markers in L1 and L2 corpora: a corpus-based study 16 content of a proposition. On the one hand, there is the internal world, the attitude of the speaker who chooses to use this framework to qualify her propositions in her communication with others. On the other, there is external reality, the actual world this proposition refers to and to which the veracity or actuality of an event is always compared. (p. 1) A first step, then, towards the identification of the relevant area of meaning covered by the term Modality would be to accept the fact that notions such as attitudes and opinions, subjectivity, non-factuality, certainty, doubt, intention, desire, possibility, necessity, obligation, and moral duty, all hold a firm place under the umbrella-term known as Modality. 1.2 Classifying Modality Although scholars have not been able to reach a unanimous classification of the semantic area of Modality, three categories are currently the most commonly used in the literature, namely dynamic, deontic and epistemic. Each one of them occupies its own semantic space under the modal umbrella. The terms in question (along with alethic and existential) come from the pioneering work of Von Wright on modal logic (1951, as cited in Palmer, 1986, p. 10). The present chapter will deal only with the first two modalities, since epistemic modality, being the object of this study, will be discussed extensively in the next chapter. The term dynamic modality is used to cover the capacities, abilities, potentials, needs and necessities fully inherent to the 1 st -argument participant or else the subject of the clause. Nuyts (2006: 3) uses an alternative terminology, i.e. participantinherent dynamic modality: (1) That kid can sing like Frank Sinatra (2) I must find a solution for this problem soon now or I ll go crazy

17 Lia Efstathiadi 17 Dynamic modality also concerns the capacities, necessities, etc. which are conditioned by external factors that operate beyond the power and/or control of the subject. Nuyts (2006: 3) again proposes the term participant-imposed dynamic modality: (3) I ve unlocked the back door, so you can enter the house there (4) I ll be home in half an hour or so but I need to get fuel first There is also a third case where the participant is left implicit, there is no participant, or if it exists, it is an inanimate 1 st -argument participant: (5) The book need not be in the library. It can also be on my desk (6) It is possible to enter the cave if one manages to climb the steep wall below it (examples 1-6 are taken from Nuyts, 2006: 3-4) The etymology of the term deontic comes from the Greek δέον which means obligation. According to Lyons (1977: 823), Deontic modality is concerned with the necessity or possibility of acts performed by morally responsible agents. This type of modality is directly associated to notions such as moral obligation, permission, duty and right conduct, that heavily depend upon societal norms, one s own culture and personal ethical criteria (Nuyts, 2006: 5; Palmer, 1986 & 2001). De Haan (2006: 29) adds an additional dimension to the discussion of deontic modality (DM), namely the degree of force exerted on the subject of the sentence to perform an action. This force can originate either from the speaker (see participantinherent dynamic modality above) or from an (unspecified) third source (see participant-imposed dynamic modality). In a sense, DM cuts across the territory of dynamic modality. This overlap in meaning has probably led Coates (1983: 20ff) to propose an alternative term, that of root modality. DM covers a wide range of semantic nuances. Nuyts (2006: 5) adopts a scalarpolar view of this semantic sub-area that goes from absolute moral necessity via degrees of desirability to acceptability and further extends to the negative values of

18 The use of Greek EM markers in L1 and L2 corpora: a corpus-based study 18 undesirability and absolute moral unacceptability. Other researchers, though, do not seem to share his view and tend to analyse Modality in terms of discrete values, those of possibility and necessity. Palmer (2001: 8) and Lyons (1977: 825) both hold that DM is closely related to the notion of futurity, for deontically modalised sentences involve notions like intention/desire or necessity/obligation, all relevant to an event that is not yet (to the time of speaking) actualised. In this respect, DM clearly differs from EM in that the former requires some future action on the part of the speaker or of a third party, whereas with EM the speaker simply informs the hearer of her belief, knowledge or degree of commitment in relation to the truth of a proposition, which can be located in the past, present or future (Palmer, 1986: 97). In the following section, we shall see that the origins of DM go a long way back to the two ontogenetically basic functions of language. The child from very early on realises the double function of language: Language as action and Language as information (Ιακώβου, 1999: 17; Palmer, 1986: 121). In other words, the child realises that language can be used to have things done by imposing one s will upon others, or as a means of expression of one s wants and desires (Lyons, 1977: 826). 1.3 The developmental path of Modality in L1 Acquisition Cross-linguistic studies in L1 acquisition (Choi, 2006: 165; Stephany, 1986 & 1995) have shown that although children are sensitive to a special kind of modal system from early on (e.g. when they engage themselves in a pretend play in a world of their imagination), they begin to acquire modality by the end of their 2 nd birthday. In addition, they first learn modal expressions primarily through interactions with their caregiver to express their own wants and needs. Only at a later age (around 4;0) they acquire the ability to talk about other people s beliefs and reality, which can be totally different from their own, or even consider that alternative representations of the same

19 Lia Efstathiadi 19 object are possible, or perhaps that beliefs can be held with more or less certainty (Gopnik & Astington, 1988, as cited in Choi, 2006, p. 152). According to Stephany (1986: 393ff), children acquire dynamic and deontic modalities much earlier than EM. The priority of the dynamic/deontic types over EM indicates the primacy of the social function of language over its epistemic one. The first two types enable them to look at the world from their own perspective, whereas the third one relates to complex reasoning processes and the development of the theory of mind, i.e. the ability to view the world through the eyes of others. It is clear from the above, that it takes children some years before they firmly establish the notion of EM and enrich the repertoire of their resources to linguistically encode the epistemic meaning. What may be implicated by such a statement is that the driving force of language acquisition is cognitive maturity. Relative to the discussion of the acquisition of the modal meaning is the influential theory of Piaget (1923, as cited in Harley, 2001, pp. 70-1), according to which cognition is a prerequisite for language development. Piaget, however, was heavily criticised in that he underestimated children s abilities, for he believed that children are not capable of logical reasoning before the age range between 7 and 12. Harley (2001: 72-4) seems to disagree with such a strictly Piagetian view of language development. His disagreement is based on findings from studies of children with special learning difficulties (autism, Down s syndrome, Williams syndrome, SLI, blindness, deafness) which show that language skills and other general cognitive abilities may develop quite separately from one another, although they hold a dynamic and bi-directional relationship. Papafragou (1997: 8) views EM as an instantiation of the broader human metarepresentational capacity. Perkins (1983) holds a similar view on the matter: Since modal forms vary with regard to the degree and sophistication of knowledge of the natural, rational, and social laws which they presuppose, it

20 The use of Greek EM markers in L1 and L2 corpora: a corpus-based study 20 is at least possible that there may be some correlation between the cognitive capacity of an individual and the linguistic means at his disposal for expressing modality, and one might also predict that a young child, whose knowledge of such areas is necessarily highly restricted, would differ radically from an adult in her expression of modality. (p. 126) The L2 acquisition of Modality Whereas deontic/dynamic modalities emerge prior to epistemic meanings in L1 acquisition, both modal categories, EM and NEM, appear simultaneously in L2 acquisition as it is easier for L2 learners to grasp the totality of the modal meaning due to their cognitive and social maturity. However, there is a chance that certain forms may not emerge for a long time or may never be reached by L2 learners. Empirical evidence on the L2 acquisition of the modal meaning (Dittmar & Ahrenholz, 1995; Giacalone Ramat, 1995; Stephany, 1995) shows that in early learner interlanguage modality lacks any linguistic encoding and is more implicitly expressed. The modal meaning is retrieved from context, and from other pragmatic cues such as intonation, hesitations, etc. As regards the distribution of epistemically and deontically modalised utterances, this crucially depends upon a number of factors such as discourse type, elicitation techniques, or input frequencies in the target language. It seems that although both modal categories are present from the very beginning, they are expressed by different formal means. Modal verbs usually play an important role in the expression of deontic/dynamic modality. The use of modal auxiliaries in epistemically modalised utterances is a late achievement. Also, there is a tendency for epistemic qualifications to be expressed by lexical verbs of belief in the 1 st person, by adverbs and predicatively used modal adjectives. The incorrect use of a modal verb or the lack of appropriate modalisation of a sentence may cause incomprehension, misunderstandings, or reactions from the hearer which diverge

21 Lia Efstathiadi 21 from the expected ones. Therefore, L2 adult learners prefer to explicitly modalise their utterances to avoid potential pragmalinguistic errors while establishing good interpersonal relations. Appropriate use of the modal verbs, the modal uses of the future and the imperfective as well as the subjunctive mood have been found to indicate the learner s advanced level (Dittmar & Ahrenholz, 1995; Giacalone Ramat, 1995). So far, this section has dealt with the traditional usage of the term Modality. Nevertheless, there exist a number of alternative views. A plethora of other labels have often appeared in the literature as regards the conceptual category (and subcategories) of Modality. 1.4 Alternative divisions of the semantic domain of Modality A variety of taxonomies of modal meaning have been proposed that differ in the number of the semantic sub-classes they include. In most of these alternative approaches the notion of EM is not in doubt. On the contrary, different reorganisations of the dynamic and the deontic sides of the spectrum have been proposed. Table (1) below (taken from Declerck, Reed, Depraetere, Cappelle & Verhulst, in preparation) gives us an indication of some of the alternative classifications of modal meaning: epistemic root root willingness modality necessity possibility ability obligatio permission or volition n epistemic non-epistemic/root modality Coates (1983) Quirk et al extrinsic intrinsic (1985) epistemic n/a propositional modality evi episte den mic n/a n/a tial agent-oriented speaker-oriented event modality dynamic deontic dynamic epistemic dynamic deontic dynamic epistemic participant-external non-deontic non-epistemic participantinternal participant-external deontic Table 1: The taxonomy of the modal meaning n/a Bybee and Fleischman (1995) Palmer (2001) Huddleston and Pullum et al (2002) Van der Auwera and Plungian (1998)

22 The use of Greek EM markers in L1 and L2 corpora: a corpus-based study 22 As one can clearly see, in certain taxonomies dynamic modality is seen as a subclass of root modality, whereas in others it has an equal status to epistemic and root categories. Coates (1983) employs the notion of root modality to refer to both deontic and dynamic modalities. Palmer (2001: 9) distinguishes between event modality (covering deontic and dynamic modalities) and propositional modality (covering EM and evidentiality). Apart from EM, Bybee and Fleischman (1995: 6-7) and Bybee et al (1994, as cited in De Haan, 2006, pp. 30-1) further distinguish between agentoriented and speaker-oriented modality, which roughly divide the area of root or deontic/dynamic modality. Agent-oriented modality covers meanings like obligation, desire, ability, permission and root possibility. It describes what the agent, i.e. the person involved in the SoA can or should do on the basis of the general social or physical external conditions. Speaker-oriented modality, on the other hand, refers to cases in which the speaker is the enabling condition. Van der Auwera and Plungian (1998: 80ff), following Heine (1995), distinguish between epistemic and non-epistemic modality, which although crude as a distinction, it is adopted throughout the study. All finer-grained modal meanings (i.e. dynamic, deontic) are treated as non-epistemic. The model proposed by the two scholars further sub-divides the field into participant-internal and participant-external modality. The former sub-classification is more or less identical with DM, as it deals with personal ability and the internal needs of the participant. The latter is again sub-divided into deontic and non-deontic participant-external modality. The deontic sub-type encompasses permission and obligation while the non-deontic part deals with possibility and necessity and refers to circumstances and conditions external to the situation that are independent of the participant.

23 Lia Efstathiadi Expressions of modality A modal marker can be realised in various ways, i.e. grammatically, lexically, or by means of prosody or paralinguistic features. According to Palmer (1986: 5), modality may be grammatically realised in the verbal system of a language by means of mood, tense, aspect, modal (auxiliary) verbs that express necessity and possibility, as well as by clitics or particles. Many of the features associated with modality can also be marked lexically. In fact, Palmer (1986: 168) reports that the lexical means that mark modality outnumber the grammatical ones. Among the lexical exponents of modality, one can include a) mental state predicates (I know, I need, I think, I want, etc.), b) modal adjectives (certain, necessary, possible, etc.), c) modal adverbs or adverbial phrases (in my opinion, maybe, perhaps, etc.), and d) impersonal constructions (it is certain, it is necessary, it seems, etc.). One cannot of course disregard the contribution of prosody or paralinguistic features to the expression of modality. While speaking, the speaker may choose to further qualify the contents of her proposition by means of a rising or falling intonation, by gestures, body posture or facial expressions (Holmes, 1984: 350). In fact, doubt and lack of commitment are often expressed in such a way (Coates, 1983: 134). Although the cross-linguistic tendency (Palmer, 1986 & 2001) shows that languages differ as to the range of linguistic conventions they employ to realise modal meaning, it seems that people all over the world use language to express very similar meanings.

24 CHAPTER TWO: Grammatical and lexical exponents of Greek EM The term epistemic derives from the Greek word επιστήµη which means knowledge. The primary subject of this type of modal meaning is the speaker s own reasoning process. Coates (1983: 20) holds that Epistemic modality expresses the speaker s reservations about asserting the truth of the proposition. In other words, utterances within the scope of EM are concerned with matters of the speaker s opinion, knowledge, belief, understanding, attitude or judgement rather than fact, all relevant to the truth-value of the expressed event (Palmer, 1986: 51; Sweetser, 1990: 67; Φιλιππάκη-Warburton & Σπυρόπουλος, 2006: 118). According to Sweetser (1990), we base our attitudes and judgments on previous experience of the world and on our logical reasoning, i.e. the ability to infer from what we already know. However, we cannot always be certain about the actuality or non-actuality of a SoA. As a consequence, we qualify our discourse according to whether we wish to a) commit ourselves to the truth-value of our words, or b) simply hold a neutral position. When (a) holds, we express ourselves in a more confident fashion, while in the case of (b) our qualifications are weaker, falling closer to inference. Palmer (1986 & 2001) names these two different, but closely related types of EM, epistemic necessity and epistemic possibility respectively. We have seen that EM is connected to reasoning which, in its turn is based on evidence. Propositional modality is the term Palmer (1986 & 2001) uses to refer to the factual status of a proposition, which he further distinguishes into epistemic and evidential modality/evidentiality 8. He argues that, apart from necessity and possibility, the existence of an additional dimension is equally important in the discussion of EM, namely the available evidence the speaker has while speaking. 8 De Haan (2005, as cited in De Haan, 2006, p. 59) uses the term propositional deixis for evidentiality.

25 Lia Efstathiadi 25 The notion of evidentiality indicates the source of information or the amount of evidence contained in the sentence, on the grounds of which the speaker assumes or accepts the existence of the SoA expressed in the proposition. Thus, it has a definite impact on the degree of our commitment towards what we say. Evidential markers are classified into sensory (1 st hand) and reported (2 nd hand). The latter are assumed to be less powerful and trustworthy than the former, for one is inclined to be less certain about actions one has not witnessed than about those one has. As a consequence, the speaker can always estimate that a SoA is impossible, improbable, possible, probable or certain (Lyons, 1977: 847), expressing certainty/confidence or just inference. Thus, EM is best viewed as a gradient notion that moves along a continuum, with a positive and a negative side. A further distinction has been made between subjective and objective EM. Lyons (1977: 797ff) notes that objective EM expresses an objectively measurable chance that a SoA is true in this world (the it-is-so component of an utterance). Subjective EM, on the other hand, involves a purely subjective guess on the part of the speaker. The epistemic qualification of a sentence suggests that the speaker has doubts as to the truth-value of the proposition and not of the actual event. It is more of a statement of the speaker s opinion (the I-say-so component of an utterance) about an event that is likely to happen or not happen in this or any other possible world (Chung & Timberlake, 1985: 241; Lyons, 1977: 787), rather than a factual statement (Nuyts, 2006: 9; Palmer, 1986: 51). Epistemically modalised sentences, as we have seen, express the speaker s attitude towards the contents of what is expressed. In doing so, the speaker has a number of functionally equivalent ways of expressing her opinion. To this end, different languages employ different linguistic devices. In this study, though, the

26 The use of Greek EM markers in L1 and L2 corpora: a corpus-based study 26 focus rests exclusively upon the use of epistemic markers in the letter-writings of advanced L2 learners of MG. 2.1 Greek modal markers MG employs a repertoire of linguistic devices (grammatical and lexical) that realise the totality of the modal meaning (in main and/or in subordinate clauses), as Table 2 (taken from Κλαίρης & Μπαµπινιώτης, 1999: 89) below shows: γράφε να γράφω/-ψω ίσως (να) γράφει πρέπει νοµίζω ότι µάλλον γράψε να έγραφα/-ψα µακάρι (να) γράφει µπορεί θέλω να κατά τη γνώµη µου έγραφε να έχω γράψει µήπως γράφει ελπίζω ότι/να απ όσο ξέρω κλπ. να είχα γράψει πιθανόν να γράφει κλπ. κλπ. θα έγραφα αχ και να γράφει ας έγραφα µπας και γράφει κλπ. κλπ. Table 2: Grammatical and lexical means of expressing modality in MG According to this classification, the grammatical markers of modality involve the use of the modal verbs πρέπει and µπορεί as well as the verbal syntagms that are organised on the grounds of tense, aspect and mood (Φιλιππάκη-Warburton & Σπυρόπουλος, 2006: 134). The lexical means for the expression of modality are numerous and can involve the use of a) lexical verbs like ελπίζω (I hope), θέλω (I want), νοµίζω (I think), b) adverbials like ίσως (perhaps), κατά τη γνώµη µου (to my opinion), c) adjectives like απαραίτητος (necessary), πιθανός (possible), σίγουρος (certain), d) impersonal constructions like φαίνεται (it seems), είναι απαραίτητο (it is necessary), είναι πιθανό (it is likely), etc The grammatical realisations of Greek ΕΜ Based on Table 2, one can identify the following grammatical realisations of EM: a) the semi-auxiliary (Τσαγγαλίδης, 2003: 742; Tsangalidis, 2004: 234) modal verbs πρέπει and µπορεί

27 Lia Efstathiadi 27 b) the subjunctive and future periphrases that consist of the two modal particles να(na) and θα(θa) followed by the verb. The verbal syntagms with the particle ας(as) have been reported to only marginally express an epistemic sense (Joseph & Philippaki-Warburton, 1987: 180) The two modal verbs πρέπει and µπορεί There is a striking cross-linguistic trend towards deontic and epistemic modal meanings being represented by the same vocabulary (Lyons, 1977: 844; Palmer, 1986; Sweetser, 1990: 49). Languages grammatically express the notions of necessity and possibility by means of modal (auxiliary) verbs. MG has two such verbs, namely πρέπει (the equivalent of English must) and µπορεί (the equivalent of English may), that both satisfy the criterion for modalhood proposed by Tsangalidis (2004: 237): the necessary condition for something to be a member of the Greek modal verb system is that it be verbal and that it express both epistemic and non-epistemic modality. Πρέπει and µπορεί, as traditional grammar puts it (Mackridge, 1987: 285), are both impersonal in the sense that they have a να-clause rather than a person as their subject and obviously do not inflect for other persons (e.g. *πρέπω να πάω). The two verbs can render an epistemic and a non-epistemic reading in a single form. However, there are differences in their syntax The case of πρέπει The modal verb πρέπει, which means it is necessary, appears only in the active voice, 3 rd person singular and imperfective aspect. It may have a deontic interpretation, denoting necessity or obligation (fulfilled or unfulfilled), as in example (7) where the main verb is an activity verb: (7) Ο Γιάννης πρέπει να φύγει (γιατί θα χάσει το τρένο) o Janis prepi na fiji (jiati θa xasi to treno)

28 The use of Greek EM markers in L1 and L2 corpora: a corpus-based study 28 John must leave (because he ll miss the train) Alternatively, it may be used in an epistemic sense (example 8) to express the speaker s strong conviction or confidence in the truth of what she says, based on an objective understanding of logical certainty or possibility (Coates, 1983: 41ff; Sweetser, 1990: 58), in which case its epistemic/assumptive reading involves the speaker in logical inference and thus strengthens her role (Coates, 1983: 18; Kallergi, 2004: 40). When the ensuing lexical verb is marked as perfective past, then only the epistemic reading is possible (Mackridge, 1987: 281; Palmer, 1986: 37; Tsangalidis, 2004: 257-8): (8) Ο Γιάννης πρέπει να έφυγε (γιατί άκουσα το αµάξι του να φεύγει) o Janis prepi na efije (jiati akusa to amaksi tu na fevji) John probably/must have left (because I heard his car leaving) Kallergi (2004: 42-3) uses the term past in a broad sense to also include perfect forms. Following Heine s criteria of modalhood (1995), Tsangalidis (2004) states that it is the combination of the modal verb followed by a verb which, notionally speaking, refers to the past that makes these forms epistemic, as it does not matter whether we have Πρέπει να έφυγε or πρέπει να έχει φύγει. In any case, the epistemic reading (example 10) is context-sensitive, as illustrated by the following examples: (9) Πρέπει να έχει φύγει µέχρι τις οκτώ prepi na exi fiji mexri tis okto (S)he must leave before eight o clock (10) Πρέπει να έχει φύγει, γιατί δεν βλέπω το αυτοκίνητό της prepi na exi fiji, jiati δen vlepo to aftokinito tis She must have left, for I do not see her car