Title: Lexical semantics and pragmatics of evaluative adverbs
Abstract: Abstract Evaluative adverbs, such as unfortunately, strangely, and curiously, form a small but interesting class of adverbs. We aim here at proposing a precise account of their lexical semantic and pragmatic properties, using French as our object language. We argue that many peculiar properties of these adverbs follow from their special pragmatic status rather than their semantic type. It is generally recognized that the content of an evaluative is not part of the “main sentential content” (Bartsch 1976; Bellert I977; Bach 1999; Jayez and Rossari 2004; Potts 2005). We propose that their behavior calls for an explicit modeling of their pragmatic properties in a model of dialogue. In the case of simple assertion, the speaker asserting p without an evaluative commits himself to the truth of p, at the same time as he asks the addressee(s) to evaluate p; when he asserts evaluative p, the same conversational moves are present, but, in addition, the speaker commits himself to the propositoin associated with the adverb while withdrawing it from the addressee’s evaluation.
Publication Year: 2008
Publication Date: 2008-03-27
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 38
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