Keywords
aspect
modality
auxiliaries
corpus-based analysis
How to Cite
Abstract
This article addresses the connection between aspect, actionality, and modality, and it investigates biases in modal interpretations of aspect choice for infinitives under the scope of possibility modals. Samples from the Polish National Corpus provide an empirically testable ground towards answering the question whether such biases are motivated by aspect or rather by actionality. Negation with ipfv. infinitives shows a considerable bias for deontic readings, while pfv. infinitives clearly favour circumstantial (‘dynamic’) readings irrespective of negation. The basic split amounts to a distinction between deontic and circumstantial (not deontic vs epistemic) readings. The study underlines the importance of not confusing aspect with a/telicity distinctions or other features relevant for actionality.
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