Tense and Aspect in Informal Welsh / Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM] Bd.223 (PDF)

Chapter 6 Other semantic analyses of finite verb inflections (p. 181-182)


6.1 Introduction


The purpose of this chapter is to argue against approaches which claim that the inflections of finite verbs can be given meanings which are additional or alternative to those meanings which we have presented in chapters 2 to 4. We shall look first at other semantic analyses of the tenses. Additional or alternative meanings are especially common in respect of the Future-Forms and Imperfect/Pluperfect-Forms. Such analyses can be found in respect of Welsh in Jones (1970), Ellis (1972), Fife (1990: 81–214), and Thomas (1996: 101–102). Epistemic modality, subject-oriented meanings, speech acts, tentativity, politeness, and pretence are variously put forward as additional or alternative functions of finite verb inflections. We shall then consider other semantic analyses of inflectional aspect, namely, completion, change versus continuation, narration versus scene-setting, and remote past versus accessible past.

Some of these meanings can arise through the direct extension of a basic meaning. But some can also arise through the effects of context. In respect of the latter, in assessing the adequacy of claims for additional meanings, it is relevant to consider a distinction exploited by Comrie (1985: 18–35) between meanings which are independent of context and other meanings which can be implied or inferred because of the effects of context (and these latter meanings come under standard label implicatures). Comrie records that context-independent meanings and context-dependent meanings are distinguishable in that the latter meanings can be cancelled but not the former. He gives the well-known example of it’s cold in here, which can be given and taken as an implied directive to close the window. The implication can be cancelled, but the basic meaning about the temperature in the room cannot. We shall

Bob Morris Jones, Aberystwyth University, Wales, UK.