Historical Linguistics Research
Group (HLRG):
First Meeting:
Topic:
Speaker:
Date:
Time:
Place:
Directions:
Note:
Links to previous activities of GSLING:
98-99 ; 99-00
; 00-01
; 01-02
;02-03 ;03-04
Graduate Student Linguistics
Organization(GSLING): GSLING Fall Organizational
Meeting
First Meeting:
Date: first Friday of every month
Time: 3:30pm
Place: Gambrell 3rd floor lounge
Who: All of you are invited.
Graduate Student
LinguisticsOrganization (GSLING): Professional Development Workshops
Workshop 1:
Date:
Time:
Guest Speaker(s):
Topic:
Place:
Note:
Links to previous activities of SLARG, click 99-00
; 00-01
; 01-02
; 02-03
; 03-04
Second Language Research
Group (SLARG):
First Meeting:
Topic:
Time:
Speaker:
Place:
Second Meeting:
Topic:
Time:
Speaker:
Place:
Links to previous activities of LangCult, click: 00-01
; 01-02
; 02-03
; 03-04
Language and Culture Reading
Group (LangCult)
First Meeting: TBA
Topic:
Speaker:
Time:
Place:
Note:
Abstract:
Second Meeting: TBA
Syntax Reading Group (SynRG)
First Meeting: SynRG First Meeting: Wednesday,
October 11
Time: 4:15 p.m.
Place: Flying Causer
Speaker: Minta Elsman
Topic: Hunting for T (and C) When You’re
Seeing Double (Modals).
Abstract: The double modal construction famous in dialects of
the southern United States (such as I might could do that for
you), is problematic for syntactic analyses because both modals
behave to an extent as though they are associated with the T node,
despite the fact that most models of English syntax posit only
one TP per clause. The status of such structures has yet to be
resolved; some theorists believe that both modals are true modals,
while others posit that only one of the two (usually the second)
is a true modal, and the other is an adverbial of some sort.
In this presentation, I will first briefly present evidence against
a third stance, that double modal constructions are single lexical
items, after which I will summarize two analyses of these constructions,
one which considers both modals to be true modals, with the first
modal in association with syntactic tense (Marrano 1997), and
another which considers only the second modal to be a true modal
in association with syntactic tense, and the first to be an adverbial
(Battistella 1991, 1995).
After discussing these analyses, I will offer some of my own ideas
on why both modals exhibit tense-like behavior, and invite critiques,
commentary, and suggestions from discussion participants. If time
permits, I will also explore the nature of “biclausal double
modals” (such as I mighta coulda done that for you), and
invite discussion on how I might better formulate this aspect
of double modal constructions into a research question.
