Mood without Modality: An outline of an 'amodal' approach to the Italian subjunctive

Authors

  • Anders Andersen University of Copenhagen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54337/ojs.globe.v17i.8202

Abstract

This paper aims to propose a novel approach to the Italian subjunctive that surpasses traditional modal
interpretations. Rather than conveying a given type of modality (such as irrealis), this paper argues that the
subjunctive is better understood as designating two semantic types: a so-called 'State-of-Affairs' or a
'proposition'. By shifting the focus from modality to semantic types, this approach can account for a wider
range of the subjunctive's usages, including complements of implicatives, such as fare 'make' and capitare
'happen', that modal approaches have failed to fully account for.

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Published

18-12-2023

Issue

Vol. 17 (2023): I molti colori della Filologia. Omaggio a Erling Strudsholm

Section

Sezione/Section II

License

Articles published in Globe: A Journal of Language, Culture and Communication are following the license Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License: Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivs (by-nc-nd). Further information about Creative Commons