Article Dans Une Revue Canadian Journal of Linguistics / Revue canadienne de linguistique Année : 2025

Offer `can'

Résumé

This paper studies the commissive use can in conditionals such as I can do the dishes, if you like. Its main goal is to spell out the semantic building blocks of what we call offer-can, arguing that the seemingly speech act interpretation is a feature of the conditional statement as a whole rather than the modal itself. To achieve this, we disentangle authority, ability at the semantic level (in agreement with Copley (2009)), and single out the notion of ‘issue to be solved’ and ‘preferred solution worlds’ as epistemic basis and bouletic ordering respectively for the modal quantification. We propose a comparison between the conditional offer and other non-conditional conditionals, and offer some thoughts regarding permission-can and can-you-pass-me-the-salt questions, arguing for authority shift in questions, in a way akin to the interrogative flip in questions with evidentials and epistemic modals. Key-words: can, offer, ability, authority, commissives, conditionals, permission, questions

Domaines

Linguistique
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Dates et versions

hal-04876576 , version 1 (10-01-2025)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-04876576 , version 1

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Marta Abrusan, Enzo Laurenti, Alda Mari. Offer `can'. Canadian Journal of Linguistics / Revue canadienne de linguistique, In press. ⟨hal-04876576⟩
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