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Epistemic and root possibility meanings of can and may in written English
Huschová, Petra ; Dušková, Libuše (advisor) ; Hornová, Magdalena (referee) ; Klégr, Aleš (referee)
The study is concerned with the English modal auxiliaries CAN and MAY and their morphologically past tense forms COULD and MIGHT.1 It is essentially a small-scale corpus-based investigation into possibility meanings of these modal auxiliaries in contemporary written British English, taking account of stylistic variation. The investigation focuses on assigning appropriate readings to contextualized occurrences of modal auxiliaries and is thus primarily based on discussions of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects. The study attempts to present a general account of possibility senses of CAN/COULD and MAY/MIGHT and reviews the issues relating to their use and distribution on the basis of a semantic and quantitative analysis. However, frequency of occurrence is meant to provide merely a supplementary view of the qualitative analysis, focusing on the role of context in interpreting modal meanings. Among the modal-specific questions that the treatise addresses are those concerning modal semantics, syntactic co-occurrence patterns, stylistic variation, and pragmatic inferencing. It is important to note that the study does not attempt to provide an exhaustive and systematic semantic description of CAN/COULD and MAY/MIGHT. Based on interpreting particular contextualized occurrences, it primarily investigates...
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Epistemic and root possibility meanings of can and may in written English
Huschová, Petra ; Dušková, Libuše (advisor) ; Hornová, Magdalena (referee) ; Klégr, Aleš (referee)
The study is concerned with the English modal auxiliaries CAN and MAY and their morphologically past tense forms COULD and MIGHT.1 It is essentially a small-scale corpus-based investigation into possibility meanings of these modal auxiliaries in contemporary written British English, taking account of stylistic variation. The investigation focuses on assigning appropriate readings to contextualized occurrences of modal auxiliaries and is thus primarily based on discussions of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects. The study attempts to present a general account of possibility senses of CAN/COULD and MAY/MIGHT and reviews the issues relating to their use and distribution on the basis of a semantic and quantitative analysis. However, frequency of occurrence is meant to provide merely a supplementary view of the qualitative analysis, focusing on the role of context in interpreting modal meanings. Among the modal-specific questions that the treatise addresses are those concerning modal semantics, syntactic co-occurrence patterns, stylistic variation, and pragmatic inferencing. It is important to note that the study does not attempt to provide an exhaustive and systematic semantic description of CAN/COULD and MAY/MIGHT. Based on interpreting particular contextualized occurrences, it primarily investigates...
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A contrastive study of means expressing necessity in English and Czech
Šimůnková, Renata ; Hajičová, Eva (advisor) ; Dušková, Libuše (referee) ; Huschová, Petra (referee)
The dissertation investigates the structures of the semantic field of necessity in English and in Czech on the basis of means of expression found in eight works of contemporary fiction (four English books, four Czech books and their published translations). The aim of the thesi s is first to describe the structure of the semantic field in each individuallanguage and then compare the acquired data, determine the similarities and differences and discuss the potential causes of the differences and their consequences in connection with the accurate expression of necessity in both languages. The dissertation consists of three main parts: theoretical, empirical and the conclusion. The theoretical part is outlined as a broad general introduction into the problems of modality and then specifically of necessity. Apart form the delimitation and interpretation of the general concept of modality it focuses on the means of expression of necessity used in English and Czech and their comparison. In the empirical part the individua! means of expression found in the fiction are first discussed and compared within each individuallanguage (e.g. the distinctions between must and have to, or mustn 't and can 't are discussed in detail) and then between the two languages. The conclusion offers brief summaries of the outcomes of...
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