Universal #1682

Legacy number: 1682

 Number  1677
 Original  There is a strong tendency for agent-oriented modality to be expressed by verbs, auxiliaries or non-bound particles, whereas speaker-oriented and epistemic modalities are often expressed inflectionally.
 Standardized  There is a strong tendency for agent-oriented modality to be expressed by verbs, auxiliaries or non-bound particles, whereas speaker-oriented and epistemic modalities are often expressed inflectionally.
 Keywords  modality, verb, auxiliary, mood
 Domain  inflection, syntax
 Type  no genuine implication; rather: provided that
 Status  achronic but presumably diachronically motivated
 Quality  statistical
 Basis  50 languages of Bybee 1985b sample; see Bybee 1985b: 215-6
 Source  Bybee 1985b: 165ff.

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Discussion
Notes
1. Definitions: AGENT-ORIENTED MODALITY encompasses all modal meanings that predicate conditions on an agent with regard to the completion of an action referred to by the main predicate, e.g. obligation, desire, ability, permission, and root possibility.EPISTEMICS are clausal-scope indicators of a speaker’s commitment to the truth of a proposition. Markers of directives, such as imperatives, optatives or permissives, which represent speech acts through which a speaker attempts to move an addressee to action, are called SPEAKER-ORIENTED. (Bybee & Fleischman 1995: 6)2. This correlation suggested a diachronic scenario whereby as agent-oriented modalities grammaticalize, they develop into other types and gradually take on inflectional expression. (Bybee 1985: 197, Bybee, Perkins, & Pagliuca 1994: 181)
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
1. Definitions: AGENT-ORIENTED MODALITY encompasses all modal meanings that predicate conditions on an agent with regard to the completion of an action referred to by the main predicate, e.g. obligation, desire, ability, permission, and root possibility. EPISTEMICS are clausal-scope indicators of a speaker's commitment to the truth of a proposition. Markers of directives, such as imperatives, optatives or permissives, which represent speech acts through which a speaker attempts to move an addressee to action, are called SPEAKER-ORIENTED. (Bybee & Fleischman 1995: 6)

2. This correlation suggested a diachronic scenario whereby as agent-oriented modalities grammaticalize, they develop into other types and gradually take on inflectional expression. (Bybee 1985: 197, Bybee, Perkins, & Pagliuca 1994: 181)