user_interface/about.php at master · WoPoss-project/user_interface · GitHub

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        <title>Theoretical framework - WoPoss</title>
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            <h1>Theoretical framework</h1>
            <div class="rationale"><div><h2>Rationale and mission</h2>
           <p>There has been a good deal of research into the diachrony of modality since the 1980s
                        (cf. <a href="#ziegeler2016">Ziegeler 2016</a>). Investigations conducted on modal
                        verbs in the Germanic languages, especially English, have shown beyond any doubt
                        that languages with a significant amount of available written history are
                        fundamental in reconstructing the diachronic pathways of modality and support the
                        panchronic approach adopted for less well-documented or less-studied languages (e.g.
                        <a href="#bybee1994">Bybee–Perkins–Pagliuca 1994</a>). Nevertheless, diachronic
                        research needs to take into account other lexical markers (cf. e.g. <a
                                href="#nuyts2001">Nuyts 2001</a>, <a href="#vanlinden2012">Van Linden 2012</a>)
                        as well as other possible benchmarks of comparison by taking advantage of
                        well-documented languages. The main aim of WoPoss is to perform the <strong>first
                            large-scope analysis of modalisation paths</strong> in Latin <strong>by
                            analysing and annotating a diachronic corpus</strong> which spans over a
                        millennium (3rd century BCE – 7th century CE). This analysis will allow the team to
                        study phenomena of co-occurrence and competition between modal markers over a long
                        period of time.</p></div><img src="images/logos/wop_light.png" alt="woposs logo"/> </div>
            <h2>Basic information about the WoPoss approach</h2>
            <p>By focusing not only on verbs (e.g. <em>possum</em> ‘have power, be able’) but also
                on adjectives (e.g. adjectives in <em>-bilis</em>), nouns
                (e.g. <em>necessitas</em> ‘unavoidableness’) and adverbs (e.g.
                <em>certe</em> ‘without any doubt’), WoPoss adopts a <strong>comprehensive
                    approach</strong> to the Latin lexical modal system. However, for reasons of
                feasibility given the length of the project (four years) and the small size of the
                team, the analysis is limited to a specific list of markers.</p>
            <p>A <strong>corpus-based approach</strong> is the best way to reconstruct modal
                pathways as well as to study co-occurrence and competition mechanisms among modal
                forms in the history of the Latin language. The corpus chronology spans over a
                millennium and the texts have been chosen as far as possible according to principles
                of textual, generic and socio-linguistic (diastratic, diaphasic and diatopic)
                    <strong>variability</strong>. We have also included <strong>epigraphic documents
                    and papyri</strong> with the aim of taking into consideration all possible
                sources of information available, so that our corpus is not limited to literary
                texts, but extends to documentary ones (for the importance of the implementation of
                this method in the study of ancient languages, cf. <a href="#delloro2015">Dell’Oro
                    2015</a>).</p>
            <p>The theoretical frame of the project was largely inspired by
                Ian Nuyts’ attempt to formulate a <strong>broad, ideally consensual definition of the modal
                domain</strong> (<a href="#oxfordmanual">Nuyts 2016</a>). Our <strong>original annotation schemas</strong> are derived by the combination
                of those elaborated by <a href="https://modal.msh-vdl.fr/?lang=en" target="_blank">Paola Pietrandrea and her team for the annotation of
                epistemic modality in oral corpora</a> with the
                parameters used by Jan Nuyts in his projects on the diachrony of the Dutch modal
                verbs. The goal of the annotation is not to label the different types and subtypes
                of modality, but to annotate a series of parameters which will allow us to
                understand both why we recognise a certain type of modality and what the
                correlations are between these parameters and a certain type of (sub-)modality. This
                will eventually enable us to better understand semantic changes over a certain
                period of time. </p>
            <p><strong>More detailed information will follow soon in the dedicated
                    sections.</strong></p>
            <h2>References</h2>
            <ul class="bib">
                <li id="bybee1994">Bybee, J. – Perkins, R. – Pagliuca, W. (1994), <em>The evolution
                        of grammar: tense, aspect and modality in the languages of the world</em>,
                    Chicago, University of Chicago Press.</li>
                <li id="delloro2015">Dell’Oro, F. (2015), “What role for inscriptions in the study
                    of syntax and syntactic change in the old Indo-European languages? The pros and
                    cons of an integration of epigraphic corpora”, in Viti, C., ed.,
                        <em>Perspectives on Historical Syntax</em>, Amsterdam, Benjamins: 271–290. </li>
                <li id="nuyts2001">Nuyts, J. (2001), <em>Epistemic modality, language and
                        conceptualization: a cognitive–pragmatic perspective</em>, Amsterdam,
                    Benjamins.</li>
                <li id="oxfordmanual">Nuyts, J. – van der Auwera, J. (2016), eds, <em>The Oxford handbook of modality and mood,
                    Oxford</em>, Oxford University Press.</li>
                <li id="vanlinden2012">Van Linden, A. (2012), <em>Modal adjectives: English deontic
                        and evaluative constructions in synchrony and diachrony</em>, Berlin –
                    Boston, de Gruyter.</li>
                <li id="ziegeler2016">Ziegeler, D. (2016), “The diachrony of modality and mood”, in
                    Nuyts, J. – van der Auwera, J., eds., <em>The Oxford handbook of modality and
                        mood</em>, Oxford, Oxford University Press: 387–405.</li>
            </ul></main>
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