Modal Adjectives —— English Deontic and Evaluative Constructions in Diachrony and Synchrony

----- 关于道义情态：同步分析和历时分析中的英语形容词结构

ISBN: 9783110252934 出版年：2012 页码：384 Van Linden, An De Gruyter Mouton

The book revisits the notion of deontic modality from the perspective of an understudied category in the modal domain, viz. adjectives. It analyses extraposition constructions with English adjectives like essential and appropriate, and uses this to refine traditional definitions of deontic modality. Together with dynamic and evaluative meanings, this category is integrated into a conceptual map, for which diachronic and synchronic evidence is adduced.