Development of Modality in First Language Acquisition: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective - Paperback

by Ursula Stephany (Editor), Ayhan Aksu-Koç (Editor)

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Back Jacket

This volume is a collection of studies focusing on the early developmental stages of deontic/dynamic agent-oriented modality and epistemic/evidential propositional modality. Data from fourteen languages are analyzed from a cross-linguistic and typological perspective, following a functional-constructivist or a natural morphology approach. Main issues addressed are the development of directives and modulations of information in terms of certainty and evidentiality in mother-child conversation. One of the main findings is that agent-oriented and propositional modality may develop in parallel depending on the typological characteristics of the language acquired. A decisive factor is whether notions of propositional modality are grammaticized and obligatorily expressed in the language.

Author Biography

U. Stephany, University of Cologne, Germany; A. Aksu-Koç, Boğazici University, Turkey.