'Forbid' is not 'order not'
Bridget Copley, Alda Mari
July 2022
 

We take the only plausible modal analysis of 'forbid' to be that it is equivalent to 'order not'. However, there are differences between 'forbid' and 'order not' having to do with aspect and animacy that remain unexplained on that analysis. Furthermore, while 'forbid' and 'order not' are similar in requiring the referent of the matrix subject to have authority over the referent of the embedded subject, how to represent this fact in a modal framework is not clear. We account for the aspect, animacy, and authority facts by eschewing quantification over possible worlds in favor of a causal model analysis which reifies the distinct 'flavor of influence' for each verb: a stimulatory influence in the case of 'order' but an inhibitory influence in the case of 'forbid'.
Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/006731
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: NELS 52
keywords: modality, bouletic, causal models, english, eventivity, aspect, animacy, agentivity, semantics
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