Mario Squartini

Disentangling evidentiality and epistemic modality in Romance

In this article the semantics of the French, Italian and Spanish modals devoir/dovere/ deber+infinitive will be analyzed, claiming that they not only express epistemic and deontic modality, but also reportive evidentiality. Comparing the three languages, it will be demonstrated that the reportive usage of devoir/dovere/deber+infinitive variously combines with the epistemic degree of assertiveness, thus providing relevant data in order to unravel the interaction between evidentiality and epistemic modality. # 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

On the semantics of the Pluperfect: Evidence from Germanic and Romance

This article provides empirical evidence for a more detailed typological semantics of the Pluperfect, demonstrating that the neutralization between perfect-in-the-past and past-in-the-past functions is not a universal feature. In Zürich German and nineteenth-century Portuguese Pluperfect forms can be found which are specifically perfect-in-the-past and past-inthe-past. Other semantic notionst such äs the reversed result and past temporal frame, are also dealt with and prove relevant for a comprehensive semantic description of the Pluperfect.