V. H. Dudman

Conditional interpretations of if‐sentences

Logic and grammar are taught in different departments, and moreover presented as quite different sorts of disciplines, by people of quite different stamps of mind. This essay attempts the ambitious project of engaging readers of both stamps, upon a topic which, when all is said and done, has occupied logicians and grammarians separately for centuries.* It sets out to describe, by slow degrees, one particular kind of message that English speakers communicate by means of «/-sentences. The particular kind of message, easily introduced to intuition, is exemplified by those entirely natural interpretations of

Tense and time in English verb clusters of the primary pattern

(2) / / she returned the tickets tomorrow, they would refund her money How, then, can regular temporal significance be imputed to the syntactical form of the English verb cluster? It is the object of this essay to suggest how — as far, at any rate, as concerns primary-pattern verb clusters. A treatment of tense covering secondary-pattern verb clusters as well would require a vastly longer essay. English verb clusters divide into those of the PRIMARY PATTERN and those of the SECONDARY PATTERN, the former being all and only those not incorporating a secondary auxiliary (Palmer 1974:30ff, 94ff). The secondary auxiliaries are will, would, shall, should, can, could, may, might, must, ought and two or three others. The point of the segregation is that secondary-pattern verb clusters are systematically one word longer than primary-pattern ones — a syntactical fact which can hardly lack semantic significance.

Towards a theory of predication for English

(1985). Towards a theory of predication for English. Australian Journal of Linguistics: Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 143-196.

Judgements As Time Goes By

In this exposition, I shall resort to sentences of just four ‘basic’ forms, with fulcrums either aboriginal or transported, and, independently, either without or with the HAVE + en expansion. As follows: (Ab) My washing will / *can / may / must / should / ought to / *need / *dare / can’t / needn’t / daren’t be dry (Ab + H) My washing will / *can / may / must / should / ought to / *need / *dare / can’t / needn’t / daren’t have been dry (Tr) My washing would / could / might be dry (Tr + H) My washing would / could / might have been dry.

The Modals and Their Meanings

English employs a handful of monosyllabic lexemes called modals. There are, I think, just ten of them, of which four have two inflectional forms each and the others only one. Every modal has its aboriginal form, we can say, while just WILL, CAN and SHALL have also a transported form.

States and Events

Consider the natural interpretations of (A), (B) and (C), calling them m1, m2 and m3 respectively: (A) Grannie insulted the cobra (B) Grannie detests the cobra (C) Grannie detested the cobra