A study of the contribution semantics makes to the syntactic patterns of English: an intepretive theory of grammar.

Univocalist analyses of the modal auxiliary verbs ('ought'/'must'/'can') and the adjective 'right'/'wrong'.

In the first part of this paper it is argued that Vendler's classification of verbs into aspectual categories, called activities, accomplishments, achievements, and states, is better seen as classifying the meanings of sentences, and a recursive scheme for describing the aspectual character of sentences is presented.In the second part, this scheme is applied to the discussion of the epistemic and deontic meanings of the modal verbs must, will, and may. In particular, the relation between the “future” and “nonfuture” senses of (...) epistemic will is examined. (shrink)

" It is the connected presentation of Jespersen's views of the general principles of grammar based on years of studying various languages through both direct ...