I am a Professor Emeritus, who retired from KU Leuven (= Catholic University of Leuven) in 2010. Before then I published widely - both articles and books - on nearly a dozen different topics. My main fields of interest were modality, tense systems, aspect, copular sentences, clefts, nonfinite complements of perception verbs, generic sentences, temporal clauses, reported speech and (in)definiteness.
In this article the authors examine six different analyses of the meaning of unless that have bee... more In this article the authors examine six different analyses of the meaning of unless that have been argued in the literature, and present a new analysis in which a careful distinction is made between the semantic meaning and the pragmatic interpretations of unless. Contrary to the common belief that unless cannot be used in irrealis conditionals, it is shown that unless can actually be used in two different senses there, one in which it alternates with except if, but not if . . . not (e.g. He wouldn't have done it {unless I had / except if I had / *if I hadn't} asked him to, and I didn't) and one in which it alternates with if . . . not but not with except if (e.g. You did do well, but you wouldn't have succeeded {unless I had / if I hadn't / *except if I had} helped you). It is shown, finally, how the various interpretations of unless can be reconciled with a common semantic meaning and how the different constraints on the use of unless, except if and if . . . not can be accounted for.
This chapter offers a definition of modality that is as concrete and complete as possible. Modali... more This chapter offers a definition of modality that is as concrete and complete as possible. Modality means that there is reference to actualization of a situation in a world that is not represented as being the factual world. All types of modality are pigeonholed, regardless of whether the ‘modalizer’ is an auxiliary, lexical verb, adverb, conditional clause, a morphological operation like ‘modal backshifting’ or ‘conditionalization’, etc. Clear definitions are given of root and epistemic modality, and it is shown that not all epistemic values are modal values. On the basis of a rich modal world typology and a number of possible relations between a modal world and the factual world, different subtypes of modality are distinguished.
In this article the authors examine six different analyses of the meaning of unless that have bee... more In this article the authors examine six different analyses of the meaning of unless that have been argued in the literature, and present a new analysis in which a careful distinction is made between the semantic meaning and the pragmatic interpretations of unless. Contrary to the common belief that unless cannot be used in irrealis conditionals, it is shown that unless can actually be used in two different senses there, one in which it alternates with except if, but not if . . . not (e.g. He wouldn't have done it {unless I had / except if I had / *if I hadn't} asked him to, and I didn't) and one in which it alternates with if . . . not but not with except if (e.g. You did do well, but you wouldn't have succeeded {unless I had / if I hadn't / *except if I had} helped you). It is shown, finally, how the various interpretations of unless can be reconciled with a common semantic meaning and how the different constraints on the use of unless, except if and if . . . not can be accounted for.
This chapter offers a definition of modality that is as concrete and complete as possible. Modali... more This chapter offers a definition of modality that is as concrete and complete as possible. Modality means that there is reference to actualization of a situation in a world that is not represented as being the factual world. All types of modality are pigeonholed, regardless of whether the ‘modalizer’ is an auxiliary, lexical verb, adverb, conditional clause, a morphological operation like ‘modal backshifting’ or ‘conditionalization’, etc. Clear definitions are given of root and epistemic modality, and it is shown that not all epistemic values are modal values. On the basis of a rich modal world typology and a number of possible relations between a modal world and the factual world, different subtypes of modality are distinguished.
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Papers by Renaat Declerck