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Re-Assessing Modalising Expressions: Categories, co-text, and context
Edited by Pascal Hohaus and Rainer Schulze
[Studies in Language Companion Series 216] 2020
► pp. 79–108

Chapter 4
Not just frequency, not just modality

Production and perception of English semi-modals

| Universität Rostock
| Universidade de Vigo

We review reduction and contraction in modalizing expressions of the type V-to-Vinf from the perspective of production, perception and mental representation. A corpus study of spoken American English shows reduction/contraction as a continuous process which is subject to phonological and communicative constraints. Generally, reduction (articulatory ease) is restricted by a tendency to retain cues to morphological structure (explicitness). For perception, a word-recognition experiment shows that listeners use probabilities to cope with reduction; reduction also promotes ‘chunking’, i.e. accessing frequent sequences as single units. The combined evidence suggests that ‘chunking’, reduction and contraction are not a self-propelled process, even given high frequency or semantic bleaching. Rather, they are subject to intuitive negotiations in speaker-hearer interaction. Methodologically, we make a case for triangulating corpus and experimental data.

Keywords: semi-modals, chunking, phonetic reduction, contraction, entrenchment
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Modality, to-infinitives and V-to-Vinf as a modalizing construction
    • 1.2The role of co(n)text: Speech-internal vs. speech-external factors
    • 1.3Converging evidence: Production and perception
  • 2.Corpus study: Realizations of frequent V-to-Vinf items in speech
    • 2.1 Realizations of have to / used to
      • 2.1.1Fricative devoicing
      • 2.1.2 /t/-lenition
    • 2.2Realizations of trying to / need to
  • 3.Experimental study: Chunking and frequency information in speech perception
    • 3.1Design and method
    • 3.2Results and interpretation
  • 4.Synthesis and discussion
    • 4.1Not just frequency
    • 4.2Not just modality
    • 4.3 Converging evidence and the role of reanalysis
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 12 November 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.216.04lor
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