Response Systems and the Role of Antecedents: Evidence from Interrogatives with Can and Could

초록

This study explores the response systems of English modal interrogatives with can and could, arguing that response markers are construction-sensitive discourse devices rather than mere polarity particles. Adopting the perspective of Construction Grammar, the study demonstrates that these two interrogatives constitute distinct constructions with unique grammatical and pragmatic characteristics, which position the response markers as discourse devices. The findings show that can-interrogatives favor first-person subjects and cognition/perception verbs, projecting deontic and dynamic readings, while could-interrogatives prefer second-person or impersonal subjects and verbs of social interaction, functioning as politeness-marked requests or epistemic inquiries. The distribution of response markers further confirms this distinction: can-interrogatives attract truth-value markers such as no, whereas could-interrogatives attract cooperative markers like sure and of course. These results collectively suggests that response markers are sensitive to the grammatical and discourse properties of their antecedents.

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