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In a Mediative Mood: The Semantics of the German Reportive Subjunctive

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Abstract

This paper aims at an account of the German “reportive subjunctive”, where the mood signals that the proposition is the object of an utterance report. The report can be explicit in the sentence or in the context, or more or less implicit. We interpret these uses as a more or less local verification or accommodation of a presupposition introduced by the subjunctive, thus accounting for a range of facts and contributing to the theory of presuppositions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Germanistisk institutt, Universitetet i Oslo, Postboks 1004, N-0315, Oslo, Norway

    Cathrine Fabricius-Hansen & Kjell Johan Sæbø

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  1. Cathrine Fabricius-Hansen
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  2. Kjell Johan Sæbø
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Fabricius-Hansen, C., Johan Sæbø, K. In a Mediative Mood: The Semantics of the German Reportive Subjunctive. Natural Language Semantics 12, 213–257 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:NALS.0000034514.27887.d9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:NALS.0000034514.27887.d9

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