Australian apprehensive grams as discursive, complex modals

International audience ; Following (Dixon 1972), and his seminal description of the -bila affix in Dyirbal, cf. (1), so-called apprehensive (or ‘apprehensional’, or ‘timitive’) grams, also called lest constructions/inflections, have been identified in numerous descriptive works dedicated to Australian Indigenous languages, cf. (Austin 1981; Laughren 1982; Dench 1991; Dench 1995; Evans 1995; Evans 2003; Ponsonnet 2011; Angelo & Schultze-Berndt 2016; Luk & Ponsonnet 2019; Browne, Ennever & Osgarby forthcoming), among others. Capitalizing on this rich scientific context, the present talk will try and further our understanding of apprehensives, by (i) offering a sample-based, areal typological overview of apprehensive markers in Australian languages, identifying variations in form and meaning among apprehensive structures and (ii) laying the foundations of a formal account treating them as scalar negative modals. Although they also abound in Australian languages, lexical apprehensives (e.g. fear verbs) will not be surveyed here, as the primary focus of my investigations is grammatical.(1)ŋinda balan buni muymba baijgundambunduyou-SA THERE-NOM-IIfire-NOM put.out-IMP there-ERG-IIdambun-ERGbuɽalbila (Dyirbal) see-APPR‘You put out the fire lest the Dambun spirit sees it.’ (Dixon 1972: 113)