Possible worlds: verbo-nominal patterns with chance

The semantic category of modality specializes in expressing the relation between text and world, especially highlighted in approaches that invoke the analytical apparatus of ‘possible worlds’. Its theoretical assumption (cf. Rescher 1979: 16ff) is that a proposition can be said to be true in one specific (real or virtual; past, present, or future) world and false in another. This corpus-based study investigates the potential of the semiotic noun chance to participate in modal expressions in PDE.
In examples like (1) have no chance functions as a secondary modal auxiliary expressing dynamic participant-imposed impossibility (cf. Nuyts 2005) (‘Clifton could not make a tackle’), and in (2) there is a very good chance functions as a modal marker signaling the speaker’s epistemic assessment of the propositional content coded by the that-complement (‘the Republicans will take back the Senate’). In addition, examples like (3) indicate that NPs with chance also occur in semi-insubordinate constructions (cf. Van linden & Van de Velde 2014), which can be interpreted as elliptical counterparts of modal marker structures like in (2) (‘Couldn’t he be kidding?’).

(1) During an interception return, when Clifton had no chance of making a tackle, Sapp blindsided Clifton. He went down. And stayed down for 15 minutes. (COCA, news)
(2) Let me ask you a little bit about politics. You have got the midterm election coming up here. My sense is that there’s a very good chance the Republicans are going to take back the Senate. (COCA, spoken)
(3) A: He says I would have done him in if he was still alive. And he says I found a person that met his description as far as abusiveness. And I says, yeah? And he says, well, I shot him in the head and killed him.
B: No chance that he was kidding or not telling the truth?
A: I knew he was telling the truth. (COCA, spoken)

In addition, chance also has lexical uses (e.g. take [your] chances as an idiomatized complex predicate ‘give it a try’).
Based on data extracted from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) or WordBanksOnline, this study will provide detailed lexicogrammatical descriptions of the constructions featuring chance NPs, taking into account such decategorialization reflexes as determiner drop, reduction in adjectives, loss of singular-plural contrast, etc. From a theoretical point of view, this study aims to adduce corroborating evidence for the role of negation as a trigger of the shift from lexical uses to grammatical ones (cf. Van linden et al. 2011; Saad et al. 2012; Davidse et al. 2015; Van linden et al. 2016).

References
Davidse, Kristin, Simon De Wolf & An Van linden. 2015. The development of (there/it is / I have) no doubt expressing modal and interactional meaning. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 16 (1): 25-58.
Narrog, Heiko, 2005. On defining modality again. Language Sciences 27, 165–192.
Nuyts, Jan, 2005. The modal confusion: On terminology and the concepts behind it. In: Klinge, A., Müller, H. H. (eds.), Modality: Studies in Form and Function. Equinox, London, pp. 5–38.
Rescher, Nicholas. 1979. Leibniz: an introduction to his philosophy (APQ library of philosophy). Oxford: Blackwell.
Saad, K., W. Parmentier, L. Brems, K. Davidse & A. Van linden. The development of modal, polar and mirative no way-constructions. ICAME 33, Leuven, 30 May-3 June 2012.
Sweetser, E. 1990. From Etymology to Pragmatics: Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Van linden, A., K. Davidse & L. Brems. Have/be no need: the interaction between negation and modality in verbonominal pathways of change. ICHL 20, Osaka, 25-30 July 2011.
Van linden, An & Freek Van de Velde. 2014. (Semi-)autonomous subordination in Dutch: Structures and semantic-pragmatic values. Journal of Pragmatics 60: 226–250.
Van linden, An, Kristin Davidse & Lennart Matthijs. 2016. Miracles and mirativity: From lexical it’s a wonder to grammaticalised it’s no wonder in Old English. Leuvense Bijdragen - Leuven Contributions in Linguistics and Philology 99-100: 385-409.