Chapters in this book

1. Prelim pages i
2. Table of contents v
3. Introduction 1
4. Part 1 The concept of modality — possibility, necessity and other related concepts
5. Chance, necessity, mirativity and a few other modal notions 12
6. Necessity and possibility: variations and mirror games 28
7. English copular perception verbs 52
8. The argumentative anchoring of possibility and necessity indications in French, Italian and Slovak 87
9. How true is scientific discourse? 117
10. Part 2 Modal verbs and auxiliaries
11. Preterite-presents and modality 140
12. On the semantics of English modal expressions 166
13. Hedged performatives across time 186
14. Entailment, necessity and time relations in some non prototypical conditional constructions 217
15. Interroger la modalité à partir des verbes modaux danois 235
16. Part 3 Modal constructions and expressions
17. À propos de convenit, il convient, prosēkei, et les autres 254
18. From possibility to necessity 293
19. The cabins (can) sleep four — possibility in the capacitive structure in English 310
20. Enablement and (im)possibility 326
21. ‘Can I just finish?’ 336
22. Index 367