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Epistemic modality, Danish modal verbs and the tripartition of utterances

  • Michael Herslund
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Epistemic Modalities and Evidentiality in Cross-Linguistic Perspective
This chapter is in the book Epistemic Modalities and Evidentiality in Cross-Linguistic Perspective

Abstract

The Danish modal verbs are basically polysemous in the sense that they convey different kinds of modality. The verb kunne ‘can’ e.g. both expresses dynamic modality (capacity, viz. He can/is able to swim), deontic modality (permission, viz. He can/is allowed to swim), or epistemic modality (supposition, viz. He can/is assumed to swim). The article attempts to explain this distribution of the three kinds of modality by linking it to the tripartition of the sentence proposed by R. M. Hare (1971). According to this philosopher every sentence can be broken down into a neustic (‘I say’), a tropic (‘it is the case’) and a phrastic (‘the lexical content’) component. The idea is then simply to relate the different readings of a modal to the different components, so that the dynamic and deontic are both related to the phrastic component, the deontic furthermore to the tropic, but the epistemic reading exclusively to the tropic component, cf. e.g. Herslund (2003). The three readings are thus the results of three different positions of the modal verb. The use of the terms ‘component’ or ‘position’ does not imply any concrete localisation in the sentence with the exception of certain cases of iconicity. A number of semantic and syntactic arguments are adduced in favour of the proposed analysis.

Abstract

The Danish modal verbs are basically polysemous in the sense that they convey different kinds of modality. The verb kunne ‘can’ e.g. both expresses dynamic modality (capacity, viz. He can/is able to swim), deontic modality (permission, viz. He can/is allowed to swim), or epistemic modality (supposition, viz. He can/is assumed to swim). The article attempts to explain this distribution of the three kinds of modality by linking it to the tripartition of the sentence proposed by R. M. Hare (1971). According to this philosopher every sentence can be broken down into a neustic (‘I say’), a tropic (‘it is the case’) and a phrastic (‘the lexical content’) component. The idea is then simply to relate the different readings of a modal to the different components, so that the dynamic and deontic are both related to the phrastic component, the deontic furthermore to the tropic, but the epistemic reading exclusively to the tropic component, cf. e.g. Herslund (2003). The three readings are thus the results of three different positions of the modal verb. The use of the terms ‘component’ or ‘position’ does not imply any concrete localisation in the sentence with the exception of certain cases of iconicity. A number of semantic and syntactic arguments are adduced in favour of the proposed analysis.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents v
  3. Editorial Preface vii
  4. List of Contributors ix
  5. Part I: Germanic languages
  6. Epistemic modality, Danish modal verbs and the tripartition of utterances 3
  7. Epistemic evaluation in factual contexts in English 22
  8. SHOULD in Conditional Clauses: When Epistemicity Meets Appreciative Modality 52
  9. Part II: Romance languages
  10. Epistemic modality and evidentiality in Romance: the Reportive Conditional 69
  11. Epistemic modality and perfect morphology in Spanish and French 103
  12. Anchoring evidential, epistemic and beyond in discourse: alào, vantér and vér in Noirmoutier island (Poitevin-Saintongeais) 131
  13. A prosody account of (inter)subjective modal adverbs in Spanish 153
  14. French expressions of personal opinion: je crois / pense / trouve / estime / considère que p 179
  15. Mirative extensions in Romance: evidential or epistemic? 196
  16. The Italian epistemic future and Russian epistemic markers as linguistic manifestations of conjectural conclusion: a comparative analysis 217
  17. Epistemic modality, evidentiality, quotativity and echoic use 242
  18. Evidentiality, epistemic modality and negation in Lithuanian: revisited 259
  19. Part IV: Non Indo-European languages
  20. Two kinds of epistemic modality in Hungarian 281
  21. Epistemic modalities in spoken Tibetan 296
  22. Intersubjectification revisited: a cross-categorical perspective 319
  23. Inference crisscross: Disentangling evidence, stance and (inter)subjectivity in Yucatec Maya 346
  24. Part V: Theoretical perspectives
  25. Epistemic modality and evidentiality from an enunciative perspective 383
  26. About Contributors 403
  27. Author Index 409
  28. Subject Index 414
  29. Language Index 421
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110572261-001

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents v
  3. Editorial Preface vii
  4. List of Contributors ix
  5. Part I: Germanic languages
  6. Epistemic modality, Danish modal verbs and the tripartition of utterances 3
  7. Epistemic evaluation in factual contexts in English 22
  8. SHOULD in Conditional Clauses: When Epistemicity Meets Appreciative Modality 52
  9. Part II: Romance languages
  10. Epistemic modality and evidentiality in Romance: the Reportive Conditional 69
  11. Epistemic modality and perfect morphology in Spanish and French 103
  12. Anchoring evidential, epistemic and beyond in discourse: alào, vantér and vér in Noirmoutier island (Poitevin-Saintongeais) 131
  13. A prosody account of (inter)subjective modal adverbs in Spanish 153
  14. French expressions of personal opinion: je crois / pense / trouve / estime / considère que p 179
  15. Mirative extensions in Romance: evidential or epistemic? 196
  16. The Italian epistemic future and Russian epistemic markers as linguistic manifestations of conjectural conclusion: a comparative analysis 217
  17. Epistemic modality, evidentiality, quotativity and echoic use 242
  18. Evidentiality, epistemic modality and negation in Lithuanian: revisited 259
  19. Part IV: Non Indo-European languages
  20. Two kinds of epistemic modality in Hungarian 281
  21. Epistemic modalities in spoken Tibetan 296
  22. Intersubjectification revisited: a cross-categorical perspective 319
  23. Inference crisscross: Disentangling evidence, stance and (inter)subjectivity in Yucatec Maya 346
  24. Part V: Theoretical perspectives
  25. Epistemic modality and evidentiality from an enunciative perspective 383
  26. About Contributors 403
  27. Author Index 409
  28. Subject Index 414
  29. Language Index 421
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