Modality

MODALITÉ ÉPISTÉMIQUE, ÉVIDENTIALITÉ ET DÉPENDANCE CONTEXTUELLE

by Louis de Saussure

Langue française 173, 131-143

Epistemic modality, Evidentiality and Context Dependency Epistemic modality, Evidentiality and Context Dependency

Taxnomy of some mainstream theories of modality and possible worlds

by Adam Tuboly

The taxonomy does not contain the conceptual, dispositional, power-theoretical (recent aristotelian), Kantian (Sellarsian-Brandomian) and a lot of other options about modality on the "no" branch of "Should we analyse modality in terms of PW?". On the other branch I take Lewis as the only possible-worlds realist, hence ersatzism is a special kind of possible-worlds antirealism.

Heidegger et Deleuze, même combat ?

by Pierre-Alexandre Fradet

à paraître dans PhaenEx, vol. 8.1, mai 2013.

González Ruiz, R. & Izquierdo Alegría, D.: "The debate about the veil in the Spanish press. Boosting strategies and interactional metadiscourse in the editorials of ABC and El País (2002-2010)"

by Dámaso Izquierdo Alegría

Published in M. Casado, Ó. Loureda & I. Olza (eds.) (2012), Language Use in the Public Sphere: Methodological Perspectives and Empirical Applications. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, in press.
Authored by R. González Ruiz & D. Izquierdo Alegría

Conservative Meinongianism

by Ted Parent

draft only

This paper defends the Meinongian thesis that “there are objects of which it is true that there are no such objects,”... more This paper defends the Meinongian thesis that “there are objects of which it is true that there are no such objects,” re: fictitious and illusory objects. I first collect 23 different data-points from natural language, and discuss why an anti-Meinongian is hard pressed to explain them. The Meinongian, in contrast, easily and uniformly explains the same data, by allowing the existence Pegasus, pink elephants, and the like. But unlike other Meinongians, who hold that Pegasus and the rest are mind-independent, I hold that such things are mind-dependent, precisely because they are imaginary or hallucinated. (Yet unlike Quine’s McX, I distinguish Pegasus from the idea of Pegasus, even though the Pegasus-idea is mind-dependent as well.) Such a Meinongian view is “conservative” in that it merely acknowledges the sense in which there are mind-dependent objects, imaginary and illusory objects being prime examples. (The “ideology” is conservative as well, in that I paraphrase away the Meinongian’s jargon of “nuclear” or “encoded” properties.) I end by arguing that it is presumptive to use Occham’s razor against Meinongian objects, since this would assume we can achieve empirical adequacy without them. Yet this assumption is now seen as contentious, provided the contrast between the Meinongian and the anti-Meinongian explanations.

The Arguments against Modality "de re" – Revision

by Bartłomiej Czajka

[2011].The defence of the Quine's critique of de re modailities, against both Kit Fine and his logical remarks and Plantinga's essentalist solution for the modalities. Strong respose in favour of de dicto and sketch of the structuralistic semantics coming soon n next papers.

"What is, is more than it is": Adorno and Heidegger on the Priority of Possibility

by Iain Macdonald

International Journal of Philosophical Studies, vol. 19, no. 1 (2011): 31-57.

Theodor W. Adorno’s critiques of Martin Heidegger are well documented and the longstanding opposition between the two... more Theodor W. Adorno’s critiques of Martin Heidegger are well documented and the longstanding opposition between the two camps remains strong. Interestingly, however, both thinkers lay claim to a notion of possibility that has priority over actuality, thereby reversing a fundamental tenet of Western metaphysics: that “actuality is prior to potentiality” (Aristotle). The present article examines Adorno’s and Heidegger’s related contributions to the philosophical understanding of modality and to a transformed concept of possibility, arguing that there is a point of intersection between their respective philosophies, such that we can no longer blithely oppose Adorno’s materialism and Heidegger’s thinking of being.

Un utopisme modal ? Possibilité et actualité chez Hegel et Adorno

by Iain Macdonald

Forthcoming in Culture, pratique, critique : évolution et actualité du modèle de l’École de Francfort, sous la direction de Pierre-François Noppen, Iain Macdonald et Gérard Raulet, Paris, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme.

The decomposition of counterfactuality in Saamáka

by Marleen van de Vate

This paper was presented at FACS II, Berlin (November 2010)

The influence of the event description on the modal base

by Marleen van de Vate

This paper was presented at Mood and modality in the indigenous languages of the Americas, University Leiden (March 2010)

I demonstrate that in Saamaka, the choice of modal base is not purely pragmatic, but is strongly constrained by the... more I demonstrate that in Saamaka, the choice of modal base is not purely pragmatic, but is strongly constrained by the aktionsart of the event description embedded under the modal. On the other
hand, overt tense morphology in Saamaka directly affects the modal time, not the event time. I speculate that this is not a language specific fact, but reflects the universal ordering of functional elements in the syntax-semantics of the clause.

Tense, Aspect and Modality in a Radical Creole: the case of Saamáka

by Marleen van de Vate

Ph.D. dissertation, University of Tromsø (2011)

This dissertation aims to provide an empirically driven and theoretically informed study of the tense, aspect and... more This dissertation aims to provide an empirically driven and theoretically informed study of the tense, aspect and modality system of Saamáka (or Saramaccan), an English/Portuguese based creole spoken along the Suriname River, Suriname. The ambition of this dissertation is three-fold; First, to explore the semantic interpretations and syntactic distribution of each individual (core) tense, aspect and modality morpheme. Second, to establish the hierarchy of functional projections in the IP domain. Third, to validate whether Saamáka conforms to the universal hierarchy of functional projections as proposed by Cinque (1999, 2001). These goals are intertwined such that in order to validate the universal hierarchy of functional heads, it is necessary to investigate the semantic and syntactic characteristics of each individual tense, aspect and modality morpheme. Once it has been determined what the characteristics of a certain functional item are, it is possible to establish the overt manifestation of clausal functional heads of the language which can be compared to Cinque's universal sequence. A strong semantic and syntactic study of the IP domain of Saamáka not only contributes to the description of an underrepresented language and therefore to the understanding of language structure in general, but also makes a comparison with other languages more accessible. Such a comparison is relevant for the field of linguistics in general in that it will be informative regarding possible language structures which will contribute to the universal grammar debate and it is also relevant for the field of Creole Studies in that a comparison with other creole languages and/or substrate languages contributes to the creole genesis debate.

Concrete Impossibilia, draft

by Martin Vacek

"Modality: Metaphysics, Logic and Epistemology" (Review)

by Alastair Wilson

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 89(4):755-756, 2011.

Modality and linguistic change in Spanish Sign Language (LSE): Obligation and epistemic necessity in the Fernández Villabrille dictionary (1851)

by María del Carmen Cabeza-Pereiro

Danwa modariti [Discourse Modality]

by barbara pizziconi

The the… the… construction: Meaning and readings

by Bert Cappelle

Should vs. ought to

by Bert Cappelle

Cappelle, Bert and Gert De Sutter. 2010. Should vs. ought to. In: Bert Cappelle and Naoaki Wada (eds.), Distinctions in English Linguistics, Offered to Renaat Declerck. Tokyo: Kaitakusha, 92-126.

Real impossible worlds: the bounds of possibility

by Ira Kiourti

Wittgenstein on the Substance of the World

by Ian Proops

Published in The European Journal of Philosophy, 12: 1, 106–126.

The *Tractatus* contains an argument that there are simple, necessarily existent objects, which, being simple, are... more The *Tractatus* contains an argument that there are simple, necessarily existent objects, which, being simple, are suited to be the referents of the names occuring in the final analysis of propositions. The argument is perplexing in its own right, but also for its invocation of the notion of "substance". I argue that if one locates Wittgenstein's conception of substance in the Kantian tradition to which his talk of "substance" alludes, what emerges is an argument that is very nearly--but not quite--cogent.

Pragmatic demotion and clause dependency: On two atypical subordinating strategies in Lo-Toga and Hiw (Torres, Vanuatu)

by Alex François

François, Alexandre. 2010. Pragmatic demotion and clause dependency: On two atypical subordinating strategies in Lo-Toga and Hiw (Torres, Vanuatu). In Isabelle Bril (ed.), Clause hierarchy and Clause linking: The Syntax and Pragmatics interface. Amsterdam, New York: Benjamins. Pp.499-548.

Despite the wealth of subordinators in Hiw and Lo Toga (Oceanic, north Vanuatu), two of their Tense Aspect Mood... more Despite the wealth of subordinators in Hiw and Lo Toga (Oceanic, north Vanuatu), two of their Tense Aspect Mood categories – the Subjunctive and the Background Perfect – can do without them, and encode clause dependency by themselves. A pragmatic hypothesis is proposed to account for this clause linking faculty. The Subjunctive differs from other irrealis categories insofar as it lacks any specific illocutionary force; the Background Perfect labels its predicate as informationally backgrounded. In both cases, the clause lacks certain key properties (illocutionary force; informational weight) which are normally required in pragmatically well formed utterances. This pragmatic demotion makes the clause dependent on external predications, which naturally results in syntactic subordination. This case study illustrates how syntax can be reshaped by the pragmatic parameters of discourse.