Modals and their Arguments

Skibra, Daniel

doi:https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-qk71-tb06

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Modals and their Arguments

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The philosophical literature on modals is dominated by the following paradigm: modals are modeled as quantifiers over sets of possible worlds. The diversity of modal “fla- vors” (e.g., epistemic, deontic, teleological interpretations of modals) is accommodated within the paradigm by logical mechanisms that allow extralinguistic factors to restrict the quantificational domain of the modal. This way of modeling flavor diversity usually comes pre-packaged with the dominant paradigm. In the first part of the dissertation, I make a case for (1) rejecting the pre-packed assumption, and (2) adopting an alternative conception of the relation between extralinguistic context, the grammar of modals, and modal flavor. The case against the assumption is easy to motivate with the contrast between (1) and (2). (1) John must be at the store. (2) John must go to the store. (1) can have an epistemic or deontic interpretation, as the context might allow. I show that the conditions under which (2) can have an epistemic reading are highly constrained by grammatical factors – not simply by contextual ones. These constraints call for an explanation. However, as I show, the standard ways of implementing the paradigm fails to predict the constraints on modal interpretation. Drawing on the work of Hacquard (2006; 2010), I provide a way to extend the paradigm that both predicts these constraints and provides an adequate explanation of them. In the second part of the dissertation, I show that adopting my proposed framework pays unexpected explanatory dividends, for it provides the tools to explain some independent phenomena, among them i) the temporal interpretation of root modals, ii) so-called “hindsight” interpretation of modals, and even iii) the linguistic expression of the distinction between deliberative and evaluative "ought" familiar to practical philosophers.

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