The interpretation of indefinites in future tense sentences: A novel argument for the modality of will?
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2014
- handle: 10670/1.za2vq9
- isbn: 9780199679157
- hal: hal-00920890
- doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199679157.003.0003
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Non-specific indefinites Future Tense Supervaluations Modal subordination Branching Time ModalityCiter ce document
Fabio Del Prete, « The interpretation of indefinites in future tense sentences: A novel argument for the modality of will? », HAL-SHS : philosophie, ID : 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199679157.003.0003
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The chapter considers two semantic issues concerning will-sentences: Stalnaker's Asymmetry and modal subordination in Karttunen-type discourses. The former points to a distinction between will and modal verbs, seeming to show that will does not license non-specific indefinites. The latter, conversely, suggests that will-sentences involve some kind of modality. To account for the data, the chapter proposes that will is semantically a tense, hence it doesn't contribute a quantifier over modal alternatives; a modal feature, however, is introduced in the interpretation of a will-sentence through a supervaluational strategy universally quantifying over possible futures. That this is not part of will's lexical semantics is shown to have consequences that ultimately contribute to explain Stalnaker's Asymmetry. Furthermore, that a modal quantification is present in the interpretation of a will-sentence is shown to imply the availability of modal subordination in Karttunen-type discourses. Since the modal feature is not due to will's semantics but to a presumably universal property of the underlying temporal model, the observed modal behaviour is not viewed as a contingent property of will, and modal interpretations of future tense markers are expected to be available cross-linguistically.