1. Assessing alternatives: the case of the presumptive future in Italian.
- Author
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Ippolito, Michela and Farkas, Donka F.
- Subjects
CIRCUMSTANTIAL evidence ,PRESUMPTIONS (Law) ,EPISTEMICS ,GENERAL semantics ,THEORY of knowledge - Abstract
In this paper, we study the distribution and interpretation of a non-temporal use of the future tense in Italian, called 'presumptive' or 'epistemic', which we label here PF. We first distinguish PF from its closest modal relatives, namely epistemic necessity/possibility/likelihood modals, as well as weak necessity modals. We then propose an account of PF in declaratives and interrogatives that treats it as a special comparative subjective likelihood modal, and test its empirical predictions. A theoretical lesson drawn from this detailed study of the semantics of PF is that semantics needs sharpened theoretical tools to be able to capture the fine-grained distinctions languages make when it comes to signaling modulated epistemic commitment to a proposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
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