Epistemic Modality: Functional properties and the Italian system [1 ed.] 9789027285348, 9789027230843

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Epistemic Modality

Studies in Language Companion Series (SLCS) The SLCS series has been established as a companion series to Studies in Languagee International Journal, sponsored by the Foundation "Foundations of Language". Series Editors Werner Abraham

Michael Noonan

University of Vienna

University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Editorial Board JoanBybee

Christian Lehmann

University of New Mexico

University of Erfurt

UlrikeClaudi

Robert Longacre

University of Cologne

University of Texas, Arlington

Bernard Comrie

Brian MacWhinney

Max Planck Institute For Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig

Carnegie-Mellon University

William Croft University of Manchester

ÖstenDahl University of Stockholm

Marianne Mithun University of California, Santa Barbara

Edith Moravcsik University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

MasayoshiShibatani

GerritDimmendaal

Rice University and Kobe University

University of Leiden

Russell Tomlin

EkkehardKönig

University of Oregon

Free University of Berlin

Volume 74 Epistemic Modality: Functional properties and the Italian system byPaolaPietrandrea

Epistemic Modality Functional properties and the Italian system

PaolaPietrandrea University Rome Three

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences - Permanenc of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 3 9 . 4 8 - 1 9 8 4 .

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data PaolaPietrandrea Epistemic Modality : Functional properties and the Italian system / Paola Pietrandrea. p. cm. (Studies in Language Companion Series, ISSN 0165-7763 ; v. 74) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Italian language-Modality. 2. Italian language-Semantics. 3. Epistemics. PC1290.P54 2005 425/.6-dc22 ISBN 90 272 3084 6 (Hb; alk. paper)

2005053634

© 2 0 0 5 - J o h n Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O. Box 36224 • 1020 ME Amsterdam ■ The Netherlands John Benjamins North America • P.O. Box 27519 • Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 • USA

aValerio,aStefano eaSergiochenonc'èpiù

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abbreviations ix Introduction 1 1. The theoretical approach 1 2. The structure of the book 2 3. Data 3 CHAPTER 1

The notional category of epistemic modality 6 1. Introductory remarks 6 2. The boundaries of (epistemic) modality 7 2.1 Deontic and epistemic modality 7 2.2 Mood and modality 17 2.3 Illocution and modality 19 2.4 Reality status and modality 25 2.5 Evidentiality and modality 29 3. Modality as a non-designative category 34 4. Modality and subjectivity 34 4.1Performativity 37 4.2Meta-propositionality 37 4.3 Genuine Epistemicity 38 5. A working definition 39 CHAPTER 2

A typological classification of epistemic systems 40 1. Parameters 40 2. Specific vs parasitic markers 40 3. One form vs. degrees of certainty 47 4. Genuine epistemicity vs. inferential evidentially 47 5. Reportive,modalized and complex evidential systems 48 6. Degrees of performativity 49 7. Summary 51

viii

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

CHAPTER 3 Epistemic modality in italian 53 1. Introductory remarks 53 2. Epistemic forms 54 3. Grammaticality scales 61 4. Grammaticalized epistemic forms 64 5. Summary 68 CHAPTER 4 Semantic oppositions 69 1. Introductory remarks 69 2. Degrees of certainty 70 2.1DEVE"rnust"vs.PUÒ"can" 70 2.2 Degrees of certainty and inference conditions. DEVE "must" VS. DOVREBBE "should" 72 3. The epistemic-deontic axis 76 3.1 The asymmetry between dovere "must" and potere "can" 76 3.2 PUÒ "can" vs. POTREBBE "could" 79 4. Evidentialiy and epistemic modality. The opposition between modals and epistemic future 80 4.1 The evidential nature of DEVE "must" 80 4.2 The evidential nature of the other modals 85 4.2.1 DOVREBBE "should" 86 4.2.2 PUÒ "can" and POTREBBE "could" 90 4.3 The epistemic nature of the future 93 5. Summary 98 CHAPTER 5 A typological characterization of italian epistemic modality 100 1. Introductory remarks 100 2. Parasitic forms 100 3. Three degrees of certainty 101 4. The distinction between genuine epistemicity and inferential evidentially 5. A complex evidential system 101 6. Lowperformativity 106 7. Summary 106

101

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 6

Inflectional and distributional constraints. The (low) performativity of italianepistemic modality 108 1. Introductory Remarks 108 2. Constraints on the tense. The (low) performativity of Italian epistemic forms 108 2.1Pasttense 110 2.2 Future tense 118 2.3 Low performativity and the evidential nature of modals 119 3. Constraints on the personal inflection. Speech situation and epistemic control 120 3.1 DEVE, PUÒ, and the epistemic future 121 3.2 DOVREBBE and POTREBBE 124

4. Constraints on the distribution 127 4.1 Conditional constructions 128 4.2 Interrogative contexts 130 5. Summary 131 CHAPTER 7

Aspectual constraints on the proposition^ content 133 1. Introductory remarks 133 2. Tools of analysis. Actional class and aspect 134 3. Stativityofthepropositional content 139 4. The aspect of the propositional content 142 4.1 Progressives 142 4.2 Habituais 144 4.3 Perfects 146 5. Conclusions 148 5.1 Asymmetries among epistemic forms 148 5.2 The incompleteness of the propositional content 149 5.3 A topological representation of aspectual incompleteness 150

ix

X

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

CHAPTER 8 The incompleteness of the prepositional content and the meta-propositionality of epistemic modality 154 1. Introductory remarks 154 2. Semantic projections on complements 154 3. Incompleteness as an index of meta-propositionality. A hypothesis 155 4. Linguistic relevance of the distinction between predications and propositions 157 5. The incompleteness of Italian prepositional complements 161 5.1 Propositional predicates 161 5.2 The incompleteness of the infinitives governed by sapere 163 5.3 The incompleteness of the infinitives governed by dire 167 6. The aspectual completeness of predicational complements 169 6.1 Predicational predicates 169 6.2 The aspectual completeness of the infinitives governed by predicates of perception and practical manipulation 171 6.3 Refinements: the destativization of some predicational complements 174 7. Incompleteness as an index of simultaneity with the ongoing speech process 177 7.1 The self-referentiality of linguistic tense. The enunciation process and other linguistic temporal references 177 7.2 The semiotic meaning of incompleteness 181 8. Typological validity of the relation between incompleteness and proportionality 184 9. Summary 185 CHAPTER 9 A diachronic hypothesis 187 1. Introductory remarks 187 2. Background 187 2.1 The semantic relation between the deontic and the epistemic meaning ofmodals 188 2.2 The semantic relation between the temporal and the epistemic meaning of the future 195 2.3 Diachronic evidence 198 3. A new reconstructivist hypothesis 200 4. Summary 205 Conclusions 207 Notes 210 Bibliography 217 Subject Index 230

ABBREVIATIONS

1 first person 2 second person 3 third person ABS absolutive ACC accusative AOR aorist ART article AUD auditorial evidential AUX auxiliary CERT certain CIRC circumstantial CLT clitic CMPR comparative COMP complementizer COMPL completive COND conditional COP copula CVB converb DAT dative DECL declarative DEF definite DEM demonstrative DET determiner DIM diminutive DIST distal DUB dubitative F feminine FUT future GEN genitive GER gerund HUM human IGN ignorative IMP imperative IMPF imperfect

IMPR impersonal IND indicative INDEF indefinite INDEF-NEG indefinite negative INF infinitive INFER inferential evidential INT interrogative INTS intensive IPFV imperfective IRR irrealis LOC locative LOG logophoric LOGC logical evidential M masculine MEDP mediopassive MID middle N neuter N- nonNECESS necessary NEG negative NOM nominative N-PSTUNC non past uncertain OBJ object OBL oblique OBS observational evident OPT optative PASS passive PFV perfective PL plural POSS possessive POSSB possible PREP preposition PRF perfect PROG progressive PROX proximal PRS present

xii

PRTCL particle PRTV partitive PST past PTCP participle R realis REFL reflexive REL relative REMPST remote past REP reportive evidential SBJV subjunctive SENS sensorial evidential SG singular SUB J subject SUP superlative TOP topic VIS visual evidential VOC vocative

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

INTRODUCTION1 1. The theoretical approach In recent years there has been renewed interest in the category of epistemic modality - i.e., the linguistic category expressing the opinion of the speaker towards what he says - and many questions left open by the literature of the eighties have been defined. Among the most recent publications, it is sufficient to mention Papafragou's (2000) volume on the semantics and pragmatics of English modals, Nuyts's (2001a) monograph on the definition of a pragmaticcognitive category of epistemic modality, the two parallel collected volumes edited by van der Auwera and Dendale (2001) and Dendale and van der Auwera (2001) on modal verbs in Romance and Germanic languages, the collection edited by Müller and Reis (2001) focusing on different aspects of the rich system of polyfunctional modal verbs in German (see among others Abraham, 2001), the special issue of the Journal of Pragmatics 33, 3 (2001) dedicated to the category of evidentiality and the debate hosted by the same journal on the subjectivity of modality (Nuyts, 2001b, Verstratete, 2001). A common unquestioned assumption underlies most of this varied literature: modality's functional properties determine its formal realizations. Performativity and metapropositionality, as has already been maintained by Halliday (1970 (1976)), Palmer (1986) and Hengeveld (1987) - and in certain respects by Jackendoff (1972) - both impose constraints on the temporal inflection of modal forms and hinder the occurrence of these forms in some contexts, such as, for example, interrogatives and protases of conditional constructions. These constraints, considered as imposed by the semantic nature of modality, are always, indistinctively, treated as universal. The present work moves from a different theoretical assumption. On the one hand the functionalist lesson, according to which formal realizations of language are considered as mainly determined by functional pressures (see among others Givón, 1984, Hopper, 1987), is accepted. On the other hand, we think, following in this respect the tradition of post-Saussurean structuralism, that functional pressures are not exerted in a vacuum, but against linguistic systems, each endowed with its own peculiar structure. We claim, thus, that the peculiarities of the "forms" of a language should be ascribed to the dialectic between presumably universal functional pressures and peculiar system resistances. It is in this sense that the present study responds to recent suggestions

2

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

from several functionalists, who recognize the profound differences between structuralism and factionalism, but at the same time reconsider the notion of "structure", claiming that "adopting [a functionalist] model does not entail the abandonment of the notion of "structure" (Noonan, 1999: 25) and that "while structures without functions are plainly senseless, functions without structures are downright lame" (Givón, 1984 (2001: xv)). On these grounds, a study of the expression of modality in a given language must take into account the dialectic between universal pressures and system resistances and ascribe to this dialectic the formal peculiarities that will be detected. Examining this dialectical movement requires a composite methodology. The functional pressures at play in the emergence of a form have to be identified, the peculiarities of the system undergoing these functional pressures have to be characterized and, finally, the peculiar way in which the system filters functional pressures has to be described. 2. The structure of the book The remainder of this book takes the approach described above to the category of Italian epistemic modality. Accordingly, this book is organized in three parts. The first part (chapter 1) singles out the functional (presumably universal) properties of modality, which will emerge after a rigorous definition of the boundaries between modality and a series of contiguous categories, such as deontic modality, mood, illocution, reality status and evidentiality. In the second part (chapters 2 through 5) the peculiarities of the Italian epistemic system are identified. In particular, in chapter 2 five parameters useful for a typological classification of epistemic systems are defined and described. In chapter 3 the more grammaticized epistemic forms of Italian are identified. In chapter 4 the oppositions between these forms are studied and, on these grounds, a description of the internal semantic structure of the Italian epistemic domain is provided. In chapter 5 a typological characterization of Italian epistemic modality is proposed. In the third part (chapters 6 through 8) the dialectic between functional pressures and system resistances is explored by studying whether and to what extent the inflection and distribution of Italian epistemic forms obey the wellknown constraints imposed by performativity and metapropositionality. In particular, chapter 6 shows that the constraints imposed by the performative nature of epistemic modality are peculiarly loose in Italian. Chapters 7 and 8 argue that the metapropositional nature of epistemic forms is revealed by the aspectual incompleteness of the propositional content of epistemic utterances.

INTRODUCTION

3

In chapter 9 the diachronic processes that may have influenced the peculiar features of Italian epistemic system are outlined and characterized, leading to a a new reconstructivist hypothesis on the rise of epistemic meaning. 3. Data The analysis of a "covered" category such as modality inevitably raises the question of data. In analyses like this, the paradoxical contrast between the incompleteness of corpora on the one hand and the inadequacies of intuition data emerges in a striking manner. The expression of epistemic modality in spontaneous speech is very little dispersed Since epistemic markers are not obligatory in Italian, their occurrence is strongly context-sensitive. Biber's (1995: 105) analyses indirectly show that the marked expression of modality tends to concentrate on the registers that Biber classifies as "open argumentation", i.e. professional letters and editorials. By contrast, it is found very little in public conversations, telephone conversations, spontaneous speech and face-to-face conversations and there is a negative correlation with transmitted speech. This means that on the one hand, an inquiry into epistemic modality cannot be usefully conducted using a "general" corpus of all the uses of a language as one's reference. On the other hand, not even a "specific" corpus, built ad hoc for the purposes of the present research, would make possible an exhaustive examination of the subject. Indeed, even in contexts favouring epistemic modality, the occurrence of epistemic grammatical forms - which are the object of the present analysis (see chapter 3) - are extremely rare. This fosters the use of intuition data, which makes possible a more complete paradigmatic exploration, compared to the analyses based on data drawn from corpora. Nevertheless, the inadequacy of data of this kind, which are more representative of the observer's metalinguistic competence than of the reality of language, has often been highlighted in the literature. On the subject, Coppieters (1997: 29) has provocatively observed that intuition data are paradoxically characterized by an excess of "contextualization". They are in fact produced in a very peculiar context i e the "out of context" of the reflection on language

4

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

In order to obviate the incompleteness of corpora and at the same time the excess of contextualization of intuition data, we have preferred to integrate heterogeneous data. In particular, the study is based on: utterances drawn from a corpus of 68 minutes of spoken Italian, specially put together for this research;2 utterances drawn from press, personal e-mails, scientific and electronic publications; extemporary utterances, produced in spontaneous speech situations, which were registered because relevant for the present analysis; intuition data. The corpus amounts to a total of 340 epistemically modalized utterances,3 153 of which have "grammaticalized"4 forms of epistemic modality. During the preparation of this work the CORIS corpus, a general corpus of spoken Italian, containing 100 million words (Rossini Favretti, 2000a), has become available. This corpus too has sometimes been referred to. All the utterances used are representative of diastratically and diaphasically medium-high varieties of Italian In order to distinguish the utterances occurring in the corpus from the intuition data, we have used codes to identify the source of the utterances employed as examples. Table 1 lists these codes.

INTRODUCTION

SPOKEN LANGUAGE

5

Broadcast

Costanzo010402 Spontaneous speechElicited speech Extemporaneous utterances WRITTEN LANGUAGE

INTUITION DATA

Mimandarai150101 Firma | Cp

Press Archivista Mimandarai150102 Re (La Repubblica) Scientific Publications Do (Donna) Di (Diario) Assistente Personal e-mails Ven (Venerdì di Repubblica) Electronic publications Scienza Portaporta240101 CORIs Corpus Arte Fabrfoto Without code Mail Int Table 1. Data of analysis ÎCORIS Portaporta310101

Ufo

I. THE NOTIONAL CATEGORY OF EPISTEMIC MODALITY 1. Introductory remarks The category of modality, in the general sense of the speaker's attitude towards what he says, is one of those categories that "establish a relationship between the speaker and his enunciation" (Benveniste, 1970 (1974)). Modality does not describe properties of the world, but properties of language usage. It is in this sense that Givón (1984 (2001: 285)) writes: The propositional scope [of modality] is not the proposition semantics of the atomic event or state, but rather the pragmatics, or connectivity of the clause vis-à-vis its discourse context.6

This peculiarity of modality has two consequences, both important and contradictory, that must be taken into account in its analysis. First, modality is an inherent feature of every linguistic fact. Bally (1932: 34) wrote, "modality is the sentence's soul", meaning that every "representation is virtual until it is conceived as true, false or possible by a thinking subject" (Bally, 1932: 31), in other words, there is no dictum without modus, no matter how implicit the mo­ dus. This means that the category of modality is one of those "impositions made on language by its users" that, according to Simone (1995: 236), offer a "crucial basis for the search for linguistic universals". The second consequence is that, being a description of the language and not a description of the world, the category of modality has no ontological counterparts. It must therefore be entirely constructed by the linguist, in its notional as well as formal aspects. In this regard, Palmer writes: Tense can be defined as the grammatical category related to time,7 number as the category related to enumeration. There are some problems in the precise definition of aspect [...] and gender is often extended to include more than sex; but, in practice there is no difficulty in deciding what should be treated as examples of such categories (italics ours). The notion of modality however is much more vague and leaves open a number of possible definitions. (Palmer, 1986: 1)

As a consequence of the peculiar difficulty in constructing this category, a number of notions that cannot be considered strictly modal are often lumped

THE NOTIONAL CATEGORY

7

together under the label of "modality". In semasiologica accounts of it, modality often converges with categories of a lower level or of a different nature, such as deontic modality, dynamic modality or mood, while in onomasiological accounts modality is lumped together with other pragmatic categories, such as illocution, reality status and evidentiality. 2. The boundaries of (epistemic) modality Given the fuzziness of the current definitions, the present analysis of modality requires at the outset a rigorous formal and notional definition of the category on exam. The formal definition of modality, particularly tough in Italian, will be provided in chapter 3. In the following, some of the notional constructions of modality proposed in the literature (§2) will be critically reviewed, with the aim of singling out the peculiar functional properties of modality (§3 and §4) and providing on these grounds a rigorous definition of the object of analysis(§5). Two insights will emerge from the following review First the need to abandon a strictly semasiological approach in particular in analysing languages like Italian which do not have a well defined class of morphologically and syntactically marked forms for the expression of modality like for example the English modals Second the necessity of considering modality as but one among other non-designative, categories. 2.1 Deontic and epistemic modality Since Lyons (1977) and Palmer (1986) it has been widely accepted that the category of modality is articulated (at least) in the two sub-categories of epistemic and deontic modality. Epistemic modality is defined as the category describing a speaker's opinion towards his prepositional content. Some examples of epistemic modality can be found in the following Italian utterances: (1)

Forse sar-à perhaps beIlND.FUT.3SG complicat-o per complicated-M.SG for

st-at-o anche be-PTCP.PST-M. SG also loro awicin-ar+si 3PL get.cloeer-iNF+MiD.3PL chissà8 to 1SG.OBL who.knows "They may have also had a hard time in getting closer to me, who knows !" (Re040202)

8

EPISTEMIC MODALITY (2)

Quest-a cos-a dev-e PROX-F.SG thing-SG must-IND.PRS.3SG ess-er+gli cost-at-a be-INF+3SG.M.DAT COSt-PTCP.PST-F.SG molt-o stress much-M.SG stress "This must have been really stressful for him"

(Re040202)

(3)

Scus-i, un oggett-o luminos-o excuseIIMP.2SG INDEF object-SG bright-M.SG ne-l ciel-o, lo dovr-ebbe in-DEF.M.SG sky-SG 3SG.ACC.M must-COND.3SG ved-ere un1 inter-a città see-INF INDEF. F.SG entire-F.SG city "I am sorry, but a bright object in the sky should be visible to an entire city" (Ufo)

(4)

L' ipotesi può sembr-are DEF.F.SG hypothesis can.IND.PRS.3SG seem-INF paradossal-e perché propria D'Alema paradoxical-SG because exactly D'Alema è considerat-o un awersari-o be.IND.PRS.3sG considered-M.SG INDEF opponent-M.SG de-l prodism-o of-DEF.M.SG prodism-SG "The hypothesis can appear paradoxical, because D'Alema above all is considered as an opponent of Prodi's approach" (Re301201)

THE NOTIONAL CATEGORY (5)

// comic-o potr-ebbe DEF.M.SG comedian-M. SG can-C0ND.3sG su Rai Tre il on

Rai

Tre

DEF.M.SG

9 port-are bring-INF

POSS.3SG-M.SG

meteo satirico forecast satirical-M.SG "The comedian could bring on the Rai Tre channel his satirical weather forecast" (Re240802) By contrast, deontic modality is defined as a category describing "the necessity or possibility of acts performed by morally responsible agents" (Lyons, 1977: 823) Examples of deontic modality can be found in the following utterances: (6)

(7)

(8)

Bisogn-a ferm-ar+li prima che Need-IND.PRS.3SG stop-lNF+3PL. ACC. M before that divent-ino assassin-i become-suBJV.PRS.3PL murderer-M.PL "It is necessary to stop them before they become murderers" Anche loro hanno il Also 3PL.N0M haveIlND.PRS.3PL DEF.M.SG di mett-ere fin-e a quest-o of put-lNF end-SG to PROX-M.SG "They too must stop this silence"

(It)

dover-e duty-SG silenzi-o silence-SG (Re220302)

Gli student-i poss-ono sosten-ere DEF.M.PL studen--M.PL canIiND.PRS.3PL sustain-iNF gli esam-i ne-gli appell-i DEF.M.PL exam-PL in-DEF.M.PL appeal-PL straordinar-i di novembre e marzo extraordinary-M.PL of November and March "Students can take the exams in the November and March special sessions" (Int)

10

EPISTEMIC MODALITY (9)

(10)

Fabio, t-u dev-i Fabio 2SG-NOM must-iMP.2SG "Fabio you must be silent"

st-are stay-INF

zitt-o! silent-M.SG (Fabrfoto)

Da quest-o moment-o in poi, moment-SG in then, from PROX-M.SG puo-i pari-are quando vuo-i! can-iND.PRS.2SG talk-INF when want-lND.PRS.2SG "From now on, you can talk whenever you want" (Cp)

The lumping of epistemic and deontic modality under the common label of "modality" is rarely questioned. For this reason, in the present monograph we will conventionally speak of deontic and epistemic "modality". Nevertheless, we will claim in this section that, while epistemic modality should be considered as undoubtedly modal (and in fact, as we will see, it is captured by every current notional classification of modality), the modal status of so-called "deontic modality" is much more in doubt. The division of the category of modality into deontic and epistemic is an inheritance that linguistics received from modal logics. Modal logics, designed for taking into account more than one possible world at the same time (see, for example, Allwood et al, 1971 [1981]), distinguishes between propositions true in all possible worlds, also called "necessary", and propositions true in some possible worlds, also called "possible propositions". According to the nature of the possible worlds taken into account, propositions can be classified as epistemic or deontic. The former, necessary (or possible) in all the cognitively possible worlds, have the form: (11)

Deve avere quindicianni "(S)he must be fifteen"

(12)

Puòessererientrato "He may be back"

They are represented with the necessity operator erator 0: (1la)

A (A = be fifteen)

and with the possibility op-

THE NOTIONAL CATEGORY

11

(12a) OB (B = be back) The latter, necessary (or possible) in all morally or legally possible worlds, have the form: (13)

Deve lavare i piatti "(S)he must wash the dishes"

(14)

Puòrientrare quando vuole "(S)he can come back whenever (s)he wants"

They are represented with the obligatoriness operator O and with the licitness operator P: (13a) OA (A=wash dishes) (14a) PB (B= come back whenever (s)he wants)9 The introduction in linguistics of the divison of modality into deontic and epistemic is justified by the fact that in many nonrelated languages epistemic and deontic meanings are expressd by the same forms (Palmer, 1986: 224). We have seen above some Italian utterances in which the modal verb dovere (MUST) and the modal verb potere (CAN) can have both an epistemic meaning (see examples (2), (3), (4)) and a deontic meaning (see examples (8), (9), (10)). The same holds - just to give some examples for the modal verbs of other Romance and Germanic languages (see, among others Fleischman, 1982; Silva-Corvalán, 1995; Oliveira, 2001, Sueur, 1979, Leech, 1971, Coates, 1983 Traugott, 1989 Heine, 1995, Davidsen-Nielsen, 1986), for the Greek auxiliar; nçénl ("it is duty-bound"-"it is likely") (Papafragou, 2000), for the Gaelic necessity modal feumaidh (Adger, 1997 quoted in Papafragou, 2000), for the Mandarin modal néng (CAN) (Guo, 1995), for the colloquial Cairene Arabic auxiliary laazim express ng obligation or necessity (Gary e Gamal-Eldin, 1982, 98-99 quoted in Palmer 1986 123) for the particle (o)myero describing necessity in Lango e Acholi (Bavin 1995) for the Tarnl possibility suffix laam and for the necessity suffix num Asher 1982 171 quoted in Palmer 1986 121) for theNgiyambairrealis suffix -aga (Donaldson 1980 160-62 quoted in Palmer 1986 122) and for the Tuatatulab permissive suffix,aha(Steele 1975 207 quoted in Palmer 1986 122) Moreover the subjunctive of older Indo-European languages as highlighted by Lyons (1977 848) "grammaticized the notion of nonfactivity its function could be nit only potential or predictive" i e

12

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

epistemic, "but also obligative, hortative or desiderative", i.e. deontic. Palmer explicitly admits that it is because of this frequent convergence of forms that deontic and epistemic modality are treated as a single category: It may be well argued that there are two distinct categories. There are two features that [epistemic and deontic modality] share: subjectivity...and non fac-uality. Yet it must be admitted that the chief reason for treating them as a single category lies in the fact that in English, and many other languages, the same forms (e.g. modal verbs) are used for the expression of both (italics ours). (Palmer 1986: 96)

It may be argued that this reason is not sufficient justification, particularly in those languages in which the forms expressing deontic and epistemic meanings do not constitute - like the English modals - a class whose grammatical status "is not seriously in doubt" (Palmer, 1986: 5). English modals are indeed characterized by the so-called "NICE properties" (Huddleston, 1976: 333). They do no take do in Negation, Interrogation, "Code" and Emphasis: (15) (16) (17) (18)

Must I come? I can't go He can swim and so can she He will be there

(Palmer, 1986: 33)

Moreover modal verbs do not co-occur, they have no -s form for their third person, have no non finite forms, have no imperatives, and have negative suppletive forms. By contrast, Italian modals are not characterized by any morphological or syntactic property peculiarly distinguishing them from other verb classes. Simone and Amacker's (1977) analysis has demonstrated, indeed, that the set of Italian modal verbs, commonly considered as comprised of the verbs dovere "must", volere "to want" and potere "can", does not present shared morphological or syntactic properties distinguishing it from other Italian verbs. In fact, on the one hand these three verbs do not present any morphological peculiarity on the other they are neither the only Italian verbs that take bare infinitive complements, or the only ones to allow clitic promotion. Moreover, dovere, volere,andpotere differ both as to the possibility of being followed by nominal complements (dovere andpotere admit them, volere does not) and the possibil-

THE NOTIONAL CATEGORY

13

lty of being followed by explicit subordinates (volere admits them, dovere and potere do not). Similarly, a class of modal verbs cannot be clearly established in French (Ruwet, 1967, quoted in Palmer, 1986: 36). In these languages, which lack a clearly grammatical class of modals, to treat deontic and epistemic modality as a single category would prove as awkward as treating causality and temporality as sub-categories of the same category because often expressed by the same prepositions (e.g. the English after, the Itellan/wfcfó -lit. "after that", ,tc.). It should be said, however, that there is also an onomasiological justification for the lumping of deontic and epistemic modality under the same category. As mentioned, Palmer (1986: 96) claims that these notions share the features of "subjectivity" and "non factuality". Going in the same direction, Lyons argues that they represent: different facets of the expressive, or indexical, function of language. In the one case it is an indication of the speaker's opinion or judgement that is involved; in the other it is an indication of the speaker's will or desire that something should be done. Lyons (1977:847)

This onomasiological justification is, though, both weak and partial. Its weakness resides in the fact that subjectivity, or - as Lyons puts it -the fact of representing "a feature of the expressive function of language" is too vague a semantic characterization to be considered as the unifying foundation for the category of modality. We will discuss this point in more detail in the next sections The partiality of this justification will become immediately apparent after a careful inspection of the nature of deontic modality. While epistemic modality is undoubtedly a feature of the expressive function of language, the expressive status of deontic modality, and in particular the expressive status of those manifestations of deontic modality known in the literature as "dynamic modality" are much more in doubt. Epistemic modality, as an expression of the speaker's opinion about the truth of a propositional content, has an expressive, and not a designate function, by definition. In other word we could say with Benveniste (1958 (1966 [197 : 317]) that epistemic modality serves the purpose of "converting in a subjective enunciation a fact impersonally asserted" in the proposition. Epistemic forms have the function of bringing into existence the speaker's attitude toward the proposition (Verstraete 2001: 1517) and therefore of expressing it. Being expressed and not described the speaker's attitude is not made explicit but is condensed n the modal form A good representation

14

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

of such implicitness is provided by Simone and Amacker (1977: 54) in their illustration of the relation between what is known as "mental state predicates" (see Nuyts, 2001a), such as (19) and the corresponding modal forms, such as (20): (19) (20)

I suppose Carlo has left Carlo must have left.

The mapping between the two kinds of forms highlights how the modal condenses the information that the speaker is to be considered as the origo of the evaluation: (21)

[Carlo]

[must]

[have left]

[I suppose]

[Carlo]

[has left]

It is true that deontic modality too can be considered in some cases, as claimed by Lyons, as an expression of the speaker's attitude. Indeed a deontic utterance like: (22)

You must be silent!

can be paraphrased, according to Simone and Amacker's schema, as follows: (23)

[You]

[must]

[I order] [to you]

[be silent]

[to be silent]

Such a representation suggests that the modal verb condenses the information that the speaker is to be considered as the origo of the order. Somewhat different is the case of that subclass of deontic modality that von Wright (1951) and Palmer (1986), among others, call "dynamic modality", that is those "modal" forms in which the subjectivity of the speaker is absent and which simply describe a circumstantial, neutral necessity (or possibility), which refers to the subject of the sentence but is not maintained (ordered or permitted) by the

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15

speaker.10 We have an example in utterance (24),which can be paraphrased as in (25): (24) According to their procedure, any donation must amount to exactly 20 US Dollars (25) [Any donation]

[I say][any donation]

[must]

[amount] [to exactly 20 US Dollars]

[must]

[amount] [to exactly 20US Dollars]

This representation clearly shows that dynamic modals do not condense any expression of the speaker's subjectivity. It is, in fact, widely accepted that dynamic modality is better considered as a representation of a state of affairs rather than as the expression of the speaker's subjectivity. For this reason such a category is not treated as truly modal by several authors (see Palmer, 1986: 102). Hence, the partiality of Lyons's justification, which does not hold for all the manifestations of dynamic modality, included by Lyons in deontic modality. There is also a more subtle question concerning the appropriateness of characterizing the entire class of deontic modals as expressive It has been assumed so far that modals are polysemic forms that can express both deonticexpressive meanings (such as that in (22)) and dynamic-descriptive meanings (such as that in (24)) Nevertheless, it cannot be excluded that the deonticexpressive meaning is not specified in the semantics of modals, but pragmatically inferred from dynamic meanings, given the necessary felicity conditions. Consider, as an example, the following utterance: (26)

Students can take the exams in the November and March special sessions

Such an utterance expresses, by itself, dynamic modality, which can be reinterpreted as deontic if (26) is uttered by the holder of the course in question. In fact, while in the former case the utterance can be paraphrased as in (27), in the latter case it will be paraphrased as in (28): (27)

I say that students can take the exams in the November and March special sessions

16

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

(28)

I permit students to take the exams in the November and March special sessions

In such cases, the fact that the utterance expresses "the speaker's will or desire that something should be done" is not due to the modal in itself, rather to a pragmatic inference permitted by the origo's authority. As highlighted by Lyons (1977, 841), such a pragmatic reinterpretation of the meaning of an utterance from designate to expressive can occur, "under the appropriate nonlinguistic conditions", in the use of any declarative sentence whatsoever. Let us take, for example, the magical or sacramental use of an utterance like (29), which could be paraphrased as in (30): (29) (30)

You will sleep now! I order you to sleep, now!

If we accept that the deontic meaning of the modal is not specified in its semantics, but that it is pragmatically inferred, under the appropriate felicity conditions, deontic modality will be better thought of as reduced to dynamic modality. Consequently, it will not be considered per se as "an indication of the speaker's will or desire that something should be done", i.e. it won't be considered as expressive, by itself. It won't, therefore, fall under the definition ofmodality. Halliday (1970 (1976)) suggests excluding deontic modality from modality, claiming that only epistemic modality, which should be considered as an instance of the interpersonal (i.e. expressive and social) function of language, is properly modal: Modality is a form of participation by the speaker in the speech event. Through modality, the speaker associates with the thesis an indication of its status and validity in his own judgements; he intrudes, and takes up a position. Modality thus derives from what we call ... the "interpersonal" function of language, language as expression of role. (Halliday, 1970(1976: 197-98))

Halliday ascribes to what he calls "modulation" (i.e. deontic modality, without any further distinction between dynamic and strictly deontic) a purely ideational (i.e. designative) function:

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17

Modulations are not speaker's comments, but form part of the content of the clause, expressing conditions on the process referred to. (Halliday, 1970(1976:200)) Modulation... is ideational in function, and expresses factual conditions on the process expressed in the clause. (Halliday, 1970 (1976: 205))

A functional difference between deontic and epistemic modality has been widely recognized in the literature (see among others Foley and Van Valin, 1984, Hengeveld, 1987, 1988, 1989, Bybee et al 1994). Nevertheless, the literature has been always unanimous in including, in line with Lyons, deontic modality under the label of modality. To take up a position on this question, and to decide whether deontic modality, as an expression of the speaker's will, is to be included in the category of modality (Lyons), or, as deriving from the ideational function of language, it is to be excluded from the category (Halliday), would require anin-depthexamination of deontic modality, which would go beyond the scope of this monograph. We will say only that we intuitively favour the second hypothesis, partly because, as briefly mentioned above, the fact of representing a "facet of the expressive function of language", even if it held for deontic modality, would be in any case too vague a characterization of the semantic notion codified by the category of modality. The question will be left open, and, as mentioned at the beginning of this section, when we speak of deontic and dynamic "modality", we will do so in a merely conventional sense, without any theoretical engagement. 2.2 Mood and modality The term "mood" is often employed not only to indicate the flectional category of the verb, making distinctions such as that between indicative, subjunctive, imperative, etc., but also to refer to modality in general. So, for example, ChungandTimberlake(1985)speakof "realis"and "irrealis mood" and of "epistemic", "epistemological" and "deontic mode", rather than modality. Huddleston (1984: 164, quoted in Palmer, 1986: 22) speaks of "analytic mood' to refer to the expression of modality obtained through modal verbs. Similarly, in a recent work, Diewald (2001: 25) writes: "The grammatical category into which the modals are integrated and with which they form a grammatical paradigm is verbTahemreasons for this convergence, which is mainly terminological, but can sometimes also be theoretical (Diewald's quotation is an example) are to be sought in the fact that the category of mood expresses a number of modal

18

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

meanings, or, more precisely, a number of meanings that are usually considered as modal. As will be clearer in the next section, mood oppositions frequently mark distinctions between different illocutive acts (Lyons, 1977, Foley and VanValin, 1984, Fava, 1995: 24). For example, in Italian the imperative mood signals a command (31), the subjunctive can signal a wish (32): (31)

Ragghmg-l+h! reach-iMP.2sG+3SG.ACC.M "Reach him (it)!"

(32)

Che lo raggiung-a! that 3SG.ACC.M reachSsuBJV.PRS.3SG "I hope he reaches him (it)"

Mood oppositions can also mark oppositions in the reality status. So, for example, the romance subjunctive is frequently considered as the mood for irrealis (but see Schneider, 1999 and Lunn, 1995, among others, for refinements). Finally, mood can also mark evidentiality. This is so in the case of the Italian or French "reportive" conditional and the German subjunctive, which are employed to indicate that the speaker brings what has been said by someone else as evidence for the truth of his/her proposition. Some examples can be seen in the three following Italian, French and German utterances: (33)

Inparticolar-e Ahmed avr-ebbe anche in particular-M. SG Ahmed have-COND.3SG also conosci-ut-o un-o de-i diciannove know-PTCP.PST-M. SG one-M of-DEF.M.PL nineteen dirottator-i de-ll' 11 settembre hijacker-M.PL of-DEF.M.SG 11 September "In particular, Ahmed is thought to have known one of the nineteen 11th September hijackers" (Re221202)

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19

(34)

D'après le journaliste Jean-Alphonse Richard, according the.M.SG journalist Jean-Alphonse Richard il n' y aur-ait aucun-e 3SG.NOM NEG there have-C0ND.3sG any-F.SG preuve étay-ant ces accusations proof supporter-PTCP.PRS PROX.PL charge-PL "According to the journalist Jean-Alphonse Richard there is no proof supporting these charges" (Int)

(35)

Er sei mit S. in Streit 3SG.NOM.M be.SUBJV.PRS.3sG with S. in quarrel ge-rat-en und habe sich PTCP.PST-fal--PTCP.PST and haveSsuBJV.PRS.3SG REFL von diesem bedroht ge-fühl-t by DEM.DAT.M threaten PTCP.PST-feel-PTCP.PST "He had become involved in a quarrel with S, and had felt himself to be threatened by him" (Palmer, 1986: 71)

It is easy to show that the lumping of modality and mood under the same category of modality is doubly unjustified. Firstly, as has been highlighted by Jespersen(1924:321),Palmer(1986:22)andBybeeetal(1994:176), whilemood is an inflectional category, modality is a semantic category: it therefore makes no sense to treat them under the same label, especially because mood is not the only category marking modality and its meanings are not limited to the modal (consider, for example, the subordinating function of the Italian subjunctive, see Schneider, 1999). Secondly, most of the meanings signalled by mood (illocution, reality status, evidentiality) are not at all modal. This will be the subject of the next sections. 2.3 Illocution and modality Illocutionary force distinctions such as those between questions, commands, wishes, exclamations, etc. are often treated in the literature as modal oppositions. Lyons (1968: 308), for example, writes that the classes of imperative and interrogative sentences "tend to stand apart from all others by virtue of their modality (italics ours)". In these two classes of sentences, he argues, the attitude of the speaker is "marked" as well as in the sentences characterized by other "scales of modality", such as wish and intention, necessity and obliga-

20

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

tion, certainty and possibility. Simone (1990: 336), elaborating the Aristotelian distinction between "apophantic" discourses (i.e., assertive discourses, whose truth or falsehood is decidable) and "semantic" discourses (i.e. non-assertive discourses, whose truth or falsehood is not decidable), proposes a distinction between assertive and non-assertive modalities, the latter including command, questions, possibilities, and obligations (i.e. both illocutionary and modal notions). Similarly, Lewis (1946, 49, quoted in Pamer, 1986: 14) writes: "The proposition is assertable; the contents of the assertion... can be questioned, denied or merely supposed, and can be entertained in other moods as well". There are both onomasiological and semasiological motivations for such a convergence of illocution and modality, which was, by the way, already wellestablished in the ancient Greek-Latin grammatical tradition.12 From a notional standpoint, illocution and modality are lumped together because both express an attitude of the speaker (even if- as we will point out soon - towards different entities). From a formal standpoint, the convergence is justified by the fact that the two notions are expressed in many languages by the same forms. For example, in English the modal verbs can express both the illocutive force of a command, as in utterance (36) and (37) and epistemic modality, as in (38): (36) (37) (38)

He shall be there at six He must be there at six He must be there

(Lyons, 1977: 751)

The Latin subjunctive can express epistemic modality as in (39) and deontic modality as in (40), but it can also have the illocutionary value of a wish as in (41) and (42): (39)

lam

apsol-ut-os

cense-as,

NOW

payo0ff-PTPP.SST-ACC.M.PL

thinkSSUBJV.PRS.2SG

quom inced-unt infector-es when comeiin-iND.PRS.3PL dye--NOM.PL "You may think they are already paid off when in come the dyers" (Plauto, Aulularia, 520 -quoted in Palmer, 1986: 66)

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21

(40)

tu dict-is, Alban-e, At But 2SG.NOM word-DAT.N.PL Alban-VOC man-ere-s remann-SUBJV.IMPF-2SG "But thou, Alban, shouldst have kept thy word" (Virgil, Aeneid, 8.643 -quoted in Palmer, 1986:1)

(41)

Ut ill-um di[...] perd-uint! That 3SG -ACC.M god.NOM.M.PL destroy-suBJV.PRS.3PL "May the gods destroy him!" (Plauto, Aulularia, 785 -quoted in Palmer, 198 6:1)

(42)

Navig-et! Haec summ-a Sail-SUBJV.PRS.3SG PROX.NOM.F.SG poin--NOM. SG est, hie nostri beIIND.PRS.3SG

PROX.NOM.M.SG

lPL.GEN

nunti-us est-o message-NOM. SG beIMP.FUT-3SG "Let him sail, this is the point, let this be our message" (Virgil, Aeneid, 4. 237 -quotedinPalmer,1986:39) Although motivations for such a convergence do exist, we will argue here following Venier (1991: 133ff.) and Cresti (2002) - that illocution and modality should be conceived as two distinct categories. In fact, while modality can be defined as the expression of a speaker's attitude towards what he says, illocution, as Austin points out (1962 (1975)), is the way a proposition is used, for example, in asking, answering, informing, reassuring, warning, etc. Each of these uses is directed towards the addressee. Thus, we will argue with Venier (1991), that illocution characterizes an act communicatively, and we will claim with Cresti (2002:72) that, while modality expresses a speaker's attitude towards the propositional content of his utterance, illocution expresses a speaker's attitude toward the addressee. The necessity of the proposed distinction is supported by some syntactic facts. As shown by Cresti (2002), examples of utterances where marks of illocution and marks of modality co-occur are far from rare. For example, in Ital-

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

22

ian, epistemic modality occurs not only in assertions, as in (43), but also in questions as in (44) and (45): (43)

Forse sar-à st-at-o anche Perhaps beïIND.FUT-3SG be-PTCP.PST-M. SG also complicat-o per loro avvicin-ar+si complicated-M.SG for 3PL get.cloeer-lNF+REFL.3PL chissà a me, to lSG.ACC who.knows "They may have also had a hard time in getting closer to me, who knows !" (Re040202)

(44)

L' avr-anno cap-it-o 3SG.ACC haveIlND.FUT.3PL undersaand-PTCP.PST-M.SG stavolta il messaggio? this.time DEF.M.SG message "Do you think that they have understood the message this time?" (Int)

(45)

Perché dovr-ebbe essere Why mus--C0ND.3SG be.iNF "Why should it be closed?"13

chiu-s-o? cloee-PTCP.PST-M.SG

Deontic modality occurs not only in assertions, as in (46), but also in commands, as in (47): (46)

Gli

student-i

DEF.M.PL studen--M.PL

poss-ono

sosten-ere

canIIND.PRS.3PL sUStain-INF

gli esam-i ne-gli appell-i DEF.M.PL exam-PL in-DEF.M.PL appeal-PL straordinar-i di novembre e marzo extraordinary-M.PL of November and March "Students can take the exams in the November and March special sessions" ant)

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(47)

Fabio tu dev-i Fabio, 2SG.NOM mus-IMP.2sG "Fabio you must be silent"

st-are stay-INF

23

zitt-o! silent-M.SG (Fabrfoto)

These examples suggest that, if we considered questions, commands, and possibilities as d i f f e r e n t i e s of the same category of modality, this category could not be characterized as "a set of mutually exclusive and homogenous options" (Simone, 1990: 297), in other words it would not meet the commonly accepted definition of a grammatical category, at least in the structuralist tradition It should be said, though, that the distinction between illocution and modality has been sketched and sometimes fully acknowledged in the literature. Lyons (1977: 749), for example, building on Hare's (1970 (1971)) distinction of the components of the logical structure of utterances, shows that a speaker can logically provide more than one type of qualification for a proposition. Hare distinguishes between a phrastic, atopic and a neustic component. The phrastic component is "that part of sentences which is common to corresponding declarative, jussive and interrogative sentences: its propositional content" (Lyons, 1977: 749). The tropic component is "that part of the sentence which correlates with the kind of speech-act that the sentence is characteristically used to perform" (Lyons, 1977: 749). The neustic component is"what Hare calls a "sign of subscription" to the speech act that is being performed: it is that part of the sentence which expresses the speaker's commirent to the factuality, desiderability etc of the propositional content conveyed by the phrastic (Lyons, 1977: 749-50) Hare's distinction as pointed out by Lyons allows us to separate two of the functions ascribed to the assertion-sign (I- ) which Russell and Whitehead (1910) prefixed to propositional variable in order to show that the proposition was asserted as true rather than merely put forward for consideration The subscription-sign prefixed to a categorical assertion according to Russell and Whitehead had the meaning of a generic "it is the case that" which Lyons proposes to rearticulate in an "I say so" meaning (the meaning of the neustic component) and in a "it is so" meaning (the meaning of the tropic component) A categorical assertion thus has the formIsay so (it is so) with a nonqualified I say so and non-qualified it is so In the moda qualification the I say so component is qualified while in the illocutive qualification it is the tí is so component that is qualified which can, for example, become a so be it in commands 14

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EPISTEMIC MODALITY

A distinction is also made between illocution and modality in Functional Grammar -FG (Dik, 1978,1997a, 1997b,Hengeveld, 1987,1988,1989) and Role and Reference Grammar -RRG (Foley and Van Valin, 1984, Van Valin and LaPolla, 1997), the former being considered as a more external operator than modality. These models describe clauses "in terms of an abstract underlying clause structure, which is mapped onto the actual form of the corresponding linguistic expression by a system of expression rules, which determine the form, the order, and the prosodic contour of the constituents of the underlying clause structure" (Dik, 1997a: 49). Several layers of formal and semantic organization can be distinguished in the clause structure. In particular FG, whose terminology will be used throughout the present work, considers that the innermost level of the underlying clause structure is represented by a predicate, that is a designation of relations or properties, which, when applied to "an appropriate number of terms functioning as arguments to the predicate", results in a nuclear predi­ cation. As Dik (1997a: 51) writes: "starting from he nuclear predication, the full structure of the clause can be built up layer by layer by specifying g ammatical operator "π" and lexical satellites "a" appropriat; to given layer" The nuclear predication is qualified by aspectual operators and satellites and by the negation The result is a structure layer called core predication which is in turn qualified by operators and satellites,specifying quantification tense location and deontic modality The resulting layer the extended predication can be further modified by operators and satellites specifying the epistemic modality and evidentiality of the clause The resulting proposition can be further qualified by illocutionary satellites and operators The result is a clause Elocution therefore is considered as a more external operator than modality Table 2 drawn (and adapted) from Dik (1997a: 50) summarizes the layered clause structure and illustrates at which levels illocution and epistemic modality satellites and operators operate In this work illocution. and modality will be distinguished. The former will be considered as the attitude of the speaker towards the addressee and the latter as the attitude of the speaker towards the proposition. Illocution will also be considered as an operator more external than epistemic modality.

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25

Clause TT4 [proposition] K3 [extended predication]

a4 a3

(illocution) (epistemic modality)

%2 [core predication]

i 71 [nuclear predication]

2 1arguments

predicate Table 2. Functional Grammar's representation of the layered clause structure

2.4 Reality status and modality The category of modality often converges in the literature with the still more weakly defined category of reality status, i.e. the category whose semantic role is to distinguish between, on the one hand propositions describing events "grounded in perceived reality (realis)", and on the other, propositions describing events "existing only as a conceptual idea, thought, or hypothetical notion (irrealis)" (Elliott, 2000: 56). Such a category is morpho-syntactically marked by verbal affixes or particles in a number of Australian, Austronesian, Papuan, African, South-American, Mesoamerican, and North-American languages and in several European languages (Chafe, 1995, Mithun, 1995, Elliott, 2000). Foley and Van Valin (1984: 213), after pointing out that the term "mood" refers to three different categories, which in their opinion should be considered as distinct notions, illocution, modality (considered as deontic modality), and status, write:

26

EPISTEMIC MODALITY Other uses of Latin subjunctive indicate a different grammatical category, sometimes referred to under the separate name of modality. This is the variable of actuality of the event, whether it has been realized or not. We will borrow the term status from Whorf (1956) for this notion. Status is often viewed as a binary distinction between realis-irrealis and some languages use just such a binary distinction. However, within the irrealis dimension many languages recognize further distinctions, whether the action is necessary, or likely, or merely possible. So within the irrealis poles we may have a continuum such as: Real_

necessary

probable

possible

►unreal

(Foley and Van Valin, 1984:213)

Thus, they consider the distinctions between necessity, probability and possibility, commonly ascribed to the internal articulation of epistemic modality, as different specifications of the reality status of an event. Symmetrically, Chung and Timberlake write: Mood characterizes the actuality of an event by comparing the event world(s) to a reference world, termed the actual world. An event can simply be actual (more precisely, the event world is identical to the actual world); an event can be hypothetically possible (the event world is not identical to the actual world); the event may be imposed by the speaker on the addressee; and so on. Whereas there is basically one way for an event to be actual, there are numerous ways that an event can be less than completely actual. For this reason our discussion of mood is concerned principally with different types of nonactuality. (Chung and Timberlake, 1985: 241)

In this case, it is not the category of modality that is reduced to that of reality status, but the opposite. Modality is seen, indeed, as the category specifying why and to what extent an event should be considered as unreal. Both in Foley and Van Valin's and in Chung and Timberlake's definitions there is a convergence of the two categories under the same label: either modality converges under the label of reality status (Foley and Van Valin) or reality status converges under that of modality (Chung and Timberlake). The reason for this convergence is to be sought in the fact that modality entails irrealis, or, in other words, in the fact that a marker of modality can be considered as a marker of reality status too. Both epistemically and deontically modalized propositions, in fact, are presented as unreal by definition. On the one hand, the simple fact that a speaker expresses, through an epistemic

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27

marker, his opinion about the truth of a proposition entails his putting forward as unreal the event described in that proposition. For example, in the following utterance: (48)

That meteorite may be from Mars'moon

the proposition [be from Mars' moon] describes, in Elliott's (2000) terms, not an "event grounded in perceived reality", but a mere "hypothetical notion". On the other hand, a deontically modalized event will take place in the perceived reality only in a future time. It must therefore be considered as unreal at the speech moment. For example in the utterance: (49)

You must stop telling lies!

the event "stop telling lies" is not characterize as grounded in perceived reality at the speech moment.15 The fact that modality entails irrealis is not sufficient justification for the convergence of both categories under the same label, for two reasons. Firstly, while it is true that modality entails irrealis, the converse is not true. Secondly, there is an important notional difference between the two categories. That irrealis does not entail modality is proved by the fact that modality is but one of several notions that can be marked by irrealis. It is true that languages with a grammaticalized category of irrealis frequently mark the modalized propositions as unreal. For example, in Manam, an Austronesian language, the portmanteau irrealis prefix da-16 marks the complement of a modal perrphrastic construction expressing possibility: (50)

tamóata di-bóadu dram da-tóba-di man 3PL-be.able drum 3PL.IRR-pierce-3PL.OBJ "The men are able to make holes in the drums" (Lichtenberk, 1983: 439 -quoted in Elliott, 2000: 75)

In Takelma, a Native American language, the irrealis stem is used in the verbs marked by the inferential suffix -k'. For example in the following utterance:

28

EPISTEMIC MODALITY (51)

Mená yapa dōm-k'wa-k' bear man kill(iRR)-3.HUM.OB-IlNFER "It seems that the bear killed the man / the bear must have, evidently has killed the man" (Sapir, 1922: 158 - quoted in Chung and Timberlake, 1985: 245)

the verbal stem dōm- is selected in opposition to the form famo-, which is used to mark the event as real. Nevertheless, irrealis markers are not only associated withmodalizedpropositions,butalso-although with some cross-linguistic variations (noticed by Bybee et al, 1994: 239)-wik events described as future, conditional, with imperative sentences, and, in some languages with interrogative, negative, and habitual sentences (Chafe, 1995, Mithun, 1995, Elliott 2000 con­ trarBybee et al, 1994: 239). In short, unless one wants to consider as modal all these categories marked by irrealis, it is not possible to conclude that irrealis entails modality and that, consequently, marking the former means marking the latter. Concerning the notional distinction between reality status and modality mentioned above, it should be said that, even if they are both propositional operators, modality fulfils one non-designative function more than reality status. That both modality and reality status are propositional operators, i.e. that they both modify semantically an entire proposition, is explicitly acknowledged among others - by the RRG, which considers reality status and epistemic modality (lumped together, as we have seen, under the label of status) as clausal operators (Van Valin and LaPolla, 1997: 46). Nevertheless, modality cannot be considered, like reality status, as a mere propositional qualification Modality explicitly expresses the presence of the speaker. Lyons writes on the subject: Any utterance in which the speaker explicitly qualifies his commitment to the truth of the proposition expressed by the sentence he utters...is an epistemically modal, or modalized, utterance (italics ours). (Lyons, 1977: 797)

In other words, while through irrealis markers one can infer the opinion of the speaker about the reality status of the portrayed event, through epistemic markers, the speaker explicitly manifests his commitment to the truth of the portrayed event. It does so through the self-expression condensed in the modal (cfr §2.1). Self-expression of this kind is absent in irrealis markers.17 In conclusion, in the present monograph reality status and modality will be considered as two distinct categories, for three reasons. Firstly, recent studies

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29

(Chafe, 1995; Mithun, 1995; Elliott, 2000) have brought evidence that reality status should be considered as a grammatical category in itself. Secondly, even if it is true that modalized propositions also have a qualified reality status (i.e. an unreal status), the converse is not true: not all propositions qualifying for reality status are modalized. Thirdly, the qualification of reality status, unlike modality, is a mere propositional operator: it is not the explicit expression of the speaker's opinion towards the truth of his/her proposition. 2.J Evidentiality and modality The category of modality often converges, in the literature, with the category of evidentiality,18 i.e. the category the speaker uses to indicate what sources of information he has to assert the truth of a proposition: whether he has inferred it, whether he has had verbal report of it, or whether he has had a sensorial perception of the event described by the proposition. The analyses on the topic conducted in the last twenty years (Chafe and Nichols, 1986; Willett, 1988, Dendale and Tasmowski, 1994; Dendale and Tasmowski, 2001), have shown that evidentiality is a category grammatically marked in many languages from every continent. Since Givón (1982), there is common acceptance of a classification of evidential values distinguishing between direct (i.e. sensory) evidence and indirect (i.e. non-sensory) evidence Willett (1988) has further split up this bipartition, by distinguishing within the direct evidence category between vis­ ual, auditory and other sensory evidence, and, within the indirect evidence category, between inferred and reported evidence Further subdivisions of reported evidence (distinguishing between second-hand third-hand and folklore) and inferred evidence (distinguishing between evidence inferred from observed results and evidence inferred by logical reasoning) have been proposed The internal subdivision of evidentiality is summarized in table 3 drawn (and terminologically adapted) from Willett (1988: 57) ,

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

30

Table 3. The internal subdivision of evidentiality (drawn and adaptedfrom Willett (1988: 57)).

In order to give some examples of markers of the different types of evidentiality, we can refer to North-American languages. The Patwin existential auxiliary bee, for example, marks visual evidentiality: (52)

behnaüi meem khontaro bees next.morning water dried VIS.DECL "Next morning the water was dried up" (Willett, 1988: 65)

Wintun has an auditory evidential suffix -nth (see example 49)), which also marks generic sensory evidentiality (50); a reportive suffix -kee (51); a suffix marking inference from observed results -ree (52); and a suffix marking evidence inferred by logical reasoning -?u (53).

THE NOTIONAL CATEGORY

(53)

heket

wira

wačaabintheem cryIIMPF.AUD.DUBIT

"Some one is coming crying" (I hear it) (54)

(55)

31

cepkal neel baabinthida bad we eat.lMPF.SENS. 2PL "We've been eating bad things" (I feel)

(Willett, 1988: 65)

(Willett, 1988: 65)

coyiilakee drunk.REP

1SG

"I am drank" (I hear); or "They tell me I'm drunk" (Willett, 1988: 65) (56)

heke maan haraakireem somewhere EXCL GO.COMPL.OBS. DUBIT "He must have gone somewhere" (I do not see him) (Willett, 1988: 65)

(57)

?imtoon nuqaa?el berries ripe.LOGC "The berries must be ripe" (it's that time of the year) (Willett, 1988: 65)

Some authors (Bybee, 1985, Frajzyngier, 1985, 1987, Hardman, 1986, Palmer, 1986, Chafe, 1986, Chung and Timberlake, 1985) treat evidentiality as a subcategory of epistemic modality. Palmer, for example, writes: The term "epistemic" should apply not simply to modal systems that basically involve the notions of possibility and necessity, but to any modal systems that indicates the degree of commitment by the speaker to what he says. In particular, it should include evidential such as "hearsay" or "report"...or the evidence of the senses. Palmer (1986: 51),

The idea underlying the application of the term "epistemic" to evidentials is that the simple fact of indicating the source of evidence for a proposition proves that the speaker does not subscribe to it unconditionally. The literature

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

32

also regards as commonly established a relation between the degree of reliability of the source of evidence and the degree of certainty the speaker has to evaluate the truth of a proposition. For example, Frajzyngier (1985: 250, quoted in de Haan, 1999: 86) writes: "It appears rather obvious that the different manners of acquiring knowledge correspond to different degrees of certainty about the truth of the proposition". Hardman (1986) suggests that a scale of evidence reliability runs parallel to a certainty scale (see table 4): direct evidence +certain

reported evidence

inferring evidence -certain

Table 4. ne correspondence between the scale of evidence reliability and the certainty scale

Accepting a semantic extension of this kind from the indication of a source of information to the indication of the degree of certainty of the speaker entails considering propositions modified by evidential as unreal (see §2.4). This position, as mentioned above, is not unanimously shared. Many authors (Jakobson, 1957 (1963); Foley and VanValin, 1984; Anderson, 1986, Oswalt, 1986, Van Valin and LaPolla, 1997; de Haan, 1999, Nuyts and Dendale, 1994, Willett, 1988, Lazard, 2001) treat epistemic modality and evidentiality as two distinct categories. They claim that the use of an evidential marker does not serve the purpose of putting forward a proposition as unreal, but simply specifies on the basis of what evidence the truth of a real proposition is asserted.For example,Anderson (1986:273) writes: "Evidential express the kinds of evidenceapersonhas to making factual claims". And Givón (1984(2001:326)): 'Irrealis is so weak and tentative that it falls below the threshold of the need to bother with evidence". De Haan (1999: 93) provides interesting evidence to support this position. First of all, he points out that there is a language, Tuyuca (Tucano) where the evidential source for any proposition is obligatorily marked.19 The fact that every proposition presents an evidential marker does not prevent the speaker from putting forward that proposition as real. Indeed, if a speaker wants to express an evaluation of the truth of a proposition, he can resort to epistemic markers accompanying the obligatory evidential forms. For example in the following utterance the marker of epistemic possibility, -bo, accompanies the inferring evidential suffix -ku:20

THE NOTIONAL CATEGORY (58)

33

Wáa-bo-ku go-POSSB-INFER.PRS

"I may go"

(deHaan, 1999: 93)

Secondly, even in languages that do not obligatorily mark evidentiality there can be co-occurrence of epistemic and evidential markers in the same utterance. For example, in Dutch, an utterance marked by the auxiliary moet ("must"), which has an inferential and reportive evidential value, can be further epistemically qualified: (59)

(60)

Het moet een goed-e 3SG.N must,IND.PRS.3SG INDEF good-M zijn, en ik ben daar zeker be.lNF and lSG bellND.PRS.lSG there sure "It is said to be a good movie, and I am convinced of it" (deHaan,

film movie van of 1999: 93)

Het moet een goed-e film 3SG.N must.lND.PRS.3SG INDEF good-M movie zijn, maar ik heb be.iNF but GSG.NOM haveIlND.PRS.lSG there mijn twijfel over POSS.1SG doubt about "It is said to be a good movie, but I have my doubts about that" (deHaan, 1999: 93)

Given such examples, it becomes clear that a difference between epistemic modality and evidentiality does exist. As Lazard (2001: 363) trenchantly suggests, at least in principle, "the mediative21...implies only "as it appears" and nothing else". While, it could be added, epistemic modality implies only "as I think" and nothing else. In other words, while evidentiality qualifies the source that justifies the assertion of a proposition, modality qualifies the genuine belief of the speaker about the truth of the proposition. There is a compliant intermediate position between the position considering modality and evidentiality as two separate categories and that considering evidentiality as a sub-category of modality. Those who maintain this intermediate position claim that, even if the two categories are distinct in principle, the frequent mapping between reliability scales and certainty scales cannot be disre-

34

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

garded. Such a mapping cannot be considered as necessary - as Frajzyngier (1985) would suggest - but purely logical (Anderson, 1986: 311). Plungian (2001: 355) goes a step further, proposing to distinguish typologically between languages in which the markers of evidentiality mark epistemic modality too, and languages in which evidentiality - as Lazard claims - implies "only "as it appears" and nothing else" (Plungian's account of evidentiality will be discussed later, in chapter 2 §5). In the present monograph this intermediate position will be assumed. Consequently, even if for the sake of conceptual clarity a distinction is made in principle between evidentiality and epistemic modality, for the sake of inquiry it will be investigated whether Italian belongs or does not belong to the linguistic type displaying a mapping between epistemic and evidential markers. 3. Modality as a non-designative category In spite of their differences, all the notional definitions of modality we have reviewed so far describe a category which is, for different reasons, nondesignative. Those who put together epistemic modality with either deontic modality or illocution, describe modality as an expressive category. Expressivity (or performativity, as this property is also named in some of the literature) is in fact, the only property shared by epistemic modality, deontic modality and illocution.22 Those who put together epistemic modality with either reality status or evidentiality describe modality as a meta-propositional category. In fact, epistemic modality, evidentiality, and reality status are all propositional operators. From the review of the literature it is thus possible to conclude that the reason for the unsteadiness in the definitions of modality is to be sought in the fact that it is not clear enough in which sense modality can be characterized as a non-designative category. This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that in the literature, in order to characterize the non-designativity of modality, it is common to refer to a very weakly and variously defined notion: that of subjectivity. In the next section, the various ways in which subjectivity is defined by those who refer to it to characterize modality will be examined. This examination will make clear in which sense or in which senses modality can be considered as subjective, and, ultimately, define more rigorously this category. 4. Modality and subjectivity Palmer considers subjectivity as a definitory property of both epistemic and deontic modality. He writes:

THE NOTIONAL CATEGORY

35

Modality in language especially when marked grammatically, seems to be essential subjective. (Palmer, 1986: 16)

And below: Modality in language is, then, concerned with subjective characteristics of an utterance, and it could even be further argued that subjectivity is an essential criterion for modality. (Palmer, 1986: 16)

Other authors consider subjectivity as a defining property of epistemic modality. Coates, for example, considers subjectivity as the semantic feature peculiarly distinguishing epistemic modals from root modals.23 She writes: The crucial distinction between forms expressing root possibility in English and forms expressing epistemic possibility in English is that the latter involve subjectivity. (Coates, 1995: 59)

Similarly, Traugott (1989:35), showing how epistemic meanings evolve from deontic meanings (see Chapter 9), points out that this evolution is characterized by a progressive "subjectification" of meanings: Meanings tend to become increasingly based in the speaker's subjective belief state/attitude toward the proposition. (Traugott, 1989: 35)

Finally, other students consider the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity as orthogonal to the distinction between the two sub-categories of modality. According to this position, there are both subjective and objective uses of deontic modality, and subjective and objective uses of epistemic modality. Lyons (1977, 1995), for instance, claims that speakers can use a modal form (either epistemic or deontic) either to express their beliefs, attitudes, will and authority (subjective use), or to report, as neutral observers, the existence of an external state of affairs objective use). In Linguistic Semantics (1995: 329) perhaps more sharply than in Semantics - Lyons points out that a sentence such as (61) can have both an objective and a subjective epistemic reading, and an objective and a subjective deontic reading: (61)

He may not come

The objective epistemic reading could be paraphrased as in (62):

36

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

(62)

Relative to what is known, it is possible that he will not come

The subjective epistemic reading, as in (63): (63)

I think it is possible that he will not come

The objective deontic interpretation will be: (64)

It is not permitted that he come

The subjective deontic interpretation: (65)

I forbid him to come.

Although it so so widely used, the notion of subjectivity is very rarely defined. Given the great diversity of the characterizations of modality in terms of subjectivity, we may infer that this notion is really defined in different ways by the authors who use it. Indeed, in the introduction to an important book on linguistic subjectivity, Finegan (1995: 1) explicitly acknowledges that the term is used with a number of different meanings: subjectivity has an array of meanings ...[concerning] the involvement of a locutionary agent in a discourse, and the effect of that involvement on the formal shape of discourse. (Finegan, 1995: 1)

As far as the use of subjectivity in the characterization of modality is concerned, it is possible to recognize three different meanings of the term: (i) "Subjectivity" is synonymous with "performativity", and consequently with the indexical expression of the speaker (Palmer 1986; Verstraete, 2001) (ii) "Subjectivity" is synonymous with "meta-propositionality" (Traugott, 1989; Coates, 1995; Hengeveld, 1987, 1988, 1989) (iii) "Subjectivity" is synonymous with "genuine epistemicity", as opposed to the objectivity ofinferentialevidentiality (Lyons, 1977;Nuyts,2001b).

THE NOTIONAL CATEGORY

37

4.1 Performativity The term "subjectivity" is used in the characterization of modality to indicate the self-expression a speaker performs when using a modal expression. Palmer (1986: 16) writes: "Modality could, that is to say, be defined as the grammaticalization of speakers' (subjective) attitudes and opinions". Modal forms do not designate an attitude of the speaker, but they express it. In other terms they do not fulfil the function of saying something, but that of doing something. They bring into existence an attitude or an opinion of the speaker. In this sense they can be considered as performative (Palmer, 1986: 60, Verstraete, 2001: 1517). As performative, modal forms are also indexical, i.e., they define their meaning only from the speech situation in which they are uttered, that is "under the dependence of the /that enunciates itself thereby" (Benveniste, 1958 (1966 [1971: 315) - translation ours). In other words, since modal forms do not describe the attitude of the speaker, but bring it into existence, they do not explicitly mention what the origo of that propositional attitude is.24 Such an implicit origo can be identified with the speaker's subjectivity only by looking at the speech situation. An effective representation of this implicit origo is in Simone and Amacker's representation of the correspondence between descriptive modal utterances and utterances modalized through modal forms, which was discussed in §2.1. It was pointed out in the same section that performativity characterizes epistemic modality, and, to some extent, deontic modality, but it does not characterize dynamic modality, which is a purely designate category. 4.2 Meta-propositionality Besides performativity, the term "subjectivity" is also employed to indicate a second functional property, this time peculiar only to epistemic modality: meta-propositionality. We have already seen that Traugott (1989: 35), showing how the epistemic meanings of English modal verbs, modal adverbs and performative adverbs evolve from the deontic ones, claims that they "become increasingly based in the speaker's subjective belief, state/attitude toward the proposition". In other words, Traugott argues that the difference between deontic objective meanings and epistemic subjective meanings is that, while the former describe a modification of the propositional content, the latter express the attitude of the speaker towards thepropositional conten In this interpretation of the term, saying that epistemic forms are subjective is equivalent to saying that they are propositional operators i e that they semantically modify an entire proposition and not just a part of i Such a functional property is widely acknowledged in the literature as a distinctive feature of epistemic modality (Halliday, 1970 (1976) Lyons 1977 Palmer 1979 1986 Puglielli and Parisi

38

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

1975,Givón,1984(2001), Traugott, 1989, Dik, 1978, 1997a, 1997b, Hengeveld, 1987, 1988, 1989, Foley and Van Valin, 1984, Bybee et al, 1994, McDowell, 1987, Cinque, 1999, Van Valin and Lapolla, 1997, Abraham, 2001). Functional Grammar's (Dik, 1978, 1997a, 1997b, Hengeveld, 1987, 1988, 1989) and Role and Reference Grammar's (Foley and Van Valin, 1984, Van Valin and Lapolla, 1997) layered clause models propose a rigorous and clear formulation of the distinction between epistemic and deontic modality in terms of subjectivity (see §2.1). In particular, Hengeveld (1987, 1988, 1989) explicitly distinguishes between an objective modality operating on the predication and a subjective modality operating on the proposition25 (see §2.1). 4.3 Genuine Epistemicity Another sense of the term "subjectivity", as it is used in the literature is that of "genuine epistemicity", as opposed to the objectivity of inferential evidence. As we have seen in §2.5, the expression of the genuine belief of the speaker about the truth of a proposition must be distinct from the description of the reasoning process that leads him to infer the truth of a proposition. In a recent study Nuyts (2001b) has suggested distinguishing the "subjective" belief of the speaker from the "inter-subjective" knowledge of the truth of a proposition. Lyons (1977: 797) refers to a distinction of this kind using the terms, "subjective epistemic modality" and "objective epistemic modality". Subjective epistemic modality is at work when an utterance such as (66) is only based on the speaker's personal conjectures: (66)

Alfred must be unmarried

By contrast, objective epistemic modality is at work when a speaker utters a sentence such as (66), by inferring it from an objective knowledge. To make clear the difference Lyons invites us to consider the example of a community of ninety people. We know that thirty of them are unmarried. We know the marital status of every member of the community except Alfred. We have also counted twenty-nine persons that are unmarried. In these circumstances we can legitimately infer (66). Under this interpretation (66) does not express the subjective opinion of the speaker, it does not say that the speaker thinks that Alfred is unmarried, but it describes the objective necessity of inferring that Alfred is unmarried. Lyons accounts for the distinction between subjective epistemic modality and objective epistemic modality, stating that, whereas the former is a qualification of the I-say-so component, the latter is a qualification of the it-is-so

THE NOTIONAL CATEGORY

39

component. The subjective interpretation of (66), is thus represented as in (67); whereas, the objective interpretation is represented as in (68): (67) nec (I say so (it is so (Alfred be unmarried)) (68)

I say so (nec (it is so (Alfred be unmarried)).

This representation highlights that the objective interpretation of (66) is a factual assertion, rather than the expression of the speaker's opinion. Thus, genuine epistemicity can be considered a performative form, whereas inferential evidentiality should be considered as a designate form. This third sense of the term "subjectivity" is, therefore, to be considered as an instantiation of the more general sense of "performativity": genuine epistemicity is what brings into existence the speaker's belief. 5. A working definition To sum up, when characterizing modality as subjective one says three distinct things about this category: it is performative, it is meta-propositional and it expresses the speaker's genuine beliefs. In order to define the peculiarities of modality and to avoid confusing convergences with other categories, one must bear in mind that this category is subjective in all of these three senses. Modality is thus defined as the performa­ tive category expressing the speaker's genuine opinion towards the modalized proposition This definition is much stricter than those provided in the literature and coincides with the definition of epistemic modality. In this work we will thus speak of modality and epistemic modality without distinction. When the latter term is used, it will be only to respect the terminological tradition, which has been firmly established by Lyons's (1977) and Palmer's (1986) analyses.

A TYPOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF EPISTEMIC SYSTEMS 1. Parameters In the previous chapter the notional properties of modality have been defined. In this section, the features peculiar to Italian's structuring of its epistemic system will be studied. To define them more clearly, it is necessary to characterize them against a typological background. In this preliminary chapter, by updating and revisiting in the light of more recent studies the proposal for the typological classification of epistemic systems sketched by Palmer (1986), five typological parameters will be distinguished, useful for designing a typological background of this kind. 2. Specific vs. parasitic markers A first parameter of typological variation distinguishes between languages that have markers expressing epistemic modality exclusively, and languages that use for the expression of epistemic modality markers whose central meaning is something else. There are a few languages which have specific markers for epistemic modality. For example, Hixkaryana (Carib) has an intensifier particle ha, which, accordingtoDerbyshire(1985:127 quoted in Van Valin and LaPolla, 1997: 44) "functions primarly to express the attitude or relationship of the speaker to what he is saying" This particle can co-occur with other particles, yielding different modal and evidential meanings: (1)

Ton ha-ti Waraka 3SG.go INTS-REP Waraka "They say Waraka has gone"; or "It is reported that Waraka has gone" (Derbyshire, 1985 - quoted in Van Valin and Lapolla, 1997: 44)

A TYPOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION (2)

41

Yaworo mikan ha-mi truly 2SG.say.3SG INTS-INFER "It is evident that you are telling the truth"

(Derbyshire, 1985 - quoted in Van Valin and Lapolla, 1997: 44)

(3)

Kana yanhnno ha-na fish 3SG.lift.3SG INTS-DUBIT "I doubt he caught any fish"

(Derbyshire, 1985 - quoted in Van Valin and Lapolla, 1997: 44)

(4)

Awanaworo nomokyaha ha-mphf tomorrow 3SG .come INTS-CERT "It is certain he will come tomorrow" (Derbyshire, 1985 - quoted in Van Valin and Lapolla, 1997: 44)

Serrano (Uto-Atzecan), as pointed out by Palmer (1986: 55), has a set of particles qualifying the validity of the proposition, among which there is a dubitative particle, ta. Except for these rare cases, epistemic modality is expressed by markers that do not have this specific function, but are also used to express other notions, and which will therefore be called "parasitic". These include: • • • • •

auxiliary or semi-auxiliary modal verbs, generally used also for the expression of deontic necessity and deontic possibility; verbal moods; verbal tenses; clitics or non-affixed particles; complementizers.

We have seen in chapter 1 how the use of auxiliary or semi-auxiliary modal verbs with both an epistemic and a deontic meaning is widespread. They exist, for example, not only in Romance and Germanic languages, but also in Greek, Gaelic,Mandarin,andinsomevarietiesofcolloquial Arabic (see chapter 1 §2..1)

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

42

The verbal moods used for the expression of epistemic modality include the Latin potential subjunctive (5), the Homeric Greek subjunctive (6), and the Spanish dubitative subjunctive (7): (5)

Iam apsol-ut-os cense-as, pay.off-PTCP.SST-ACC.M.PL think-SUBJV.PRS.2SG Now quom inced-unt infector-es when come.inIND.PRS.3PL dyer-NOM.PL "You may think they are already paid off when in come the dyers" (Plauto,Aulularia,520 -quoted in Palmer, 1986:66)

(6)

ovk àv TOI xpatofi. NEG DUBIT 2SG.DAT be.o..USe.SUBJV.PRS.3SG Kidapiç[...] óV èv KovírjúL \iiyEir\c lyre when in dust, DAT.PL mix.PASS.A0R.2SG "Your lyre will be of no use to you when you are mixed with the dust" (Homer, Iliad, 3, 53-55)

(7)

Quizás veng-an mañana maybe come-suBJV.PRS.3PL tomorrow "Maybe they will come tomorrow" (Hengeveld, 1988: 256)

An example of verbal tense used as an epistemic marker is the epistemic future. This type is widespread in Latin (Brambilla Ageno, 1965), in Romance languages (Fleischman, 1982, among others), in English (Palmer, 1986: 216), in German (Mortelmans, 2001, among others), but also in non- Indo-European languages such as Abkhaz (Caucasian) (Palmer, 1986: 217), Swahili (Heine et al, 1991, quoted in Sabbadini, 1996). An Italian example of this form is in (8).

A TYPOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION (8)

43

Michele a quest' or-a sar-à già Michele to PROX. F.SG hour-SG be-IND.FUT.3SG already in uffici-o in office-M.SG "Michele must already be in his office at this time" (Cp)

When not expressed in the verbal inflection, epistemic modality can be expressed through clitics and non affixed particles. Some Germanic languages, such as German, Dutch, Frisian, and the Mainland Scandinavian languages present a number of modal particles whose grammatical status is proved by the fact that they have a restricted linear position (Abraham, 1991: 331). Some of these particles have epistemic meanings. An example from Norwegian is in (9). (9)

Jeg er nok sikkert lSG.NOM be.PRS quite CERT "Quite surely. I am very tired"

veldig very

trett tired.SG

(Abraham, 1991:331)

Epistemic particles can be found in non-Indo-European languages as well. Lango and Acholi, two Western Nilotic languages, for example, have a particle myero (which has an alternative form omyero), which marks not only deontic, but also epistemic necessity (Bavin, 1995: 214): (10)

Omyero gin gu-cit ka-dwar NECESS 3PL 3PL-go PROGR-hunt "They must have gone hunting"

(Bavin, 1995: 124)

Ngiyambaa, an Australian language, has a set of particles that always occur in the so-called topic position, i.e. on the first word in the sentence. Some of them have an epistemic meaning: (11)

nadhangaa-lu guya believed.true-3ERG fish.ABS "I think she caught a fish"

mamiyi catch.PST (Donaldson, 1980 -quoted in Palmer, 1986:49)

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

44 (12)

yama-gaa dhuru miŋga-dhi DUBIT-IGN snake.ABS burrow-ClRC gucuga-nha-ba be.in-PRS-suBJV "I wonder whether there is a snake in the burrow" (Donaldson, 1980 -quoted in Palmer, 1986: 49)

This language also has a set of clitics, some of which have an epistemic value: (13)

miniaŋ-gaa-dhu

dha-yi

wha..ABS-IGN-lNOM

eat-PST

"You ate something, I do not know what"

(Donaldson, 1980 -quoted in Palmer, 1986: 48)

Huichol (Uto-Atezecan) too has some forms that can be described as modal particles. For example: tietA (perhaps", 'It must be that"), kauka (possibly", "it seems that")zakaa t^ma ("oh that",'Would that")kauka z^ari ("most definitely not'XGrimes, 1964, quoted in Palmer, 1986: 46>Palmer, however, considers the grammatical status of these particles as uncertain, perhaps merely comparable to a lexical set of adverbs. In some languages complementizers as well, can function as epistemic markers. According to Frajzyngier (1991), the focal function of complementizers is actually a modal function (which has been diachronically eroded in many languages). Japanese, for example, has three complementizers: no, koto, to. In many cases the choice among the three forms is determined by the verb of the matrix clause. In the contexts where the choice is not determined, to indicates that the speaker does not believe in the truth of the proposition represented in the complement. By contrast, neither no or koto has this modal value:

A TYPOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION

45

(14)

John wa Mary ga sin-da to sinzi-na-katta COMP believe-NEG-PST John TOP Mary SUBJ die-PST "John did not believe that Mary was dead" (she might or might not have been) (Kuno, 1973: 216 -quoted in Palmer, 1986: 148)

(15)

Joh wa Mary ga sin-da koto o John TOP Mary SUBJ die-PST COMP OBJ sinzi-na-katta believe-NEG-PST "John did not believe that Mary was dead" (she was) (Kuno, 1973: 216 -quoted in Palmer, 1986: 148)

In Jacaltec (Mayan) different complementizers can mark different degrees of certainty. For example, the complementizer chubil indicates that the speaker strongly believes in the truth of the proposition in the complement, while the complementizer tato "is used with complements about which there is some reservation on the part of the speaker or even outright disbelief' (Noonan, 1985: 48): (16)

Xal naj chubil chuluj naj presidente said ART COMP will.come ART president "He said that the president would come" (and I believe that) (Craig, 1977 -quoted in Noonan, 1985:48)

(17)

Xal naj tato chuluj naj presidente said ART COMP will.come ART president "He said that the president would come" (but I have my doubts about that) (Craig, 1977 -quoted in Noonan, 1985:48)

In Kinya Ruanda, a Bantu language, there are three complementizers: ko, ngo, kongo. Ko indicates the epeaker's seutral attitude with respect tt the truth of the complement, while ngo and kongo indicate that the speaker doubts the

46

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

truth of the complement (on the basis of some direct and indirect evidential justification, respectively) (Givón, 1982: 30): ko azaaza (18) yavuze he.PST.say that he.FUT.come "He said that he'd come" (19)

(20)

yavuzu ngo azaaza he.PST.say that he.FUT.come "He said that he'd come" (but I doubt it)

(Givón, 1982: 30)

(Givón, 1982: 30)

yavuze kongo azaaza he.PST.say that he.FUT.come "He said that he'd come" (but I have indirect evidence which makes me doubt it) (Givón, 1982: 30)

In addition, KinyaRwandahasacomplementizer-miibamarkingthe speaker's genuine (i.e. not evidentially supported) uncertainty about the truth of the complement clause (Givón, 1982: 30). In some Slavic languages as well, there are complementizers that can have an epistemic meaning. Jakobson (1957), for example, reports their presence in Russian. Frajzyngier shows that the Polish construction ni-by - formed by the epistemic marker ni and the irrealis enclitic by, always occurring in clause-initial position, i.e. in the typical position of Polish complementizers - expresses the speaker's doubt about the truth of the proposition: (21)

Ni-by byl w Warszawie COMP be.3M.SG.PFV LOC Warsaw.DAT "Apparently he was in Warsaw" (Frajzyngier, 1995:495)

This complementizer can co-occur with the de dicto complementizer (see Chapter 8 §4) ze and introduce complements whose truth is put forward as uncertain by the speaker:

A TYPOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION (22)

47

Powiedzial ze ni-by był say.PFV.PST.3SG COMP COMP be.3M.SG.PFV w Warszawie LOC Warsaw.DAT "He said that he was in Warsaw" (I have my doubts about it) (Frajzyngier, 1995:496)

3. One form vs. degrees ofcertainty A second parameter of typological variation opposes languages that have just one marker of epistemic modality and languages that specify the degree of commitment of the speaker through distinctions among several markers. Abkhaz, Tajik, Turkish (Palmer, 1986: 56-7), and Modern Western Armenian (Donabédian, 2001:422)have just one marker that generally indicates that the propositional content of the utterance belongs to the speaker's belief domain, without specifying either to what extent the speaker subscribes to the truth of the modalized proposition, or whether the speaker's opinion is genuinely epistemic or based on some evidence. In most cases, languages do specify the speaker's degree of commitment. Palmer (1986: 57) distinguishes between "strong" and "weak" epistemic markers: the former correspond to epistemic necessity markers, the latter to epistemic possibility markers. Indeed, some languages make much more subtle distinctions: Jaquaru, an Ayamaran language, distinguishes eight degrees of certainty through the following suffixes-qa -qilli, -psa, -psilli,-ja, -jttlli, -jashi, ashi.which also mark evidential distinctions (Anderson, 1986:292). 4. Genuine epistemiciiy vs. .nferential evidentiality A third parameter of typological variation opposes languages that distinguish between genuine epistemic modality and inferential evidentiality and languages that do not make such a distinction. In the literature this opposition is referred to with the distinction between "confidence" and "inference" (Coates, 1983). Among the languages that distinguish between confidence and inference, Palmer (1986: 65) includes Hixkaryana. This language has a "non-past uncertain" form of the verb which assumes a genuine epistemic meaning when cooccurring with the only intensive modal particle ha The same form acquires an evidential meaning when it is followed by ha plus other particles:

48

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

(23)

(24)

Nomokyan ha he.come.N-SSTUNC INTS "He must certainly come"

nomokyan he.come.N-PSTUNC "He may come"

(Derbyshire, 1979 -quoted in Palmer, 1986: 65)

ha-mi INTS-INF

(Derbyshire, 1979 -quoted in Palmer, 1986: 65)

According to Coates (1983), it is possible to find traces of the distinction between confidence and inference in English as well: she suggests, for example, that the modal may should be considered as a confidence modal, whereas the modal must is an inference modal (see chapter 4 §4). 5. Reportive, modalized and complex evidential systems Plungian (2001) proposes an interesting typology of evidential systems that can shed new light on the typological classification ofepistemic systems. He shows that not all languages have a correspondence between the epistemic and the evidential scale (the former distinguishing strong and weak degrees of certainty, the latter distinguishing direct and indirect evidence),26 but he also provides useful insights concerning the properties of the languages that do have a correspondence of this kind. Plungian claims that reported evidence, usually considered as a sub-type of indirect evidence (see chapter 1 §2.5), must have at the logical level a position distinct from other types of indirect evidence. All kinds of reportives (secondhand, third-hand, folklore), in fact, are the "only evidential values which refer to a true mediated knowledge" (Plungian, 2001: 353). In all other cases the speaker has personal access, direct or indirect, to the evidential sources. Indeed, direct sensory evidentially indicates that the speaker has personally perceived a state of affairs, and indirect inferential evidentiality indicates that the speaker has personally inferred the likelihood of a state of affairs. By contrast, reported evidentiality indicates that there has been a mediation (represented by another person) between the speaker and his knowledge of a state of affairs Plungian thus suggests classifying evidential values on the basis of not only the parameter of directness, but also the parameter of the speaker's involvement. This logically distinguí hes between direct and indirect evidence and between

A TYPOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION

49

mediated, i.e. reported, and non-mediated evidence. Once this parameter has been taken into account, it is possible to distinguish, according to Plungian, three types of evidential systems: (i) those represented by languages that make a distinction between reported and non-reported evidence, by marking the former (e.g. Lezgian, Latvian, Quechua); (ii) those represented by languages that make a distinction between direct and indirect evidence (e.g. Balkan, Caucasian or Ob-Ugrian languages); (iii) those represented by languages that present all possible distinctions, that is languages marking the distinction both between direct and indirect evidence and between reported and non reported evidence (some Tibetan, Samoyedic, and California Indian languages). Languages of the second type usually do not distinguish between reported and inferential indirect evidence. In other words, they present a generic marker of indirect evidence, which often assumes an epistemic meaning, due to the fact that in these languages the equation "more indirect is less reliable" occurs more easily. For the sake of brevity, these three typological systems will be labelled reportive, modalized and complex systems, respectively. As evidentiality and epistemicity are contiguous and sometimes overlapping notions, the typological characterization of the evidential system of a language can provide useful insights about the structure of its epistemic domain (see chapter 4 §5). 6. Degrees of performativity It was shown in chapter 1 (§4) that performativity, metapropositionality, and genuine epistemicity are definitely functional properties of epistemic modality. Each of these properties has syntactic correlates that are generally ascribed in the literature to the "subjectivity" of epistemic modality A list of these correlates would comprise: (i) the absence of a temporal inflection of modal forms marking past-time judgements about the truth of a proposition (Halliday, 1970 (1976), Palmer, 1986), Hengeveld, 1988). Palmer (1986: 60) writes on this subject: "May have and must have occur, but make present time judgements about past events". (ii) the agrammaticality of modalized propositions occurring in conditional protases (Lyons, 1977, Hengeveld, 1988):

50

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

(25)

*If possibly John will come, I am going home (Hengeveld, 1988: 236)

(iii) the agrammaticality of modalized propositions occurring in interrogatives (Jackendoff, 1972, Bellert, 1977): (26)

*Did Frank probably beat all his opponents?

(27)

*Who certainly finished eating dinner?

(Jackendoff, 1972: 84)

(iv) the fact that epistemic forms tend to occupy more external positions than deontic forms (Lyons, 1977, Foley and Van Valin, 1984, VanValin and Lapolla, 1997, Cinque, 1999): vs.

(28)

Evidently, it is possible for little green men to live on the moon

(29)

*It is possible for little green men to live evidently on the moon (Foley and Van Valin, 1984: 219)

(v) the fact that several languages do not present epistemic markers in the first and second persons, which means that states and activities concerning the actors of the speech situation are considered as excluded from the epistemic judgement. Examples of this phenomenon have been found in Sherpa, which does not have evidential markers in the first and second persons (Givón, 1984 (2001: 338)); in the many languages that do not accept evidential marking in the first person of endophatic verbs (Lazard, 2001: 363); in Nambiquara, a Brazilian language, which excludes the deductive marker from the first person (Palmer, 1986: 222); in Tuyuca, where the observational evidential has no form for the first person (Palmer, 1986: 222). Except for the last one, which is, by the way, less frequently considered, these correlates are commonly conceived as universal. The idea underlying most studies in fact is that "subjectivity" is a universal defining property of modality exerting likewise universal pressures on the formal manifestations of modality. It may be claimed, on the contrary, that "subjectivity" too (a label that is not used here, since, as stated in chapter 1, we make a distinction between cor-

A TYPOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION

51

relates of metapropositionality, performativity, and genuine epistemicity) is parameterizable. In particular, while we must consider metapropositionality as a universal property (since it is a defining characteristic of epistemic modality), we will see that it is possible to distinguish between high performative and low performative languages.27 An interesting difference between Italian and English invites to consider that performativity as a parametrizable parameter. While, as Palmer claims, in English it is not possible to have past temporal forms referring to past judgements (which would be impeded by the performative nature of epistemic modality), this is quite possible in Italian. For example, in the following utterance a past modal verb {dovevano) marks a past tudgementt (30)

Dov-ev-ano ess-ere bell-e lo must-INDIIMPF-3PL be.INF beautffill-F.PL 3sG.ACC.M e vol-ev-o sap-ev-o knowIlNDIlMPF-3SG and want-IND.IMPF -1SG ved-er+le seeIINF+3PL.ACC.F "It was evident that they were beautiful, I knew that and I wanted to see them"

This point will be discussed thoroughly in chapter 6 §2. 7. Summary The list of parameters to be considered in the typological characterization of epistemic systems is summarized in table 5.

52

EPISTEMIC MODALITY 1 I Opposition between languages with specific forms and languages with parasitic forms 2

Opposition between languages with one epistemic form and languages distinguishing different degrees of certainty of the speaker

3

Opposition between languages that do distinguish and do not distinguish between genuine epistemicity and inferential evidence

4

5

Opposition between reportive, modalized and complex evidential systems

Distinction between more and less performative systems Table 5. Parameters for a typological characterization of epistemic systems

m. EPISTEMIC MODALITY IN ITALIAN 1 Introductory remarks In the previous chapters epistemic modality has been defined in its notional aspects and the typological background useful for the analysis has been sketched. In this chapter Italian epistemic modality will be defined in its formal aspects. This is a particularly tough task. Italian, in fact, unlike other languages (such as Serrano, Hixkaryana, see chapter 2 §2) has neither forms that specifically express epistemic modality, nor a class of clearly grammatical forms (such as the English modals) functioning, among other uses, as epistemic modality markers. Some approaches to the linguistic categorization problem would conclude that epistemic modality cannot be treated as a grammatical category in Italian. Let us take as an example Lazard (2001: 360), who, discussing the grammatical status of evidentiality, writes: a grammatical category, like any linguistic unit, has a signifiant and a signifié. The evidential may be said to be grammaticalized in a language when, in the grammatical system of this language, there are specific forms {signifiant) whose semantic-pragmatic content is basically a reference to the source of the information conveyed by the discourse. (Lazard, 2001: 360)

According to Lazard, in order to assume the status of grammatical category in a given language, a conceptual category must satisfy two conditions. Firstly, it must be conveyed by a specific form, i.e. a form whose central meaning is that of the conceptual category in question. Secondly, the form expressing mat conceptual category must be a grammatical form. Lazard also acknowledges that there are categories "on the way of grammaticalization". These are not represented by specific grammatical forms, but by grammatical forms whose central meaning is something else and which are occasionally used with the meaning of the conceptual category in question.28 A category expressed only by lexical markers, continues Lazard, cannot be considered as¡grammatical. Notwithstanding the elegance of its rigour, this strict approach will be rejected here. In fact, to accept it would lead to the paradoxical conclusion that a grammatical category of epistemic modality is almost non-existent. Languages expressing epistemic modality with specific forms are, in fact, very rare (see

54

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

chapter 2 §2). There are also two problems of definition, the first of which, highlighted by Dendale and Tasmowski (2001: 345), concerns the distinction between central and non-central meanings in grammatical forms. The majority of grammatical forms are polysemic: it is not always easy to decide which of their meanings should be considered as "central" (consider, for example, the longstanding debate on the central meaning of the future, which is modal according to many scholars and temporal, according to other authors - see chapter 9). The second problem concerns the attribution of a grammatical status to a linguistic form. As demonstrated by many studies (Givón,1979;Lehmann, 1985; Hopper and Traugott, 1993; Bybee et al, 1994), grammaticality is not a binary property. On the contrary, there exist continua on which linguistic forms are ordered by degree of grammaticality. In other words, the grammatical status of a category is not a natural property of it, but can only be assigned after linguistic analysis. In this chapter it will be shown that, although in Italian there are no grammatical epistemic forms strictu sensu (§2), if one is willing to take into account forms with a different central meaning and uses grammaticality scales (§3), it is possible to recognize, among the different forrns expressing epistemic modality, some that have more grammaticality than others (§4). Once these forms have been identified, it will possible to study how the oppositions obtaining between them specifically define the conceptual domain of epistemic modality in Italian (see chapter 4)According to Lazard, who follows Saussure on this subject, identifying these oppositions is the necessary condition for defining a real grammatical category as opposed to a merely conceptual category: It is appropriate to conceive of the universe of meanings as a multidimensional space, within which each language slices up its own categories in its own particular way. This space in itself is amorphous..., in the sense that the notions contained therein have no clear-cut boundaries prior to receiving linguistic expression. The boundaries are established only by the oppositions obtaining between linguistic units. (Lazard, 1999: 105)

2. Epistemic forms Italian has various forms for the expression of epistemic modality: •

The modal verbs dovere (must) and potere (can) used in their indicative or conditional forms in matrix clauses and in their subjunctive

EPISTEMIC MODALITY IN ITALIAN

55

(1)

E' così sensibil-e, dov-ev-a be.IND.PRS.3SG so sensitive-SG mustIlND.lMPF-3SG ess-ere davvero addolorat-o be-INF really grieved- M. SG "He is so sensitive. He must have been really sorry" (Re040202)

(2)

//

progett-o

di

spettacol-o, che

DEF.M.SG project-SG

of

show-SG

REL

dovr-ebbe intitol-ar+si must-COND.3SG entitledIlNF+MID.3SG "Cantastorie", non ha "Cantastorie" NEG haveIlND.PRS.3SG fìnanziator-i financer-PL "The project for the show that was supposed to be called "Cantastorie" has no financers" (Re211101) (3)

//

cerchi-o si

st-a

DEF.M.SG

circle-SG

Stay-IND.PRS.3SG

MID.3SG

chiud-endo. I luogh-i dove Bin Laden close-GER DEF.M.PL place-PL where Bin Laden può ess-ere sono canIND.PRS.3SG be-INF be. IND.PRS.3PL circoscritt-i a due. O è circumscribed-M.PL to two or be.IND.PRS.3SG in Afghanistan o è altrove in Afghanistan or be.IND.PRS.3sG elsewhere "The circle is closing. There are only two places where Bin Laden can be. Either he is in Afghanistan or elsewhere" (Rel51201)

56

EPISTEMIC MODALITY (4)

Quattordici person-e manc-ano a-ll' Fourteen person-PL missIND.PRS.3PL to-DEF.M.SG appell-o potr-ebbero essere ferit-e appeal-SG can-C0ND.3PL be.INF wounded-F.PL and vag-are ancora ne-lla campagn-a in-DEF.F.SG country-SG wander-INF still circostant-e surrounding-SG "There are fourteen people missing. They may be wounded and still wandering in the neighbouring country" (Re211101)

(5)

che un-a Cred-o BelieveIIND.PRS.lSG that INDEF-F.SG Mirafiori poss-a ess-ere Mirafiori can-SBJV.PRS.3sG be-INF "I believe that a visit to Mirafiori can be useful"

visit-a a visit-SG to util-e useful-SG (Di301101)

(6) Mi immagin-o che voi Sheikh INTS.SG immagineIIND.PRS.lSG that 2PL Sheikh dobb-iate ess-ere stuf-i di mus--SBJV.PRS.2PL be-iNF fed.up-M.PL of insegn-are un giorn-o sì e uno no! teach-INF one day-SG yes and one no "I imagine that you, Sheikh, must be fed up with teaching every (Int) other day" •

Epistemic uses of verbal tenses (epistemic future): (7) No! St-av-amo a Varese. E quindi No stay-INDIIMPF-IPL to Varese and thus avr-o fatt-o died ann-i haveIND.FUT-ISG do-PTCP.PST-M.SG ten year-PL "No! we were in Varese. And so I must have turned ten years old" (Fabrfoto)

EPISTEMIC MODALITY IN ITALIAN (8)

57

Sar-à

per

quest-o

che

il

be.IND.FUT-3SG

for

PROX-M.SG

that

DEF.M.SG

senator-e Berlinguer è senator-SG Berlinguer beIND.PRS.3SG piuttosto seccat-o quite irritated- M. SG "That must be why Senator Berlinguer is quite irritated" (Di301101) .

Epistemic adjectives modifying predicative nouns (e.g. presunto, "presumed", possibile "possible", probabile "probable"): (9) Amnesty International è preoccupat-a Amnesty International beIND.PRS.3SG concerned-F.SG da-lla possibil-e sparizion-e di from-DEF.F.SG possible-SG disappearance-SG of cittadin-i canades-i citizen-M.PL Canadian-PL "Amnesty International is concerned about the possible disappearance of Canadian citizens" (Int)

•

Epistemic sentence adverbs (e.g. certamente "certainly" sicuramente

"surely",indubbiamente "undoubtedly", probalimente "probably" pre-

sumibilmente "presumably", forse "perhaps'):

(10) Forse è difficil-e Perhaps be. IND.PRS.3SG difficult-SG rend-er+se+ne cont-o, render-IiNF+EFFL+DEM.GEN count-SG but è un omicidi-o be IND.PRS.3SG INDEF homicide-SG "Perhaps it is hard to realize that, but this is a homicide" (Ven9112001)

58

EPISTEMIC MODALITY (11) L' animal-e probabilmente DEF.M.SG animal-SG probably è già mort-o be. IND.PRS.3SG already dead-M.SG "The animal is probably already dead" •

(Int)

Epistemicverbs(e.g. dedurre'todeduce"credere'to belleve", ritenerr "to maintain", supporre "to suppose", presumere "to presume", immaginare "to imagine", pensare "to think", sembrare "to seem", parere " to appear", etc.), either followed by a sentence complement, as in (12) and in (13), or used parenthetically, as in (14) and (15): (12) Immagin-o che molt-e person-e ImmagineIIND.PRS.lSG that many-F.PL person-PL avr-anno poc-a familiarità con haveIND.FUT.3PL little-F.SG familiarity with le dimension-i de-ll' univers-o DEF.F.PL dimension-PL of-DEF.M.SG universe-SG "I imagine that many people are poorly acquainted with the dimensions of the Universe" (Int)

che st-av-a (13) No, no, pens-o No no thinkIND.PRS.lsG that stayINDIIMPF-3SG anche Ii, il diamant-e più grand-e also there DEF.M.SG diamond-SG more big-SG de-l mondo of-DEF.M.SG world "No, no I think the world's biggest diamond was there too" (Fabrfoto)

EPISTEMIC MODALITY IN ITALIAN (14)Quell-a si chiam-av-a DIST-F.SG MID.3SG call-INDIIMPF-3SG pens-o think-IND.PRS.lSG Her name was Angela, I think (15) Er-avamo a Venezia, be-IND.IMPF.1PL to Venice We were in Venice, I imagine .

59 Angela, Angela

(Fabrfoto)

immagin-o immagine-IND.PRS.lSG (Fabrfoto)

Epistemic adjectival constructions: (e.g. essere certo "to be certain", indubbio "to be undoubted", probablle "to be probable", possible "to be possible"): (16) E' cert-o che oggi l' be.IND.PRS.3SG certain-M.SG that today DEF.F.SG unità nazional-e non è più unity national-SG NEG be. IND.PRS. 3SG more problem-a INDEF problem-SG "It is certain that today national unity is not a problem any longer" (Re30122001) (17) E' impossibil-e che beIND.PRS.3SG impossibile-SG that INDEF anzian-o ricev-a così elderly.person-M.SG receive-SBJV.PRS.3SG so tant-a post-a much-F.SG mail-SG "It is impossible that an elderly person receive so much mail"

•

Epistemic syntagmatic constructions (e.g. può darsi - lit. 'it can be given";mi sa-lit.'it is known to me"; mi pare-lit. "it appears to me"; secondo me - lit. "according to me". And in spoken Italian: si vede lit.'bne sees"; capace che - lit.'capable that"), which can be either fol-

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

60

lowed by a sentence complement, as in (18), (19)and(20)or used parenthetically, as in (21) and (22): (18) Può d-ar+si che can.IND.PRS.3SG giveIINF+PASS.3SG that si-a be.SBJV.PRS-3SG INDEF accident-SG "It may be just an accident" (Mimandarai150101) (19) Si ved-e che ha IMPR see-IND.PRS.3SG that haveIND.PRS.3SG fatt-o tardi e si do.PTCP.PST-M.SG late andMID.3sg vergogn-av-a a dir+lo be.ashamedINDIIMPF-3SG to say. INF+3SG.M "Probably he was late and he was ashamed to tell you" (Cp) che non c' er-a (20) Capac-e capable-SG that not there be.IND.IMPF-3SG più post-o more place-SG "Maybe there was no more availability" (Cp) (21) In in

quell-e

fo,o,

DIST-F.PL

photolSG.DAT

mi knowIIND.PRS.3SG

st-a tutt-a stay-IND.PRS.3sG whole-F.SG

la

there DEF.F.SG Turchia! Turkey "In those photos, I think, there is the whole of Turkey" (Fabrfoto)

EPISTEMIC MODALITY IN ITALIAN

61

(22) Secondo me, il miglior-e According lSG.OBL DEF.M.SG good.sup-M. SG è Gassman be. IND.PRS.3SG Gassman "In my opinion Gassman is the best" •

Epistemic utterances: (23) Ho un-a convinzion-e: Have.IND.PRS.1SG INDEF-F.SG convinction-SG un-a la cacci-a è DEF.F.SG hunt-SG be.IND.PRS.3SG INDEF-F.SG barbarie che v-a abol-it-a barbarity that go.IND.PRS-3SG abolish-PTCP.PST-F.SG "I feel very strongly that hunting is a barbarity that should be abolished" (Int)

•

The phonetic lengthening marking hesitation;

• Prosodic profiles distinguishing, for example between epistemic necessity and possibility. For example, differences in the prosodic profile distinguish between the two senses that the utterance starà a casa "it must be at home" has in (24) and in (25) respectively: (24) Starà a casa (ne sonosicuro) "He will be at home" (I am certain of that) (25) Starà a casa (forse) "He will be at home" (perhaps) 3. Grammaticality scales As mentioned in §1, Italian has neither specific markers for the expression of epistemic modality, nor a set of clearly grammatical forms, like the English modals, that are also used for the expression of this notion. Nevertheless, it is intuitively clear that some of the epistemic forms listed in §2 are more grammaticalized than others. In order to identify them, one cannot consider grammaticality as a binary property, but must resort to a tool

62

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

which has been elaborated in the last two decades within functional linguistics: the so-called grammaticality scales. Givón (1979: 208) has laid the theoretical premises for considering grammaticality as a property that can be displayed in different degrees. He has highlighted that "loose, paratactic, pragmatic" discourse structures develop over time into tight, "grammaticalized syntactic structures", which in turn may evolve into morphological, morphonemic, phonemic, and, finally, zero marks, following the now well-known schema: Discourse>Syntax>Morphology>Morphophonemics>Zero (Givón, 1979: 208) The more a form advances along this path the more it becomes "grammaticalized". Hoppper and Traugott (1993) have shown that the diachronic path of grammaticalization can also be conceived synchronically in terms of continua along which different forms can be classified according to their degree of grammaticality. At one end of the continuum there are "full, perhaps lexical forms", at the other end "reduced, perhaps grammatical forms" (Hopper and Traugott, 1993: 7). This continuum, which Hopper and Traugott call "cline of grammaticality" can be represented as in the following figure Content item> Grammatical word>Clitic>Inflectional affix (Hopper and Traugott, 1993) Bybee and colleagues (1994) have designed a similar synchronic scale, which correlates the degree of grammaticality of a form with the degree of fusion of its units. At one end of this continuum there are syntactic constructions, at the other end the lexical unit: syntactic non-bound grams inflection derivation lexical ►

(Bybee et al, 1994: 40) Lehmann (1985) identifies six criteria of grammaticality, which provide an effective synthesis of the aforementioned scales, flexible enough to be fruitfully employed to describe the complexity and weakness of epistemic modality's grammaticality. Lehmann (1985: 306) maintains that "the grammaticalization of a sign detracts from its autonomy.. The autonomy of a unit can be

EPISTEMIC MODALITY IN ITALIAN

63

"measured" considering three aspects: its weight, its cohesion, and its variabil­ ity. The weight of a form is represented at the syntagmatic level by its scope, that is "the extent of the construction which it enters or it helps to form", at the paradigmatic level by its phonological and semantic integrity. Cohesion corresponds at the syntagmatic level to the degree of fusion of a form; that is, "the degree to which it depends on, or attaches to" other signs. At the paradigmatic level cohesion is to be interpreted in terms of integration, that is, "the degree to which it enters a paradigm, is integrated into and dependent on it". The variability of a form is represented at the syntagmatic level by its mobility, that is the possibility of "shifting it around in its construction", at the paradigmatic level by its obligatoriness, that is "the possibility of using other signs in its stead or of omitting it altogether" (Lehmann, 1985: 306). Lehmann summarizes these six criteria, as shown in table 6. We will follow Lehmann's suggestion and evaluate a form as more grammatical than another if: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v) (vi)

Weight Cohesion Variability

it enters or helps to form a less extended construction (scope criterion); it has undergone processes of phonological erosion or semantic bleaching (integrity criterion); it is integrated in a more restricted paradigm of options (integration criterion); it is dependent on or affixed to other units of its construction (fusion criterion); it cannot be replaced by another form or it must be obligatorily expressed; it is less mobile in its syntagmatic construction (mobility criterion). Paradigmatic

Syntagmatic

Integrity Integration Obligatoriness

Scope fusion mobility

Table 6 Criteria of grammaticality (drawn from Lehmann, 1985: 306, with some terminological adjustments)

64

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

4. Grammaticalizedepistemicforms Now that these six criteria of grammaticality have been identified, we can return to the Italian epistemic forms listed in §2, with the aim of ordering them by degree of grammaticality. It is not possible to deal here with the question of the grammaticality of the prosodic forms marking epistemicity, which would require other criteria and other types of investigations. Among the remaining markers of epistemicity, it is possible, nevertheless, to identify some that are undoubtedly nongrammaticalized: .hat ti spistemic ctterances, ,pistemic cyntagmatic constructions, epistemic adjectival constructions, epistemic verbs, epistemic sentence adverbs, and epistemic adjectives modifiers of predicative nouns. All these forms are both phonologically and semantically integer, they syntactically modify an entire clause30are not integrated in paradigms of options, are neither dependent on nor affixed to other units, are not obligatory and are characterized by syntagmatic mobility. Among the epistemic syntagmatic constructions it is possible to distinguish two groups differing in degree of grammaticality. Some constructions like può darsi, lit. "it can be given", mi sa, lit. "it is known to me" mi pare lit. "it appears to me", secondo me "according to me" are clearly not grammaticized. By contrast, epistemic constructions typical of the spoken register like capace che, lit. "it is capable that", and si vede che, lit. "one sees that ' are to be classified as grammatical, at least on the basis of the integrity criterion. These forms, in fact, have lost their etymological meaning and developed a generic epistemic meaning, as should be clear from the examination of the two following examples: (26)

Capac-e che me ne vad-o Capable-SG that MID.1SG INTS go-IND.PRS.lSG ne-ll' appartament-o de-i mi-ei in-DEF.M.SG apartmen--SG of-DEF.M.PL POSS.1SG-M.PL in montagn-a in mountain-SG "I may go to my parent's apartment in the mountains" (Int)

EPISTEMIC MODALITY IN ITALIAN (27)

65

Si

ved-e

che

non

IMPR

seeIIND.PRS-3sG

that

NEG have-INDIIMPF-3sG

av-ev-a

più voglì-a di mangi-are more wish-SG of eat-INF "(I) see he did not feel like eating any more" (Cp) In these two utterances, the form capace che does not describe an ability but an epistemic possibility, while the form ,si vede che does not describe an event of visual perception, but the speaker's confidence about the truth of the propositional content These forms have been eroded at the phonological level as well. In fact, as the following examples show, they cannot be inflected, which proves their fixity: (28)

E' capac-e beIIND.PRS.3SG capable-SG stanc-o tired-M.SG "You may be tired"

(29)

*Er-a be.IND.IMPF-3SG

(30)

Capac-e che capable-SG that "You may be tired"

(31)

*Capac-i che sono capable-PL that beIND.PRS.3PL "They may be tired"

(32)

Si ved-e che sei IMPR seeIND.PRS.3SG that beIND.PRS.2SG "(I) see you are tired"

che that

sei be.IND.PRS.2SG

capac-e che capable-SG that stanc-o beIND.IMPF-2SG tired- M. SG "You may have been tired" sei stanc-o be. IND.PRS.2SG tired- M. SG

stanch-i tired-M.PL

stanc-o tired-M.SG

66

EPISTEMIC MODALITY (33)

*Si ved-ev-a che er-i stanc-o IMPR see-IND.IMPF-3sG that be. IND.IMPF-2SG tired- M. SG "(I) saw you were tired"

Modal verbs and epistemic future prove to be more grammaticalized. In fact, albeit none of these forms are obligatorily used in the expression of epistemic modality, all of them have eroded phonological and semantic integrity, narrow syntactic scope, and a high degree of fusion. In addition, they are all integrated in a paradigm and are not characterized by syntagmatic mobility. The semantic erosion of these forms is proved by the loss of their etymological meanings (i.e. the deontic for the modals and the temporal for the future), and their eroded phonological integrity is testified both by the constraints operating on the modal inflection and by the affixation of the future. The fact that all these forms are modifiers of the verb is evidence of their narrow syntactic scope. The affixation of the future and the fixed preverbal position of the modals prove both their high degree of fusion and their syntagmatic immobility. The fact that if one wants to express epistemic modality by a modification of the predicate, one is obliged to choose one of these forms, is evidence of their paradigmatic integration. Table 7 represents the scale of grammaticality of Italian epistemic forms. In the first line the Italian epistemic forms are ordered by degree of grammatical--y, in the second line the criteria of grammaticality to which each of these forms responds are indicated.

EPISTEMIC MODALITY IN ITALIAN

67

-grammatical

+grammatical

epistemic utterances epistemic verbs epistemic adjectives epistemic sentence adverbs > adjectival epistemic constructions epistemic syntagmatic constructions

constructions si vede che capaceche (integrity)

>

modal verbs epistemic future (integrity) (scope) (fusion) (integration) (mobility)

Table 7 Scale of grammaticaliy of Italian epistemic forms

To sum up, although Italian does not have either specific forms for the expression of epistemic modality or a set of clearly grammatical forms that are also used for the expression of this notion, it is possible to identify a set of epistemic forms more grammaticalized than others: the epistemic future and the indicative and the conditional (and the subjunctive, in subordinate clauses) forms of the modal verbs dovere "must" and potere "can". It is also worth mentioning that the syntagmatic constructions si vede che lit"onesees that"-and capace che-lit"'tapable that"-display a certain degree of grammaticalization. The construction capace che is not isolated in Romance languages. Oliveira, for instance, mentions the Portuguese ser capaz de: (34)

Ele è capaz 3SG.M beIND.PRS.3SG capable amanhä tomorrow "He may arrive tomorrow"

de of

cheg-ar arrive-INF

(Oliveira, 2001:171)

Both the construction si vede che and the construction dice che lit. "(s)he says that" occurring in utterances like (35), prove the fact that Italian tends (albeit weakly) to grammaticalize evidential forms and to use them with an epistemic meaning.31

68

EPISTEMIC MODALITY (35)

Dic-e che da domani ricominci-a SayIIND.PRS.3SG that from tomorrow restart-IND.PRS.3SG a piov-ere to rain-INF "Apparently it will rain again from tomorrow" (Cp)

A similar process has been noticed in English as well. Givón (1984 (2001: 366)), for example, mentions the following examples: (36) (37) (38) (39)

(I) See he's left (I) reckon they're out of business I hear she's coming tomorrow I understand she's here

Anderson (1986: 285) has shown that in many languages that have grammaticized specific forms for the expression of evidentiality (Maricopa, Patwin, Wintun, Maka), these forms evolve from the phonological and semantic erosion of either perception or saying verbs, going a step further along the path followed by Italian and English forms. Bearing in mind this drift will prove particularly useful when we examine the relationship between epistemic modality and evidentiality in Italian (see chapter 5). 5. Summary At this stage of our work, we can provide a comprehensive definition of the object of the present analysis. Italian epistemic modality is the performative and metapropositional category expressing the speaker's genuine opinion about the truth of the modalized proposition, which is conveyed either by the epistemic future or by the indicative and conditional forms (in matrix clauses) and by the subjunctive forms (in subordinate clauses) of the modal verbs dovere and po­ tere.

IV. SEMANTIC OPPOSITIONS 1. Introductory remarks In the previous chapter we have seen that Italian has five markers of epistemic modality that can be considered as grammaticized (at least to an extent): the indicative and conditional forms ofpotere, the indicative and conditional forms of dovere and the epistemic future.32 Thus, to epidemically modalize the following proposition: (1)

[Gianni essere33 a casa] [Gianni to be at home]

it is possible to resort to one of the following forms: (2)

(3)

(4)

Gianni dev-e ess-ere Gianni mus-IND.PRS. 3SG be-INF "Gianni must be at home" Gianni dovr-ebbe ess-ere Gianni must-COND. 3SG be-iNF "Gianni should be at home" Gianni Gianni

può ess-ere canIND.PRS.3SG be-iNF

a to

cas-a house-SG

a to

cas-a house-SG

a to

cas-a house-SG

a to

cas-a house-SG

"Gianni may be at home" (5)

Gianni Gianni

potr-ebbe can-COND.3SG

ess-ere be-iNF

"Gianni could be at home" (6)

Gianni sar-à a Gianni beIND.FUT.3SG to "Gianni will be at home"

cas-a house-SG

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

70

This chapter studies the semantic oppositions holding between these forms with the aim of describing the features peculiar to Italian's structuring of its epistemic domain. It will emerge that this domain is structured around three axes: the gradation of certainty, the opposition between pre-eminently deontic andpre-eminentlyepistemicmeanings,andtheopposition between preeminently epistemic/evidential and genuinely epistemic meanings. This examination will be particularly useful for characterizing the relationship between genuine epistemic modality and evidentiality in Italian. Moreover, it will provide useful insights for reconstructing the rise of epistemic meanings in Italian (see chapter 9). 2. Degrees of certainty 2.1 DEVE "must" 's. PUÔ "canIt is intuitively clear that Italian is one of those languages that distinguish different degrees of certainty (see chapter 2 §3). The forms represented by the modal dovere "must" and the modal potere "can" are in opposition along the +/certain axis. Dovere conveys epistemic necessity, that is a strong judgement, whereas potere conveys epistemic possibility, that is a weak judgment. According to Sabbadini (1996: 147-8), the epistemic future too would find a place along this scale of certainty, being analysable as a medium degree judgement. Actually, two facts discourage us from embracing a hypothesis of this kind. Firstly,as already shown by Bertinetto (1979), the Italian epistemic future cooccurs both with hedges, marking a weak judgement, as in examples (7) and (8), and with intensifies marking a strong judgement, as in examples 9 and (7)

St-ar-ai sorrid-endo stupit-a, stayIIND.FUT-2SG smile- GER surprised- F.SG immagin-o imagineIND.PRS.1SG "You must be smiling surprised, I imagine"

(Int)

SEMANTIC OPPOSITIONS

(8)

A:

Che or-a

è?

INT

be.IND.PRS.3SG

hour-SG

"What time is it?" B: Sar-anno beIIND.FUT.3PL

71

le DEF.F.PL

otto e mezz-a, immagin-o eight and half-F imagineIND.PRS.lSG "It must be eight thirty, I guess"

(Cp)

(9)

Chi gestisce un sito web commerciale o di altro genere che coinvolga un certo numero di utenti si sarà certamente posto il pro­ blema delfeedback e del contatto con il cliente "Anyone who manages a business (or other genre) web site directed to a certain number of users, must certainly have asked himself [REFL.3SG beIND.FUT.3SG certainly pu..PTCP.PST.M.SG] the question of how to get feedback and contact the client". (Int)

(10)

Questa operazione può forse avere un senso dal punto di vista spettacolare. Lo avrà avuto senz'altro per coloro che hanno assii stito in diretta alle tre performances del 26 giugno 1995 al We­ stergasfabriek di Amsterdam. "This operation might make sense for its value as spectacle. It certainly must have made [haveIND.FUT.3sG have.PTCP.PST.M.SG without other.M.SG] sense for those who attended the three live performancesonJune26 th 1995atAmsterdam'sWestergasfabriek". (Int)

Secondly, as shown in chapter 3, distinctions in the prosodic profile force us to interpret the same utterance modalized through an epistemic future marker both as a strong judgement and as a weak judgement. For instance, the utterance in (11) can assume either the meaning in (12) or that in (13), depending on the prosodic profile:

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

72 (11)

Star-à a StayIND.FUT-3sG to "(S)he must be at home"

(12)

Star-à a cas-a, immagin-o Stay. IND.FUT-3SG to house-SG imagineIND.PRS.lSG "(S)he must be at home, I think"

(13)

Star-à StayIND.FUT-3SG DEM.GEN

a to

cas-a house-SG

cas-a, house-SG sicur-o

be.IND.PRS.1SG

"He must be at home, I am sure"

Sure- M. SG

These examples show that the epistemic future, rather than a medium degree judgement, should be considered as a form unmarked for degree of certainty, which can convey, depending on context, either strong or weak judgements. Sabbadini's hypothesis and the attempt to find a place for this form along the certainty axis should therefore be rejected. For the moment the epistemic future will be excluded from this examination. We will return to this form in §4.3. The analysis so far leads us to represent the oppositions in the degree of certainty between Italian epistemic forms as summarized in table 8. DEVE 34

PUO'

+certain

DOVREBBE

,r

POTREBBE

,,

-certain

Table 8. Oppositions in degree of certainty

2.2 Degrees of certainty and inference conditions. DEVE «must» vs. DOVREBBE "should" It might seem trivial to oppose on a certainty scale the indicative forms of do­ vere and potere and the conditional forms of dovere and potere. It is however less trivial to investigate whether these forms can be disposed vertically along the same certainty scale, in other words, whether, for example, DOVREBBE ex-

SEMANTIC OPPOSITIONS

73

presses a weaker judgement compared to DEVE or a stronger judgement compared to POTREBBE and PUÒ. In an important essay on Italian modal verbs, Simone and Amacker (1977: 64-65) have written in this connection that epistemic modality is "a simple system of the kind all-or-nothing, which, in other terms, can either be switched on or switched off, but which cannot be attributed degrees". In other terms, according to Simone and Amacker, even if epistemic markers are accumulated, the "semantics of the modal operator" does not change. Let us take as an example the sentence: (14)

Carlo dev-e Carlo must-IND.PRS.3SG incontr-at-o Giulia meet-PTCP.PST-M.SG Giulia "Carlo must have met Giulia"

have-INF

This sentence does not express a weaker degree of certainty than (15) or (16): (15)

Carlo dev-e forse Carlo must-IND.PRS.3SG perhaps incontr-at-o Giulia mee--PTCP.PST-M.SG Giulia "Carlo must have met Giulia, perhaps"

(16)

Carlo dovr-a forse Carlo mustIND.FUT.3SG perhaps incontr-at-o Giulia mee--PTCP.PST-M.SG Giulia "Carlo may have met Giulia, perhaps"

have-INF

have-iNF

This is true, notwithstanding the fact that (14) has only one epistemic marker (i.e. the modal dovere), (15) has two epistemic markers (i.e. the modal dovere and the hedge forse "perhaps" and (16) has three epistemic markers (i.e. the modal dovere, the hedge forse and the epistemic future). Simone and Amacker's point seems convincing. According to this view, the conditional forms of the modals - provided that conditional morphemes are to be considered as epistemic markers - do not change the degree of certainty of indicative forms. This clashes, however, with the intuition that DOVREBBE at least contributes to weakening the degree of certainty of the epistemic evaluation ex-

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

74

pressed by DEVE. In this section the validity of this intuition will be demonstrate, by characterizing the semantic properties of conditionals, with the aim of understanding what conditional morphemes add to the semantics of modals. It will be shown that DOVREBBE contributes to weakening the degree of certainty of the indicative forms of the modal, not directly as an epistemic marker, but indirectly as a marker of conditioned necessity. The analysis will provide indications useful for ordering PUÒ, DEVE and DOVREBBE on the certainty scale. Inordertocharacterize the semantic opposition between DEVE and DOVREBBE, let us try to imagine contexts admitting the former and excluding the latter and vice-versa. Let us take a scenario in which we do not have direct control on the occurrence of an event, but are asked nevertheless to state our degree of confidence in the probability of such an event occuring. Let us imagine that we are in the middle of a crowd waiting for Clint Eastwood to come out from his hotel and that Eastwood's exit follows the exit of other stars. If we have objective knowledge allowing us to infer the certainty of Eastwood's exit (for example, all the other stars have already come out and Eastwood is the last one expected, or, according to a strict schedule, Eastwood must come out right now) we can only legitimately say: (17)

Oradev-e usc-ire Clint go.out-INF Clint Now must-IND.PRS.3SG "Clint Eastwood must come out now"

Eastwood Eastwood

In this context we cannot say: (18)

#350ra dovr-ebbe use-ire Clint Eastwood Now mus--C0ND.3SG go.out-lNF Clint Eastwood "Clint Eastwood should come out now"

A proposition thus can only be modalized by DEVE in those contexts where the speaker has objective knowledge allowing to infer the certainty of the proposition. Such contexts exclude the use of DOVREBBE. Now, the question arises in what contexts we can use the form DOVREBBE and legitimately say:

SEMANTIC OPPOSITIONS (19)

75

Ora dovr-ebbe usc-ire Clint Eastwood Now must-COND.3SG go.out-INF Clint Eastwood "Clint Eastwood should come out now"

Since DOVREBBE is composed by DEVE - which we have already examined and the conditional morpheme, a rapid analysis of the semantic contribution of the conditional morpheme will help to characterize the peculiarities of DOVREBBE as compared to DEVE. Puglielli and Ciliberti (1973: 266) have shown that the occurrence of a conditional in a proposition Y indicates two things: (i) the truth value of Y is dependent on the truth value of another proposition X;36 (ii) the speaker cannot verify the truth value of Y. The proposition X is usually represented in the protasis of conditional constructions. When a conditional is used in simple sentences, as in (20), the implicans is not represented in the surface: (20)

Anna verr-ebbe a-lle cinque Anna come-COND.3sG to.DEF.F.PL five "Anna would come at five"

Nevertheless, in these cases too, according to Puglielli and Ciliberti, it is possible to claim that the conditional proposition is dependent on conditions (which the speaker has not verified) that, once verified, would make it true.37 Since (19) is a simple sentence the question arises, "what are in (19) the implicit and unverified conditions that, once verified, would allow us to infer the certainty of Clint Eastwood's exit?". It is sufficient to imagine a context where we lack objective knowledge to infer the certainty of Eastwood's exit and where, nevertheless, we have some uncertain knowledge, which, once verified, would allow us to infer the certainty of Eastwood's exit (for example, Eastwood's exit is scheduled now, or all the actors have come out andw have some evidence for thinking that the stars come out by categories or again, Eastwood's personal manager's friend informed us that Eastwood would come out at this time) In these cases we are subjecting to the condition that the event x really occurs (x= the schedule is met the stars really come out by category the personal manager's friend was in good faith) the inference of the certainty of Clint Eastwood's exit and we utter (19). In this context we cannot say: (21)

#Ora dev-e use-ire Clint Eastwood Now mus-IND.PRS.3SG go.out-lNF Clint Eastwood "Clint Eastwood must come out now"

76

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

To sum up, a proposition can be modalized with DOVREBBE only in those cases where the inference of its truth is based on an uncertain knowledge, which, once verified, makes the proposition necessarily true. In other terms, 38 DOVREBBE represents the expression of a conditioned necessity. It is worth noting that, from another standpoint, the expression of a conditioned necessity is equivalent to the expression of a probability. If one says that, if some conditions are met, then Y follows, one is also making a judgement on the probability that YoccursJndeed (19) can be paraphrased as in (22): (22)

Ora now

è probabil-e che be. IND.PRS. 3SG probabile-SG that Clint Eastwood go.out-suBJV.PRS.3sG Clint Eastwood "There is a probability that Clint Eastwood comes out now"39

That allows us to collocate DOVREBBE in the middle of the certainty scale, as summarized in table 9. In concluding this discussion on the degree of certainty of DOVREBBE, it should be noted that our observations do not clash with Simone and Amacker's claim that the accumulation of epistemic markers do not change the degree of (un)certainty of modal operators The conditional morpheme is not an epistemic marker per se. It merely indicates that the truth of the modal that it modifies holds in a world where certain conditions are met. That increases the degree of uncertainty of the modal only indirectly. DEVE DOVREBBE PUÒ'

+ certain r

-certain

Table 9. DOVREBBE in the middle of the certainty scale

3. The epistemic-deonttc axii 3.1 The asymmetry between dovere "muss" and potere,"can" It was shown in the previous section that the epistemic uses of dovere express an epistemic necessity (unconditioned in the case of DEVE, conditioned in the case of DOVREBBE), whereas the epistemic uses of potere express a possibility,

SEMANTIC OPPOSITIONS

77

in other terms, by definition, a lesser degree of certainty. One could therefore, be tempted to consider the relation between the indicative and the conditional of dovere exactly parallel to that between the indicative and the conditional of potere and, consequently, to order DEVE, DOVREBBE, PUÒ and POTREBBE from the top down on the same certainty scale. It must be noticed, however, that dovereandpotere display some semantic divergences that must be taken into account to grasp the differences between the conditional uses of the two forms. The distinction between epistemic and deontic uses of necessity is mostly evident. Parisi et al (1975: 246) have shown that the paraphrases of the deontic interpretation of dovere are neatly distinct from the paraphrases of its epistemic interpretation. So, the deontic utterance in (23) can be paraphrased as in (24): (23)

Franco dev-e usc-ire Franco must-IND.PRS.3SG go.out-lNF "Franco must go out"

(24)

[E'necessario che Franco esca] [It is necessary that Franco soes out] whereas the epistemic utterance in (25) cannot be paraphrased as in (26): (25) Dev-ono ess-ere le cinque Must-IND. PRS. 3PL-INF DEF.F.PL five "It should be five o'clock"

(26) *[E'necessario chesiano le cinque] *[It is necessary that it is five o'clock] By contrast, the paraphrases of the deontic interpretation of potere tend to overlap with the paraphrases of its epistemic interpretation. So, for example, the deontic utterance in (27) can be paraphrased as in (28): (27)

Franco può usc-ire Franco canIND.PRS.3SG go.out-lNF "Franco can go out"

78

EPISTEMIC MODALITY (28)

[E'possibile che Franco esca] [It is possible that Franco go out]

Similarly, the epistemic utterance in (29) can be paraphrased as in (30): (29)

Gianni può esser+si Gianni canIND.PRS.3sG be. INF+MID.3SG ferm-at-o Stop-PTCP.PST-M.SG "Gianni may have stopped"

(30)

[E'possible che Gianni si siafermato] [It is possibile that Gianni has stopped]

There is thus an overlapping zone between the deontic and the epistemic interpretation of the modal notion of possibility, which makes it frequently impossible to decide with certainty whether an utterance is to be interpreted deontically or epistemically. This feature of possibility modals is not peculiar to Italian. In English, for example, it has been already noticed by Leech (1971: 71) and Coates (1995). In particular, Coates (1995: 61-62) has shown that the expression of possibility is characterized by frequent cases of merger between the epistemic and the deontic interpretation, that is, cases where the receiver is not obliged to select one of the two possible interpretations, but can accept both at the same time. Cases of merger between the epistemic and the deontic interpretation of may are represented in the two following utterances: (31)

or the pollen may be taken from the stamens of one rose and transferred to the stigma of another

(32)

...the process of simplification...through which even forms and distinctions present in all the contributory dialects may be lost (Coates, 1995,62)

Cases of semantic merger are frequent also in the use of the Italian potere:

SEMANTIC OPPOSITIONS

79

(33)

Ma c'è anche un altro aspetto che ha destato molte perplessità: non poteva, questa, essere una buona opportunità per avere dati attendibüi sulla penetrazione dell'information technology nelle case degli italiani? "But there is also another aspect that has aroused great perplexity: could not this be [NEG canINDIMPF.3SG PROX.F.SG be.INF] a good opportunity to get reliable data on the incidence of information technology in Italian homes?" (Di301101)

(34)

E' I'altro potenziale esule della Rai del centrodestra. Può dirige­ re il canale in chiaro del nuovo polo se avrà un 'identità progressista. "He is the other potential exile from the Rai governed by the Right. He may direct [canIND.PRS.3SG direct.INF] the clear channel, if it has a progressive identity" (Re240802)

The epistemic uses of potere, are thus much more rooted in the deontic domain as compared to the epistemic uses of dovere. 3.2 PUÔ "can" "s. PPTREBBE "could" The asymmetry between dovere and potere discourages any attempt to compare the semantic relation holding between the conditional and the indicative uses of potere on the one hand, and the semantic relations between the conditional and the indicative uses of dovere on the other. Indeed, as we have seen in the previous section, while it is possible to interpret (35) as a conditioned necessity of Eastwood's exit, it is not possible to interpret (36) as a conditioned possibility of Eastwood's exit: (35)

Ora dovr-ebbe usc-ire Clint Eastwood now mus--C0ND.3sG go.out-INF Clint Eastwood "Clint Eastwood should come out now"

(36)

Ora potr-ebbe usc-ire Clint Eastwood now can-C0ND.3sG go.out-lNF Clint Eastwood "Clint Eastwood could come out now"

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

80

In other words, the conditional use of potere does not express the conditioned (and therefore weaker) possibility of the occurrence of an event. On the contrary, given the radically deontic nature of potere highlighted in the previous section, it can be hypothesized that POTREBBE, rather than a conditioned possibility, expresses the existence of a possibility in the speaker's epistemic domain. Such an epistemic domain cannot be accessed directly through the simple use of potere. According to this hypothesis, the conditional morpheme in POTREBBE would condense the following condition "if one considers things from the speaker's epistemic domain". Once verified, this condition would entail the possibility that Eastwood goes out. In this perspective, POTREBBE would simply be more epistemic than PUÒ-which is situated at the edges of the epistemic domain - and it would not change the degree of certainty of the indicative form. The above discussion suggests that the four forms examined, DEVE, DOVREBBE, PUÒ, and POTREBBE, be arranged on the certainty scale and on the deontic-epistemic axis, as summarized in table 10. |

deontic

epistemic + certain PUÒ

DEVE DOVREBBE POTREBBE

-certain

Table 10. The distribution of epistemic forms along the certainty and the deontic-epistemic axes

4. Evidentialiy and epistemic modality. The opposition netween nodals and epistemic future 4.1 The evidential nature of DEVVEmust" We have seen in §2.1 that the reason why DEVE expresses a strong degree judgment is to be sought in the fact that this form indicates that the speaker has objective knowledge, from which (s)he can infer the certainty of the conclusion introduced by DEVE. AS an example, in the utterance DEVE (occurring in the example in the inflected form devono) introduces a conclusion [have annoyed him], whose certainty is based upon some objective knowledge [the spotlights in the last few days have distracted attention]:

SEMANTIC OPPOSITIONS (37)

81

/

riflettor-i

di

quest-i

giorn-i

non

DEF.M.PL

spotlight-PL

of

PROX-M.PL day-PL

NEG

gli

dev-ono

3SG.DAT must-IND.PRS.3PL

av-er

fatt-o

have-INF

d0.PTCP.PST-M.SG

tropp-o piacer-e perché «hanno too.much-M.SG pleasure-SG because haveIND.PRS.3PL spost-at-o V attenzion-e» movePPTCP.PST-M.SG DEF.F.SG attention-SG "The spotlights in the last few days must have annoyed him because they «distract attention»" (Re231101) In other words, DEVE condenses a syllogistic process based on more or less explicit premises, from which it is necessary to draw the conclusion introduced by DEVE..n(38)the syllogistic process condensed in utterance (37) is illustrated: (38)

what distracts attention annoys him (implicit premise)

the spotlights in the last few days distracted attention (explicit premise) consequently

The spotlights in the last few days have annoyed him (conclusion)

It is clear that according to the definitions provided in chapter 1 §2.5 the meaning of DEVE is not merely epistemic, i.e. it does not simply convey the speaker's genuine opinion, but it is also inferential-evidential, i e. it also indicates that the speaker draws his conclusion on the basis of a logical inference. An inferential-evidential meaning is attributed also to the English MUST (Coates, 1983: 41; Westmoreland, 1998; Drubig, 2001), the French devoir (Dendale, 1994), and the German MÜSSEN (Mortelmans, 2001). The inferentialevidential nature of the form corresponding to DEVE is etymologically justified. If one says that a proposition must hold, must be true, one implicitly refers to the premises of its inferability, that is to the causes that force it to be true. Nevertheless, it should be emphasised that, notwithstanding the etymological justification of the evidentiality of this form, every language defines in its own way the semantics of the forms corresponding to DEVE In other words, MÜSSEN does not have the same meaning as MUST, which does not have the same meaning as devoir or DEVE, and so on. The descriptions of these forms so

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

82

far available do not allow us to draw a complete comparative picture. Nevertheless, the literature has provided some insights showing that subtle value differences do exist. These indications will allow us to define in a more rigorous way the evidential-epistemic value of the Italian DEVE. The English MUST often has a genuinely epistemic meaning. Coates (1983, quoted in Mortelmans, 2001: 133) has shown that out of 92 occurrences of MUST, 23 co-occur with epistemic hedges like I think, I mean, I suppose, I fancy. Similar collocations are not frequent in German: Mortelmans (2001:133) could not find any in her corpus of 122 occurrences of MÜSSEN. As shown by Dendale (1994), the French form DOIT does not strictly refer to a deductive process,40 like the one represented in (37), but also to abductive processes,41 as m (39), and inductive processes,42 as in (40): (39)

// doit être dans son bureau car sa voiture est au parking "He must be [must.IND.PRS.3sG be.INF] in his office, because his car is in the car park" (Dendale, 1994 : 30)

(40)

Les Allemands de l'Est doivent avoir beaucoup souffert si on en juge par ce que cette famille est-allemand a subi "East Germans must have suffered a lot [must.IND.PRS.3PL haveINF a.lot suffer.PTCP.PST.M.SG] have suffered a lot, judging from what this German family has suffered" (Dendale, 1994: 30)

can also occur in those contexts where the inference based on uncertain or incomplete premises leads not to certain but to tentative conclusions. As an example, see (41) and (42):

DOIT

(41)

Les Français assurent qu 'ils n 'ont vendu que quatre missiles Exo­ cet aux Argentins. Ceux-ci en ont déjà lancé deux contre des navi­ res anglais. Ils ne doivent plus en avoir que deux "French authorities claim that they sold only four Exocet missiles to the Argentines. They have already shot two against English ships. They should have only two [NEG must.IND.PRS.3PL more DEM.GENhave.lNF that two]" (Dendale, 1994: 30)

SEMANTIC OPPOSITIONS

83

(42) Il doit y avoir eu au moins 25000 spectateurs lors du match Bel­ gique-Angleterre "There must have been [3SG.NOM must.IND.PRS.3SG LOC have.INF have.PTCP.PST] at least 25000 spectators at the match BelgiumEngland" (Dendale, 1994: 35) By contrast, the uses of the Italian DEVE seem strongly oriented towards the evidential pole of the evidential-epistemic axis. Indeed, some occurrences of DEVE have a clear evidential value, without any modal nuances. In an utterance like (43) the use of the imperative prendilo {take it) presupposes that the speaker puts forward as real the presence of the bib in the bag: (43)

Ci

dev-e

ess-ere

un

bavaglin-o

LOC

must-IND.PRS.3SG

be-INF

INDEF

bib-SG

ne-lla

bors-a,

in-DEF.F.SG bag-SG

prend-i+lo takeIIMP.2SG+3SG.ACC

"There must be a bib in the bag, take it!"

(Cp)

In this case the form DEVE has no epistemic nuances (which would entail the unreality of the propositional content), but a pure evidential value. In particular, with respect to the classification of evidential values provided in chapter 1 §2.5, this occurrence of DEVE in (43) is to be classified as a direct evidential. In other words (43) can be paraphrased as (44): (44)

[I know because I have seen it that there is a bib in thebag,take it!]

We have already seen in (37) that DEVE can condense a deductive process and consequently represent a logical inferential evidential. It can also refer to anabductiveprocess,asin(45):

84

EPISTEMIC MODALITY (45)

Signora, il suo aspetto autorevole nonché Venorme tama che ttene con sé mi dicono che lei deve essere una autorità infatto di regolamenti universitari. Se è casi, passa farle una damanda? "Madam, both your authoritative appearance and the enormous volume you bring with you tell me that you must be [must. IND.PRS.3SG be.INF] an authority on university regulations. If this is true, may I ask a question?" (Mail)

In (45) DEVE represents an observational inferential evidential condensing an abductive process. It is not clear whether the Italian DEVE can condense inductive processes (there was no occurrence of inductive DEVE in the corpus Cows). It should be excluded that DEVE introduces a tentative conclusion drawn from weak premises. The French form DOIT occurring in (41) cannot be translated in Italian by DEVE, but only by DOVREBBE: (46)

I Francesi assicurano di aver venduto solo quattro missili Exocet agli Argentini. Questi ne hanno già lanciati due contro le imbarcazioni inglesi. Ora non dovrebbero overnepiù di due "French authorities claim that they sold only four Exocet missiles to the Argentines. They have already shot two against English ships. They should have only two [NEG mus..COND.3PL have.INF.DEM.GEN more of two]"

Many occurrences of the French DOIT, where - as in the utterance (40) introduces the conclusion of a process of calculation cannot be translated in Italian with DEVE, but by resorting to the epistemic future:

DOIT

(47)

E

non

and

NEG 3SG.ACC.M

lo know-IND.PRS.lSG

avr-ò av-ut-o have.IND.FUT-1SG have-PTCP.PST-M.SG "I do not know, I must have been five"

cinque five

LOC

ann-ì year-PL (Fabrfoto)

SEMANTIC OPPOSITIONS (48)

85

St-av-amo a Varese, quindi Varese thus stay-INDIIMPF-lPL to avr-ò fatt-o died haveIND.FUT.lSG do.PTCP.PST-M.SG ten year-PL "We were in Varese, so I must have been ten years old"43 (Fabrfoto)

Finally, the co-occurrences of DEVE with hedges, like credo ("I think"), immagino("Iimagine"),forse ("maybi") non la so(ï do not know"),which prove its genuine epistemicity, are absolutely marginal. Only four occurrences of DEVE in the CORIs corpus were modified by a hedge, and in all cases the hedge was forse ("maybe"). The picture drawn so far clearly shows that in Italian, as in other languages, the range of meanings of DEVE goes from the pure indication of evidence to the genuine expression of an opinion. Italian, though, quite peculiarly tends to use DEVE much more as an evidential marker, than as a genuine epistemic marker. Table 11 represents the asymmetry that characterizes the uses of DEVE, which tend to concentrate on the evidential rather than on the epistemic pole of the evidential-epistemic axis.

Direct evidential

Logical inferential evidential

Observational Inductive inferential evidential evidential

Tentative conclusions

Pure epistemic

Table 11. Uses of the form DEVE

It should also be emphasised that a certainty scale runs parallel to this evidential scale: the more solid the evidence, the more certain the truth of the inferred conclusion.44 The fact that the uses of DEVE are concentrated around the evidential pole of the scale explains why this form strongly tends to be a certainty marker and only rarely a probability or uncertainty marker. 4.2 The evidential nature of the other modall Only the evidential nature of DEVE has been so far described. It should be emphasised, however, that all the Italian modal forms have a central evidential meaning. The literature is not unanimous in ascribing an evidential function to the modals of other European languages. Coates (1983), for example, on the

86

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

one hand highlights the inferential nature of MUST, and on the other, referring to MAY and MIGHT, writes: "MAY and MIGHT are the modals of epistemic possibility, expressing the speaker's lack of confidence in the proposition expressed". In other words, she does not acknowledge any evidential meaning to these forms. With the exception of Tasmowsky and Dendale (1994), no evidential meaning is acknowledged for the French pouvoir C'can") either. While the literature is united in attributing an evidential meaning to the German SOLLEN (Mortelmans, 2001, among others), there are no analyses of the evidential meaning of other German modals. These positions will not be discussed here, but it will be shown that, at least in Italian, all the epistemic modals have an evidential meaning. 4.2.1 DOVREBBE "Should"

We have seen that DOVREBBE condenses a process of conditioned inference. Consequently, it can be described as an inferential evidential that marks tentative conclusions. In utterance (49), for example: (49)

La precisione a questo punto dovrebbe essere ottima, poiché se ii falegname è suficientemente furbo (e non vi vuole rifilare pezzi avanzati) ricaverà quasi sempre i vari pannelli intern) da un uni­ co pezzo, con un risultato di ottima precisione "At this point the precision should be [must.C0ND.3SG be.INF] excellent. In fact if the carpenter is shrewd enough (and if he does not want to palm off left-overs on you), he will almost always obtain the internal panels from a single piece, the result being of excellent precision" (Int)

DOVREBBE clearly condenses a deductive process moving from uncertain premises which, only if verified, will lead to the necessity of the conclusion. In this utterance, in other words, DOVREBBE introduces a tentative conclusion. The deductive process condensed in DOVREBBE can be represented as in (50):

SEMANTIC OPPOSITIONS (50)

87

If the internal panels are obtained from a single piece the result is of excellent precision (major explicit premise)

If the carpenter is shrewd enough (first condition of the minor premise's truth)

If the carpenter does not want to palm off left-overs on you (second condition of the minor premise's truth)

The carpenter obtains the internal panels from a single piece (minor explicit conditioned premise) once verified the conditions, the conclusion is that

The result is of excellent precision (tentative conclusion)

Tasmowski and Dendale, discussing the conclusions of deductive processes introduced by the French DEVRAIT (the conditional form of the necessity modal, devoir) have written that the speaker "disclaims any responsibility" for that conclusion Tasmowski and Dendale's synthesis effectively captures what is shared by all the propositions modalized by DOVREBBE, which can not only condense a deductive process from conditioned or uncertain premises leading to a tentative conclusion, but also indicate that the modalized proposition is to be considered as a reportive, for which the speaker disclaims any responsibility. Ex, (51)

Stando a quanto dichiarato da banche, istituzioni finanziarie e aziende, "l'anno del B2B " dovrebbe eesere il 2200 "According to the declarations of banks, financial institutions and companies, 2002 should be[must.C0ND.3sG be.INF] the'B2B year" (Int)

(52)

// questore - secondo quanto si e' appreso - dovrebbbessere eentito dai magistrati neiprossimi giorni "According to what has been said, the questor should be heard [must.C0ND.3SGbe.INFhea..PTCP.PST.M.SG]by thejudgesinthe next few days" (Int)

88

EPISTEMIC MODALITY (53)

Sembra che, mi diceva Gianni che luì stava all'AIPA, epoiparlavo con uno che stava l'altro giorno a fare un corso. L'AIPA si dovrebbesfasciare "It seems that, Gianni told me that he worked for AIPA, and then I was talking to someone who was teaching a class the other day. AIPA should collapse [MID.3SG mus..C0ND.3SG collapse.INF]" (Firma)

The use of an inferential marker as reportive evidential marker - as mentioned in chapter 2 (§5) - is quite a frequent phenomenon in epistemicevidential systems. We have an example in the German SOLLEN (54), in the Danish SKAL (55) but also in Native American languages such as Wintun, Westerm Porno, and Patwin (Anderson, 1986: 289): (54)

Mertes soll seinem neuen Chef seine "Loyalität" versichert haben, wie Kogel selbst bekanntgab "Mertes has assured his new boss of his loyalty, as Kogel hmself declared" (Mortelmans, 2001: 134)

(55)

Peter skalvære en dårligforsker "Peter is said to be a poor researcher"

(Davidsen-Nielsen, 1986 -quoted in Palmer, 1986: 72)

As mentioned, the fact that an evidential marker has both an inferential and a reportive meaning is to be taken as a typological parameter. It will be shown in the next chapter how the Italian epistemic system can be characterized according to this parameter. To conclude this discussion on the evidential meaning of DOVREBBE, the strict inferential or reportive meaning of DOVREBBE must be highlighted. Since, as already argued, propositions modalized by DOVREBBE are to be considered as the tentative conclusions of a deductive process moving from uncertain premises, DOVREBBE, unlike DEVE, cannot indicate either that the speaker has direct evidence of the truth of the proposition, or that he has direct evidence of the premises of his deductive process In other words, this form cannot be used as direct or observational evidentials.45 For example:

SEMANTIC OPPOSITIONS

89

(56)

?Dovrebbe esserci un bavagllno nella borsa, prendilo! "There should be [mus..COND.3SG beINF.LOC]a bib in the bag take it!"

(57)

Deve esserci un bavaglino nella borsa, prendilo o "There must be [must.IND.PRS.3SGbe.INF.L0C]a bib in the bag, take it!" (Cp)

(58)

?Dovrei avere ancora il tuo numero sulVagenda, ,o copii da lì "I should [must.COND.lSG] still have your number in my organizer, I will copy it from there"

(59)

Devo avere ancora il tuo numero sulVagenda, lo copio da lì "I must [mustIND.PRS.lSG] still have your number in my organizer, I will copy it from there" (Cp)

(60)

?Signora, il suo aspetto autorevole nonché l'enorme tomo che tie­ ne con sé mi dicono che lei dovrebbe essere una autorità infatto di regolamenti universiiarii Se e ècst'posso farle una domanda? "Madam, both your authoritative appearance and the enormous volume you bring with you tell me that you must be [must. COND.3SG be.INF] an authority on university regulations. If this is true, may I ask a question?"

vs.

vs.

vs.

90

EPISTEMIC MODALITY (61)

Signora, il suo aspetto autorevole nonché l'enorme tomo che tiene con sé mi dicono che lei deve essere una autorità infatto di regolamenti universitari. se è così posso farle una domanda? "Madam, both your authoritative appearance and the enormous volume you bring with you tell me that you must be [must. IND.PRS.3SG be.INF] an authority on university regulations. If this is true, may I ask a question?" (Mail)

4.2.2PUò"can and POTREBBE "could'' Tasmowski and Dendale (1994) have shown that the French modal PEUT (CAN) can condense a syllogistic process as well, from which the inferred conclusion is not the only possible conclusion (as in the case of DOIT), but one of the possible conclusions. This analysis can be applied to the Italian potere, but with some care. Indeed, even if it is possible to find occurrences of the indicative form PUÒ expressing a clear evidential meaning, (see examples (62) and (63), nevertheless, as we have already said, the meaning of most epistemic uses of PUÒ can hardly be considered as evidential. (62)

Troppo sintetico il manuale, chi non conosce il Delphi può trovarsiindifficoltà "The manual is too synthetic; those who do not know Delphi can have a hard time [canIND.PRS.3sGfind.INF.MlD.3sGin difficulty]" (Int)

(63)

Su questo terreno le pagine di Amirpossono essere angosciose, grondanti come sono di interrogativi epaure "On this subject Amir's pages can be [can IND.PRS.3PL be.INF] distressing, oozing fears and questions"

In some cases - as highlighted by Tasmowski and Dendale (1994: 45) for the French PEUT - PUÒ, rather than introducing a possible conclusion of a deductive process, is employed to indicate that one of the two elements of a binary disjunction can be true.46 E.g:

SEMANTIC OPPOSITIONS (64)

91

Poiché il malfunzionamentopuò essere stato momentaneo, ,sion­ siglia di rinviare la selezione "Since the malfunctioning can have been [can IND.PRS.3SG be.INF be.PTCP.PST.M.SG] temporary, it is adviceable to postpone the selection" (Int)

Moreover, in many cases - as shown in §3.1 - it cannot be easily decided whether PUÒ is to be considered as deontic or as epistemic and consequently it is not always possible to establish whether the possibility that a state of affairs occurs is drawn as a possible conclusion of an inference or if it is observed as a property of that state of affairs. E.g. (65)

Nella gestione ordinaria, per fronteggiare le evoluzioni competi­ tive sul mercato, Vimpresapuò trovarsi nella condizione di dover modificare la combinazionee l'organizzazione dei diversi fattori produttivi impiegati,frai quali anche iifattore lavoro "In ordinary management, to cope with competitive market evolutions, the company can be [can IND.PRS.3sG fmd.MID.3sG] in the position of being obliged to modify the combination and the organization of the different productive factors employed, including the work factor" ant) (66) Anche nel momento più tecnico edasetttco deelapporto, ,i medico può vivere forti emozioni così come quelle del paziente, può sentire lapaura di dover affrontare tematiche psicologiche che non si sente in grado di gestire, può trovarsi adascoltare aspetti del paziente che gli evocano eventi dolorosi personali o può sentiré la suapaura di ammalarsi della stessa malattia "Even in the more technical and aseptic moment of the relationship, the physician can experience [can IND.PRS.3SG live INF] emotions as strong as those of the patient; he can fear [can IND.PRS 3sG hear INF DEFF.SG fear.SG] being obl ged to deal with psychological matters which he does not feel able to handle he can be [can.IND.PRS.3SG find.MID.3SG] in the position of listening to ome aspects of the patient which evoke personal unhappy events or he can fear [can IND PRS 3SG hear INF DEF F SG POSS 3SG F SG DEF F SG fear SG] catching the same disease " (Int)

92

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

(67)

Ogni donna può trovarsi una volta - o talvolta anchh pin volte e confrontata a questa problematica durante il perìodo fertile della sua vita "Every woman can [can.IND.PRS.3SG fmd.MlD.3SG] once - or, sometimes more than once - be obliged to cope with this problem during her fertile life." (Int)

The form POTREBBE introduces more frequently and clearly than PUÒ a possible conclusion of a deductive process. E.g. (68)

Non ha cellulare, a casa non risponde e cercarlo è comunque un gesto di sconsiderata audacia. Potrebbe non perdonare più la violazione, lui è uno che non si dimentica mai niente "He has no mobile phone, he does not answer the home phone, and to look for him is, anyway, a sign of inconsiderate audacity. He might not forgive [can C0ND.3SG NEGforgive.INF]the violation ever again, he never forgets anything" (Re040202)

(69)

In un primo momento, la Nave Sorella ("Sister Ship") sembrava non recare traccia di zavorra. Soltanto alcune pietre molto larghe erano presenti, ma non un così grande cumulo come quello che segnalava il sito della Nave Punica. La zavorra invece era costituita dapezzi d'argilla. Questo significa che lo scafo potrebbe essersi ben conservato eche un esame microscopico dell'argüía potrebbe fornire un 'indicazione del suo luogo d'origine "At first the Sister Ship seemed not to be ballasted. There were only many big stones, but not a heap as big as the one signalling the site of the Punic Ship. The ballast was formed by pieces of clays. That means that the ship could be well conserved [can.C0ND.3SG be INF.MlD well conserve.PTCP.PST.M.SG] and that a microscopic examination of the clay could provide indications of its origin " (Int)

SEMANTIC OPPOSITIONS

93

Moreover, POTREBBE, like DOVREBBE functions in many contexts as a reportive evidential. E.g.: (70)

Secondo alcune indiscrezioni potrebbe essere presente il Ministro dell'Interno "According to leaks, the Minister of Internal Affairs could be [can.COND.3SG be.lNF] present"

(71)

Secondo le indiscrezioni, lo schema potrebbe essere quello delll "ottopiù quattro", ,alvando oa distinzionefrascuole elementan e medie che Berlinguer aveva cancellato "According to leaks, the schema could be [can.COND.3SG be.iNF] the "eight plus four", which would save the distinction between primary and middle school that Berlinguer had eliminated" (Di301101)

4.3 The epistemic nature of the future So far the epistemic future has not been taken into account in this semantic analysis. We have seen in §2.1 that the future cannot be placed on the certainty scale. It must also be excluded that the future, like the indicative of potere, has a lesser degree of epistemicity than other forms. In fact there is no overlapping between the deictic and the epistemic interpretation of the future. It seems, on the contrary, that the semantic peculiarity of the future is that it represents a genuine epistemic form. In other words,unlike the modals, the future seems not to condense any inferential process, but appears to function as the form expressing the speaker's genuine opinion about the propositional content. There are different pieces of semantic evidence corroborating this hypothesis. First of all, the epistemic future cannot express judgements clearly based upon an inferential process. Let us consider Lyons's famous example of a community of ninety people. We know that thirty of them are unmarried. We know the marital status of every member of the community except Alfred. We have also counted twenty-nine persons that are unmarried In this context we can conclude: (72)

Alfred dev-e Alfred must-IND.PRS.3SG "Alfred must be unmarried"

In this context we cannot say:

ess-ere be-INF

celib-e unmarried-SG

94

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

(73)

%Alfred sar-à celib-e unmarried-SG Alfred be-IND.FUT.3sG "Alfred will be unmarried" Building on Lyons's example, if we imagine that we only know that a third of the men of the community are unmarried, we could answer someone asking about Alfred's marital status that: (74)

Alfred può ess-ere Alfred can.IND.PRS.3sG be-INF "Alfred can be unmarried"

celib-e unmarried-SG

(75)

Alfred potr-ebbe ess-ere Alfred can-C0ND.3SG be-lNF "Alfred could be unmarried"

celib-e unmarried-M. SG

or

In this context we could not say: (76)

% Alfred sar-à celib-e Alfred be-IND.FUT.3SG unmarried-SG "Alfred will be unmarried" All in all, when a judgment follows from an inferential process the modals can be used, the future cannot. The converse is also true. In contexts referring to the speaker's subjective opinion the future can be used, the modals cannot. Let us consider the following example. A friend has lost his watch and he is asking us where we think that watch can be. We do not know anything about that watch. We can only legitimately answer: (77)

L'

avr-ai

3 SG.ACC.M have-IND.FUT.2SG

a to

cas-a house-SG

"You may have left it at home" In such a context we could not say:

lasci-at-o leave-PTCP.PST-M.SG

SEMANTIC OPPOSITIONS

(78)

%Potr-esti aver+lo can-C0ND.2sG have-INF+SsG.ACC.M lasci-at-o a cas-a leave-PTCP.PST-M.SG to house- SG "You could have leftit at home"

(79)

%Puoi can.IND.PRS.2SG

95

av-er+lo have-INF+3SG.ACC.M

lasci-at-o a cas-a leave-PTCP.PST-M.SG to house-SG "You can have left it at home" (80)

%Dovr-esti av-er+lo must-C0ND.2sG have-INF+3 SG.ACC.M lasci-at-o a cas-a leave-PTCP.PST-M.SG to house-SG "You should have left it at home"

(81)

%Dev-i must.IND.PRS-2SG

av-er+lo have-INF+3 SG.ACC.M

lasci-at-o leave-PTCP.PST-M.SG

a to

cas-a house-SG

"You must have left it at home" Actually, we could even answer (81), but only if we have, as in (82), details that justify our inference: (82)

Devi averlo lasciato a casa l'ho visto sul lavolo "You must have left it at home, I have seen it on the table" Needless to say, in the last example DEVE does not expresses the speaker's genuine belief, but it condenses an inferential process based on observational premises, i.e. it is an evidential. Another piece of evidence can be found in the following examples showing that, while it is possible to ask someone on which bases he concludes an utterance modalized by modals, it is not possible to ask him on which bases he concludes an utterance modalized by the epistemic future:

96

EPISTEMIC MODALITY (83)

A:

(84)

A: // negozio potrebbe essere già chiuso "Thestorecouldbe [can.COND.PRS.3SG be.INF] already closed" B: Perché potrebbe essere già chiuso? "Why couldit be [can.C0ND.PRS.3SG be.iNF] already closed?"

(85)

A: Il negozio sarà già chiuso "The store must be [be.IND.FUT.3sG] already closed" B: *Perché sarà già chiuso? "Why should it be [be.IND.FUT.3SG] already closed?"

(86)

A: Ci deve essere un tesoro essere nascosto su quelVisola "There must be [must.IND.PRS.3SG be.INF] a hidden treasure on that island" B: Comelo sai? "How do you know that?"

(87)

A: Ci sarà un tesoro essere nascosto su quelVisola "There must be [be.IND.FUT.3sG] a hidden treasure on that island" B: *Comelosai? "How do you know that?"

Ilnegoziodeveesseregiàchiuso "The store must be [must.IND.PRS.3SG be.INF] already closed" B: Perché deveesseregiàchiuso? "Why shouldit be [mustIlND.PRS.3so be.INF] already closed?47

Evidence of the genuine epistemic nature of the epistemic future can also be found in the uses of this form. We have seen in §2.1 that the epistemic future can be modified both by hedges and intensifiers(cfr ex.(7)and (8) vs.(9) and (10)). Hedges and intensifiers can logically modify a genuine epistemic judgement, which can change in degree, but they do not modify an evidential process, which cannot change in degree but only in nature. Moreover, while epistemic utterances modified by modals frequently occur in contexts in which the premises of the inferential process are made explicit (see examples (88) and (89)), this happens less frequently for the epistemic future:

SEMANTIC OPPOSITIONS

97

(88)

Ignoro il numero dei bombardamenti... Il loro numero dovette sconvolgere e creare una discreta confusione nei comandi tedeschi, tant'è che dopo ilpreawiso generico, poi quello di pencolo, le sirene anziché ilflieger alarm (allarme aereo) emisero addirittura il panzer alarm (allarme carri armati) "I do not know the number of the air raids...Their number must have upset [must.IND.REMPST.3SG up.set.INF] and must have created quite a confusion in the German commands, indeed after the generic and the danger warning, the sirens whistled not the flieger alarm (air alarm), but the panzer alarm (tank alarm)". (Di301101)

(89)

In tempi di flessibilità in una società complessa come la nostra, i redattori del questionario devono avere avuto il loro bel da fare per cercare di far rientrare tutti. E infatti non ni sono oiusciti. "In these times of flexibility in a complex society such as ours, the editors of the questionnaire must have had [must.IND.PRS.3PL have INF have.PTCP.PST.M.SG] a hard time in trying to include everyone. Indeed they do not succeed". (Di301101)

A last interesting piece of evidence comes from a test elaborated by Mortelmans (2001:142) to demonstrate the evidentiality of the German MÜSSEN. Mortelmans has shown that only the evidential forms and not the forms with a genuine epistemic meaning can be used to modalize absurd conclusions which the speaker does not adhere to. So, while the utterance (90) is attested, the utterance (91) would sound awkward: (91)

Se anche Babbo Natale un tempo fosse esistito... in questo mo­ mento deve essersi sicuramentevaporizzato! EvenifSanta Claus did exist formerly.. he must [must, IND.PRS.3SG] have surely evaporated by now. (Int)

(92)

?Se anche Babbo Natale un tempo fosse esistito...in questo mo­ mento si sarà sicuramente vaporizzato Even if Santa Claus did exist formerly..he will be [MID.3SG be.IND.FUT.3 SG] surely evaporated by now.

98

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

To sum up, the future is the only genuine epistemic form in Italian. Mortelmans (2001) and Dendale (2001) have conducted analyses similar to the present one on the German and French future, respectively. The peculiarity of the Italian epistemic future is that this form is much more widespread than in other languages. The diffusion of the epistemic future in English is absolutely marginal. According to Dendale (2001: 4), the French epistemic future is limited to the verbs être (to be) and avoir (to have) and to the anterior form. The high diffusion of the epistemic future in Italian explains why the form that most frequently is opposed to it, i.e. DEVE, retains an evidential meaning more clearly than in other languages, DEVE is not forced to function as a genuine epistemic, this function being widely fulfilled by the epistemic future. 5. Summary It is possible to draw three different conclusions from this semantic analysis of Italian epistemic forms. First of all, it is possible to define the internal configuration of the Italian epistemic domain, which, as is shown in table 12, is organized around three axes. The first axis is a certainty scale, along which DEVE, DOVREBBE, and POTREBBE are vertically ordered. The second axis is represented by the opposition between prominently deontic and prominently epistemic meanings, which distinguishes PUÒ and POTREBBE, two forms, incidentally, characterized by the same degree of certainty. The third axis is represented by the opposition between evidential and genuine epistemic meaning, which distinguishes the four modals on the one hand and the epistemic future on the other (with the epistemic future neutral as to degree of certainty).

+ epistemic

+ deontic

+ certain

DEVE DOVREBBE PUÔ

epistemic future

POTREBBE

+ evidential

+ epistemic

r - certain

Table 12. The semantic distribution of the four modalforms and the epistemic future

SEMANTIC OPPOSITIONS

99

Secondly, it is possibile, at this stage to provide a semantic characterization of each epistemic form. The epistemic future emerges as a genuine epistemic form, unmarked as to degree of certainty, DEVE is an epistemic-evidential form whose focal function is to mark a strong degree of certainty and non-mediated evidence (which can sometimes be direct), DOVREBBE is an epistemic-evidential form whose focal function is to mark a medium degree of certainty and mediated (reportive) evidence, or at least evidence that the speaker does not unconditionally subscribe to. PUÒ is a deontic form that can sometimes have epistemic and evidential uses too. POTREBBE is the fully epistemic counterpart of PUÒ, it marks a weak epistemic judgment and it can have both the evidential meaning of one of the possible conclusions of an inferential process and a reportive evidential meaning. The third conclusion concerns the relationship between evidentiality and epistemicity in Italian, which we will deal with in the next chapter.

V. A TYPOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF ITALIAN EPISTEMIC MODALITY48 1. Introductory remarks In the previous chapters the Italian epistemic grammatical forms have been identified and the particular way in which the opposition obtaining among them structures the epistemic domain in Italian has been studied. Thus, at this stage it is possible to characterize the Italian epistemic modality against the typological background sketched in chapter 2. It might be useful to recall that in chapter 2 it was proposed that epistemic systems can be classified according to five parameters: (i) the opposition between languages with specific forms dedicated to the expression of epistemic modality and languages with parasitic forms; (ii) the opposition between languages with one epistemic form and languages distinguishing between different degrees of certainty on the part of the speaker; (iii) the opposition between languages that do distinguish and languages that do not distinguish between genuine epistemicity and inferential evidence; (iv) the opposition between reportive, modalized, and complex evidential systems; (v) the distinction between more and less performative systems. In the following sections Italian epistemic modality will be characterized according to each of these parameters. 2. Parasitic forms The analysis conducted in chapter 3 with the purpose of identifying the Italian grammatical epistemic forms, has also shown that Italian does not have specific

A TYPOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION

101

forms dedicated to the expression of epistemic modality. This function is fulfilled by the indicative and conditional forms of the modal verbs dovere and potere and the epistemic future. These forms have other meanings as well, which are commonly considered as more central than the epistemic ones (see chapter 9):49 modals have a dynamic-deontic meaning, while the future has a temporal meaning. 3. Three degrees of certainty We have seen in the previous chapter that Italian distinguishes three degrees of certainty: a strong degree, represented by DEVE, a medium degree, represented by DOVREBBE and a weak degree represented by POTREBBE, and more rarely by the epistemic uses of the form PUÒ The epistemic future, a form unmarked as to degree of certainty can express, depending on the contexts and the intonation profiles, a strong, medium, or weak judgment. 4. The distinction between genuine epistemicity and inferential evidentiality Italian does grammatically distinguish between genuine epistemicity and inferential evidentiality. We have seen in the previous chapter that while modals have a central evidential meaning, and only a marginal epistemic meaning, the future's core meaning is genuinely epistemic, with no evidential nuances We have also seen that the division of labour between modals and the epistemic future is neater in Italian than in other European languages such as English or French. In these languages, in fact, modals are frequently used as genuine epistemic forms. The fact that the division of labour between modals and the future is neater compared to other languages can be explained with the high frequency of the epistemic future in Italian, which, together with other distributional facts, will lead us to consider it as the Italian unmarked epistemic form (see next chapter). 5. A complex evidential system At first glance, Italian may appear as one of the modalized evidential systems of Plungian's typology (see chapter 2 §5), but a rigorous examination of the results of the previous chapter's analysis will lead us to consider Italian as closer to the rarer "complex" evidential systems than to the modalized ones . Like other modalized systems Italian distinguishes between direct and indirect evidence. It establishes the equivalence, "more direct" is "less reliable", assigning by consequence an epistemic function to the evidential forms as well. More precisely, direct evidentials are used as strong epistemic markers and indirect evidentials as weak epistemic markers (see table 13).

102

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

(+certain/+direct) (-certain/-direct)

DEVE DOVREBBE PUÒ/POTREBBE

Table 13. Epistemic-evidentialforms

Like other modalized system, Italian has markers of indirect evidence which function as reportive evidentials as well (DOVREBBE, POTREBBE). There are two facts, however, that differentiate Italian from the modalized evidential systems. First of all, Italian, like other reportive systems, distinguishes between third-hand and second-hand reported evidence. For third-hand evidence it uses the indirect evidential DOVREBBE and POTREBBE, while for second-hand evidence it uses a specific form, the reportive conditional: (1)

(2)

Secondo gli inquirent-i napoletan-i According DEF.M.PL investigator-PL neapolitan-M.PL il boss, nonostante la lontananz-a DEF.M.SG boss notwithstanding DEF.F.SG distance-SG da Napoli, avr-ebbe ancora rapport-i con from Naples have-COND.3SG still relation-PL with la su-a famigli-a DEF.F.SG POSS.3SG-F.SG family-SG "According to the Neapolitan investigators, the boss, notwithstanding the fact that he is far away from Naples, is still in touch with his family" (Int) Secondo la stamp-a local-e According DEF.F.SG press-SG local-SG sar-ebbero già a-l lavor-o be-C0ND.3PL already to-DEF.M.SG work-SG gli operator-i de-lla DEF.M.PL Operator-PL Of-DEF.F.SG Croc-e Ross-a Internazional-e Cross-SG Red-F.SG International-SG "According to the local press operators of the International Red Cross are already at work" (Int)

103

A TYPOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION

Table 14 represents this distinction between second-hand and third-hand evidentials, which can be interpreted in the terms of a more general distinction between more and less mediated evidence. DOVREBBE

POTREBBE

reportive conditional (-mediated)

(+mediated) Table 14. Second-hand and third-hand evidentials

More importantly, the Italian reportive conditional does not have, as one would expect in a modalized system, either an indirect evidential or an epistemic value. This is a unique case among Romance languages. Squartini (2001) has shown that in other Romance languages the conditional reportive has an epistemic value.50 The French conditional can suggest, in special contexts, "a lower degree of the speaker's confidence in the factual occurrence of the situation" (Squartini, 2001: 315): (3) Ilfaudrait tenter une psychanalise, dit Françoise. Esttce que dans son enfance, son père ne l'aurait pas battu avec un brance de sureauu "We should try psychoanalysis, Françoise said. His father perhaps beat him [NEG 3SG.M.ACC have.C0ND.3sG NEG bea..PTCP.PST] him with an elder branch when he was a child?" (S. de Beauvoir, L'invitée, Paris Gallimard, 1943 -quoted in Squartini, 2001: 315) In Spanish and Portuguese, the conditional reportive can have epistemic value in past contexts: (4)

SPANISH

Serían las ocho quando salimos "It was probably [be.COND.3PL] eight o' clock when we left" (Squartini, 2001: 317)

104

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

(5)

PORTOGUESE

Seriam urnas seis horas, mas a noiie era evidente "It was probably [be.COND.3PL]six o'clockbutthe nightwas clear" (António Botto, Isto sucedeu assim -quoted in Squartini, 2001:318) To sum up, the Italian evidential system is structured around two crossing axes. The opposition between direct and indirect evidentials lies along the former axis and the opposition between more and less mediated reportive evidentials along the latter. As summarized in table 15, the first axis is an epistemicevidential axis, the second one is purely evidential. EPISTEMIC/EVIDENTIAL FORM

PURELY EVIDENTIAL FORMS

Table 15. The Italian evidential system

The peculiar complexity of the epistemic-evidential system structure leads one to hypothesize that Italian may be considered as one of the rarer complex systems, rather than one of the more common modalized systems. Interestingly, the complexity of the epistemic-evidential system tends to be reproduced in the diachronic dynamics as well. We have seen in chapter 3 that Italian has some evidential constructions, such as si vede che (lit one sees that), dice che (lit. says that), which can be considered on the way of grammaticalization. The construction expressing direct evidence, si vede che, can be used with an epistemic meaning, whereas the construction expressing reportive mediate evidence, dice che, cannot. That is proved by the fact that while the former cannot co-occur with other epistemic markers, the latter can:

105

A TYPOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION

(6)

*S"

ved-e

che er-i

IMPR

See-IND.PRS.3sG

that

non ci but lSG.NOM

stanc-o

beIINDIIMPF.3SG tired-M.SG

cred-o

NEG LOC beiieve-IND.PRS.lSG

"You my have been tired, but I do not believe that" (7)

che er-a stanc-o, Dic-e say-IND.PRS.3SG that be-IND.IMPF.3 SG tired- M. SG ma io non ci cred-o but 1SG.NOM not LOC believe-IND.PRS.lSG "He says he was tired, but I do not believe that" Italian tends to grammaticalize evidential forms. Among the forms on the way of grammaticalization, non-reportive evidential can fulfil an epistemic function, while reportive evidential are used as pure evidentials. The evidential forms on the way of grammaticalization can be inserted in the previous schema, as shown in table 16: EPISTEMIC/EVIDENTIAL FORMS

PURELY EVIDENTIAL FORMS

Table 16. Current grammaticalization of the Italian evidential system

106

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

6. Low performativity The idea of considering performativity as a parametrizable property of epistemic systems derives from a peculiarity of Italian epistemic modals, i.e. the fact that past modals can express past judgements (chapter 2 §6). It was hypothesized that this property descends from the low performativity of the Italian epistemic system. We will see in the next chapter that this weak performativity of the Italian epistemic system activates in a particular way a set of morphological and syntactic constraints commonly considered as correlates of performativity. 7. Summary It is possible to synthesize the discussion so far by saying that, as regards epistemic modality, Italian can be characterized as a language: -

having parasitic epistemic forms; distinguishing three degrees of certainty; distinguishing between genuine epistemicity and inferential evidentiality; displaying a complex interaction between evidentiality and epistemicity; lowperformativity.

These are not isolated properties, but they present some relations. In particular, the fact that Italian does not have specific forms for the expression of epistemic modality has more than one consequence. Resorting to modals and the future determines in the conceptual space of Italian epistemic modality some oppositions which explain other characteristics. We will see in chapter 9 that the future has an inherent predictive meaning, which in the case of the epistemic future is extended to indicate the genuine evaluation of the speaker towards the propositional content, while modals have an inherent meaning of ascertainment of the necessity or possibility of the truth of the propositional content, justified on an evidential basis. This is a pre-condition for the distinction between genuine epistemicity on the one hand and inferential evidentiality on the other. The frequency of the future, higher than in other languages, restrains the epistemic drift of modals, which remain anchored to their evidential value This entails the Italian system being strongly oriented towards the epistemic pole of the epistemic-evidential axis and that it displays a number of distinctions internal to pure evidentiality (more or less direct more or less mediated), yielding its complexity We wi l see in the next chapter that it is the

A TYPOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION

107

strong evidential (and therefore designate rather than expressive) nature of Italian epistemic forms which is responsible for the supposed low performativity of the system.

VI. INFLECTIONAL AND DISTRIBUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS. THE (LOW) PERFORMATIVITY OF ITALIAN EPISTEMIC MODALITY

1. Introductory Remarks In the first part of this work the presumably universal functional properties of epistemic modality were described. It was said that epistemic modality is metapropositional and performative, as it does not simply describe, but brings into existence the speaker's genuine opinion. In the second part the peculiar structure of the Italian epistemic system was characterized: Italian has parasitic forms for the expression of epistemic modality, which are structured in a complex epistemic-evidential system, supposedly characterized by low performativity. This last part studies the dialectic between the universal functional properties of epistemic modality and the peculiar structure of the Italian epistemic system: in other words, the peculiar way in which the Italian system reacts to universal functional pressures in the domain of epistemic modality. We shall examine whether and to what extent the morphosyntactic behaviour of Italian epistemic forms obeys a set of well-known constraints imposed by performativity (chapter 6). It will also be suggested that Italian grammaticizes the metapropositional nature of epistemic forms by imposing some semantic constraints on the modalized propositions (chapters 7 and 8). It is the parasitic nature of Italian epistemic forms itself that will enable us to grasp more clearly the constraints imposed by the functional properties of epistemic modality. Since both the modals and the epistemic future can be employed with other meanings (deontic in the former case, temporal in the latter), when the constraints observed are limited to the epistemic interpretation of these forms, we can assume that the constraints observed depend on functional properties peculiar to epistemic modality . 2. Constraints on the tense. The (low) performativity of Italian epistemic forms This part of the analysis aims to clarify whether and to what extent Italian epistemic modals and the epistemic future can be inflected for tense with the effect of collocating a speaker's evaluation about the truth of the propositional content in the past or in the future. In other words, we shall be examining whether

INFLECTIONAL AND DISTRIBUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS

109

the temporal inflection of the Italian grammatical epistemic forms enables us to obtain utterances corresponding to the explicit forms: (1)

Io supponevo che Carlo fosse uscito "I supposed that Carlo had left"

(2)

Iosupporrò che Carlo sia uscito "I will suppose that Carlo leave"

It was already mentioned in chapter 2 that, according to Palmer, this is not possible: The subjective (and performative) nature of epistemic judgments is emphasized by the fact that epistemic may and must have no past tense forms that are used to refer to past time...May have and must have occur, but make present judgments about past events. It is the proposition, not the modality, that is past. A "performative" expression of subjective modality can be made only at the moment of speaking. (Palmer, 1986: 60)

Palmer claims that, due to the performativity of epistemic modality, it is not possible to disengage the evaluation from the here and now of the speech situation and to place it - through a temporal inflection - in a moment other than the present. According to Palmer past inflections of the modals, such as (3), or, in Italian (4), does not collocate in the past the evaluation, but the state of affairs represented in the modalized proposition: (3)

I must have been crazy

(4)

Dov-ev-a ess-ere buon-a quell-a tort-a must-IND.IMPF-3 SG be-INF good-F.SG DIST-F.SG cake-SG "That cake must have been good"

In other words, a proper representation of sentence (3) is in (5) and not in (6)

110

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

(5)

[I]

[must]

[I suppose (now)] [that] [I] (6)

*[I]

[have been crazy]

1

[was crazy (in the past)]

[must]

[I supposed (in the past)] [that]

[have been crazy] [I]

[was crazy (in the past)]

A similar position is maintained by Halliday (1970 (1976: 199), who writes: The modalities, being outside the ideational meaning of the clause, are also outside the domain of tense; like other forms of speaker's comment, they relate only to the speaker-now51 (Halliday, 1970 (1976: 199))

Neither Palmer or Halliday seems to question the fact that this constraint holds universally. Being a constraint imposed by the semiotic value of modals, it must hold in every use of modals, in every language. In the next section the entire inflection of epistemic modals and the epistemic future will be taken into account with the aim of observing whether and to what extent Palmer's and Halliday's hypothesis holds for Italian. 2.1 Past tense From a morphological standpoint, Italian modals and the epistemic future can be inflected for tense, which does not hold, for example, for their English counterparts. The indicative forms of modals, DEVE and PUÒ, have four past tense forms: the imperfect DOVEVA and POTEVA, the remote past DOVETTE (DOVÈ) and POTETTE (POTÈ), the past anterior HA DOVUTO, HA POTUTO, and the past perfect AVEVA DOVUTO, AVEVA POTUTO. The conditional forms of modals, DOVREBBE and POTREBBE, have the past forms AVREBBE DOVUTO and AVREBBE POTUTO. The epistemic future has an anterior form, SARÀ STATO. On examining their usage, we found that all these past forms are used, more or less frequently, with an epistemic meaning. The epistemic use of the imperfect modals is extremely frequent:

INFLECTIONAL AND DISTRIBUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS

111

(7)

E' così sensibil-e, dov-ev-a be.IND.PRS.3SG so sensitive-SG must- INDIMPF-3 SG ess-ere davvero addolorat-o be-INF really grieved-M.SG "He is so sensitive he must have been really sorry" (Re040202)

(8)

La serat-a dov-ev-a ess-ere DEF.F.SG evening-SG must-IND.IMPF-3SG be-INF interessant-e, se le sedi-e de-lla interesting-SG if DEF.F.PL chair-PL of-DEF.F.PL stanz-ett-a con vist-a su-l fium-e room-DIM-SG with view-SG on-DEF.M.SG river-SG rivel-arono subito MID.3PL reveal-IND.REMPST.3PL immediately insufficient-i insufficien--PL "The evening must have been interesting, since it at once became clear that the chairs in the small room with a view of the river were insufficient" (Int)

(9)

Er-a un-a donn-a be-IND.IMPF.3 SG INDEF-F.SG woman-S G scialb-a che pot-ev-a av-ere insignificant-F.SG REL can-IND.IMPF-3SG have-iNF ma forse quarantina d' ann-i INDEF-F.SG aboutfourty of year-PL but perhaps er-a su-i trenta be-IND.IMPF.3SG

on-DEF.M.PL

thirty

"She was an insignificant woman who may have been forty, but maybe was around thirthy"

around (Int)

112

EPISTEMIC MODALITY (10)

Quina si può concludere dicendo che realmente molte necropoli sia a nord che a sud dell' Appennino nella antica Etruria, al tem­ po del suo massimo splendore potevano avere come simbolo reli­ gioso una pietra Ovale. "It is possible to conclude, therefore, that really many necropolises both to the North and to the South of the Appennines in ancient Etraria, at the time of its greatest splendour may have had [can.IND.IMPF.3SG have.INF] an Oval stone as a religious symbol." (Int)

Equally frequent is the usage of the anterior epistemic future: (11)

Avr-à av-ut-o HaveIIND.FUT.3SG have-PTCP.PST-M.SG le su-e buon-e ragion-i DEF.F.PL POSS.3SG-F.PL good-F.PL reason-PL "(S)he must have had her/his reasons to do that"

(12)

Quest-e

parol-e forse ve le PROX-F.PL word-PL perhaps 2PL.DAT 3PL.ACC.F avr-anno dett-e centinaia have-IND.FUT.3PL say.PTCP.PST-F.PL hundreds divolt-e i vostr-i genitor-i of time-PL DEF.M.PL POSS.2PL-M.PL parent-PL "These words must have been said hundreds of times to you by your parents" Less frequent, but still quite common, are the remote past forms of the epistemic modals:

INFLECTIONAL AND DISTRIBUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS

113

(13)

Ignoro il numero dei bombardamenti... Il loro numero dovette sconvolgere e creare una discreta confusione nei comandi tedeschi, tant'è che dopo ilpreavviso generico, poi quello dipericolo, le sirene anziché ilflieger alarm (allarme aereo) emisero addirittura il panzer alarm (allarme carri armati) "I don't know how many air raids there were.. .Their number must have upset and must have created [must.IND.REMPST.3SG up.set JNF and create.INF] quite a confusion in the German commands, indeed sirens after the generic and the danger warning, did not sound the flieger alarm (air alarm), but the panzer alarm (tank alarm)." (Di301101)

(14)

Nella bottega diDuccio dovettero sicuramente formarsi i ireprotagonisti dellapittura senese del '300: Simone Martini, Pietro e Ambrogio Lorenzetti "In Duccio's studio must certainly have been trained [must.IND.REMPST.3PL certainly form.INF.MID.3PL] the three leading figures of XIV century Sienese Art: Simone Marini, and Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti" (Arte)

There are some rare examples of the epistemic usage of the past perfect modals: (15)

Finalmente l'esercito di Qui occupò la prima grande città. Dappertutto si vedevano soldati dipingere i nomi delie strade sui mu­ ri. I servizi segreti avevano dovuto spedirgli le cartine delia città "Finally- Qui's army occupied the first big city. Everywhere soldiers were to be seen painting street names on the walls The intelligence must have sentthem [have.IND.IMPF.3PL must.PTCP.PST.M.SG send.INF.3PL.DAT] maps of the city." (Int)

114

EPISTEMIC MODALITY (16)

Heyerdahl capì a questo punto che non solo la zattera di balsa ma anche le barche di canna avevano potuto portare iprimi sudamericanisull'Oceano Pacifico "Heyerdahl understood at this point that not only balsa rafts, but also reed boats could have been used by [have.IND.lMPF.3PL can.PTCP.PST.M.SG bring.INF] the first South-Americans on the Pacific Ocean" (Int)

Finally, although in many Italian varieties the past anterior forms of the modals HA POTUTO and HA DOVUTO, do not admit an epistemic reading, these forms have sometimes been described as occurring with an epistemic meaning. For example, Parisi et al (1975: 246) present sentence (17) as an example of the epistemic usage of dovere: (17)

Franco è dov-ut-o usc-ire, Franco be. IND.PRS.3SG mus--PTCP.PST-M.SG go.out-iNF da-l moment-o che non ved-o from-DEF.M.SG moment-SG that NEG see-IND.PRS.ISG più il su-o cappott-o more DEF.M.SG POSS.3SG-M. SG coat-SG "Franco must have gone since I do not see his coat any more" (Parisi et al, 1975: 246)

They add in a footnote that: "in some idiolects only Franco deve essere uscito franco must.IND.PRS.3SG be.INF go.ou..PTCP.PST.M.SG) admits an epistemic interpretation". In the same article (18) is presented as an example of the epistemic usage of potere (18)

Gianni ha pot-ut-o Gianni have .ND.PRS.3SG can-PTCP.PST-M.SG ferm-ar+si Stop-INF+MID.3SG "Gianni may have stopped" (Parisi et al, 1975: 246)

All these forms - as Palmer would put it - enable the speaker to "make present judgments about past events". Nevertheless, there are in Italian more than a few examples of past inflection of epistemic forms used to express a past

INFLECTIONAL AND DISTRIBUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS

115

judgment. This function is fulfilled not only by the past forms of conditional modals, AVREBBE DOVUTO and AVREBBE POTUTO, which have a neat counterfactual value, as in (19) and (20): (19)

Wojtyla avrebbe dovuto andare quest'anno in una dette isole del Pacifico, forse a Tahitii per firmare solennemente il documento "Wojtyla was supposed to go [have.COND.3SG must.PTCP.PST.M.SG go.lNF] this year to one of the Pacific Island, maybe to Tahiti, to solemnly sign the document" (Re221101)

(20)

Avrebbepotuto essereper il nostro Paese una di quelle azioni intersettoriali sulle quali si èfondato il successo delle campagne di innovazione tecnologica neeiervizi pubblici "This could have been [have.C0ND.3SG can.PTCP.PST.M.SG be. INF] for our country one of those cross-sectorial actions on which has been based the success of the public services' technologicalinnovation campaigns" (Int)

But it is also possible to find past inflections of epistemic forms expressing genuine past judgments, without any counterfactual connotation: (21)

Dov-ev-ano must-IND.IMPF-3PL sap-ev-o

ess-ere bell-e be-INF beautfful-F.PL e vol-ev-o

know-IND.IMPF-ISG

and

lo 3 SG.M.ACC

want-IND.IMPF -1SG

ved-er+le seeIINF+3PL.F.ACC "It was evident that they were beautiful, I knew that and I wanted to see them" (Int)

116

EPISTEMIC MODALITY (22)

L'astronomo Walter Baade sondò con attenzione le profondità delia nebulosa e nel 1942 rilevò la presenza di una stella al cen­ tro, che poteva avere una relazione con la sua origine "The astronomer Walter Baade sounded carefully the nebula in its depth and in 1942 perceived the presence of a star in the middle, which could be connected[can.INDI.IMPF.3SGhave.INF INDEF.F.SG relationSG]with its origin" (Int)

Both (21) and (22) are paraphasable with the explicit forms: (23) (24)

I supposed that they were beautiful Baade supposed that it was connected with its origin

It is, thus evident that they describe past evaluations. This usage of modals is not infrequent at all, especially for the forms mpotere: (25)

Lì per lì mi passò per la testa l'ipotesi chepotevano essere due "For a moment I considered the possibility that there could be two of them [cani.lND.IMPF.3PL be.lNF two]" (Int)

(26)

Con le osservazioni sulla Vìa Lattea, Galileo comprese che le stelle piùpiccole della volta celeste potevano presentarsi così all'osservazione solo per iifatto di esserepiùlontane "Thanks to his observations of the Milky Way, Galileo understood that the smallest stars of the celestial sphere could appear [can.IND.IMPF.3PL present.INF.MlD.3PL] that way to observation just because they were further away" (Scienza)

This usage is not attested only in Italian, but at least in French as well:

INFLECTIONAL AND DISTRIBUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS (27)

117

Comme cette peur que pouvait engendrer la venue d'une comète dans le ciel du moyen-âge, qui dévait être le signe annonciateur d'une famine ou dun cataclysme "Like this fear that could be provoked by the arrival [can.IND.IMPF.3SG provoke DEF.F.SG arrival.SG] of a comet in the sky in the Middle Ages, which was interpreted as a sign [must.IND.IMPF.3SG be.INF DEF.M.SG sign.SG] forewarning famine or a cataclysm" (Int)

It should be emphasized however that the past inflection of the future (the anterior future) does not admit such a use, in other words it can express present judgments about past events, but it never expresses past judgments. In §2.3 it will be explained why the future diverges from modals in this respect. To sum up, there are languages - and Italian and French are among themwhose epistemic forms, when inflected in the past, allow the speaker to represent a past evaluation of a state of affairs. This is in contrast with Palmer's and Halliday's hypothesis, who maintain that the "performative", non "ideational" nature of epistemic modality hinders such a function. It will be suggested in §2.3 that the peculiar permeability of Italian to the past inflection of modals depends on the fact that they are to be considered as epistemic-evidential forms rather than genuinely epistemic forms. It should be noted, however, that separation from the speech situation is not without cost. Indeed, while in an epistemic present utterance the origo of the evaluation is univocally identified with the speaker, this is not so when the modal form is inflected in the past. In these cases, in fact, the modal does not condense the origo of the evaluation act, which can only be identified after an observation of the context. For example, in the utterances (21), (22), (25), (26) and (27), only the context allows us to infer that the origo of.the evaluation must be identified with the speaker in (21) and (25), with the astronomer Baade in (22), with Galileo in (26) and with the people in the Middle Ages in (27). The deletion of the univocal identification of the speaker with the origo of the evaluation may depend on the fact that the temporal deixis characterizing past utterances presents a reference moment different from the speech moment, with the result that the utterance does not have the speech situation as a reference. The origo of the evaluation cannot thus be univocally identified with the speaker.

118

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

Let us consider now what constraints operate on the future inflection of epistemic forms. 2.2 Future tense Once again, from a strictly morphological standpoint, there are no constraints on the future inflection of epistemic forms. Dovere has the form DOVRÀ,potere the form POTRÀ. The epistemic future is morphologically a future tense per se. There are occurrences of DOVRÀ and POTRÀ with an epistemic meaning, but here Palmer's warning holds true: in any case the future forms of modals and the epistemic future can be used to place in the future the speaker's evaluation. The future inflection of modals basically fulfils two functions. It collocates in the future a state of affairs about which the speaker makes a judgment in the speech situation. An example is utterance (28) which can paraphrased as in (29): (28)

Potr-a

ess-ere

un-a

can-IND.FUT.3 SG

be-INF

INDEF-F.SG

bell-a fest-a beautiful-F.SG party-SG "It may be a beautiful party" (29)

(Cp)

I suppose (now) that it will be a beautiful party

Another example: (30)

Ricorda che la tua testimonianza potrà rivelarsi utile in futuro ad altri utenti intenzionati magari ad acquistare, nuova o usata, un auto uguale alla tua "Remember that your comments can [can.IND.FUT.3SG] prove useful in the future for other users who may intend to buy a car, new or used, like yours" (Int)

Otherwise, the modal inflected in the future combines its epistemic meaning with the epistemic meaning of the future. There is thus an "accumulation of modal forms", which, as we have seen in chapter 4, do not modify the meaning of the present form. The utterance (31) is thus substantially equivalent to (32):

INFLECTIONAL AND DISTRIBUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS

119

(31)

Ilfatto che il sistema sia capace di suggerire commenti specifici potrà risultare di notevole alleggerimento per il docente "The fact that the system is capable of suggesting specific comments can [can.IND.FUT.3SG] prove a remarkable relief for the teacher" (Int)

(32)

Ilfatto che il sistema sia capace di suggerire commenti specifici può risultaredi notevole alleggerimento per il docente "The fact that the system is capable of suggesting specific comments can prove [can.IND.PRS.3SG result.INF] a remarkable relief for the teacher"

In order to explain the fact that modals do not allow us to use the future inflection to place the speaker's evaluation in the future (and that the future cannot be extended in that direction), one must consider not only the difficulties in disengaging the modal forms from the speech situation, but also the weakness of the future as a deictic form. The future is only rarely used to indicate deictically the occurrence of an event in a moment following the present one (Voghera, 1992: 212). Lyons (1977: 815) proposes considering the future as a generic marker of unreality, rather than a temporal index (see chapter 9). In the previous examples the deictic weakness of the future hinders the creation of a reference moment different from the speech situation in which to place the evaluation act, and in some cases it causes the epistemic interpretation to prevail. 2.3 Lowperformativity and the evidential nature of modals To sum up, as is to be expected, the indexicality yielded by the performative nature of epistemic modality hinders the temporal inflection of the epistemic forms. But it does not block it completely. Modal verbs, even without the univocal identification of the speaker with the origo of the evaluation act, may be used in their past inflection to place in the past the evaluation of the propositional content Significantly, the future cannot fulfil this function. As was argued in chapter 4, Italian modal verbs have an epistemic-evidential meaning This entails their being descriptions and not expressions. Through an evidential modal, in fact, the speaker essentially describes an inferential process (the one concluded by the assertion of the modalized proposition, necessity or possibility). The fact that an interlocutor can infer that if the speaker describes that inferential proc-

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EPISTEMIC MODALITY

ess then he is expressing his evaluation of the state of affairs described, is only a pragmatic matter. Through the epistemic future, by contrast, the speaker does not describe anything, but he does something: he expresses, brings into existence, his evaluation of the state of affairs. A true performative evaluation act is obtained, therefore, using the epistemic future rather than using the modals. The epistemic future, as a true performative, is also indexical. This explains why the temporal inflection of the epistemic future (i.e. the use of the anterior future) can only collocate in the past the state of affairs described, rather than the speaker's evaluation. The modals, on the other hand, being descriptions of processes, can be released from the speech situation. They can be used, for example to describe an inferential process which took place at a moment previous to the speech moment, and reasonably collocate it in the past through a temporal inflection. This entails the temporal inflection of dovere and potere collocating in the past the inferential process condensed in the modals, rather than the speaker's evaluation that it yields, hence the impossibility of identifying univocally the origo of the evaluation with the speaker. In languages like English, where the meaning of the modals is strongly oriented towardthe epistemic pole of the epistemic-evidential axis (see chapter 4), there is not this division of labour between neatly performative epistemic forms and more descriptive epistemic-evidential forms Consequently, in these languages the indexicality of modals is total and, as Palmer maintains, they cannot be employed to place in the past the speaker's evaluation. 3. Constraints on the personal inflection. Speech situation and epistemic control It was shown in the previous section that there are some, albeit limited, constraints operating upon the temporal inflection of epistemic modals. It will be observed in this section whether and to what extent there are constraints operating on the personal inflection. Simone and Amacker (1977: 57-58) have remarked that, at least in principle, the subject of epistemic utterances must be different from the speaker. The reason for this rule is to be sought in the fact that the speaker normally has a high epistemic control over his actions or states. This makes it useless to place these actions and states within an epistemic domain made up of beliefs, rather than facts. The same holds true for the other main character of the speech situation, the interlocutor. It was shown in chapter 2 that in many languages the epistemiccontrolthat speaker and interlocutor have over their actions and states makes epistemic and evidential markers ungrammatical when occurring in the

INFLECTIONAL AND DISTRIBUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS

121

first and second person. This holds true for Sherpa, Nambiquara, Tuyuca and for the inflection of the endophatic verbs of many languages. It will be assumed here that the epistemic control that the speaker has over the state of affairs described depends not only on who is the subject of the utterance, but also on the semantics of the verb and its temporal inflection. Bearing this in mind, the correlation between the parameter of epistemic control and the constraints operating on the personal inflection will be demonstrated in the following sections. 3.1 DEVE, PUÔ, and the epistemic future Let us begin by observing the constraints imposed on the personal inflections of both epistemic future and indicative modals when used in the present tense. Tables 17-19 show the complete personal inflection of these forms used to epistemically modalize verbs with a decreasing degree of epistemic control. Bold characters are used to mark the forms that, after a discussion with five native speakers, were unanimously considered as susceptible of an epistemic reading. + control I person IIperson III person IV person V person VI person

-control ?starò a casa/ ?avrò 15 anni/ sarò statica/ sarò scema I will be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot ? starai a casa/ ?avrai 15 anni/ saraistanco/ saraiscemo You will be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot staràacasa/ avrà 15 anni/ sarà stanco/ saràscemo He, she, it will be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot staremo a casal avremo 15 anni/ saremo stanchi/ We will be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot ?starete a casa/ avrete 15 anni/ sarete stanchi/ sarete scemi You will be at home/ be 15 / be tired / be an idiot staranno a casal avranno 15 anni/ saranno stanchi/ They will be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot

Table 17. Constraints on the epistemic future personal inflection

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EPISTEMIC MODALITY

+control I person IIperson III person IV person V person VI person

-control

»

?Devo stare a casal ?avere 15 anni/ essere stanco/ essere scemo I must be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot ?Devi stare a casal ?avere 15 anni/essere stanco / essere scemo You must be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot Deve stare a casal avere 15 anni/ essere stance / essere scemo He/she/it must be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot *Dobbiamo stare a casa/ *avere 15 anni/ *essere stanchi/ *eesere ecemi We must be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot *Dovete stare a casa/ ? avere 15 anni/essere stanchil essere scemi You must be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot Devono stare a casa/avere 15 annil essere stanchil essere scemi They must be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot

Table 18. Constraints on the personal inflection of DEVE

+ control I person II person III person IV person V person VI person

- control

?posso stare a casal ? avere 15 annil ? essere stancol ? essere scemo I can be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot puoi stare a casal ? avere 15 anni lessere stancol essere scemo You can be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot pud stare a casa/avere 15 anni/ essere stanco/ essere scemo He/she/it can be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot *possiamo stare a casal *avere 15 annil *essere stanchil * essere scemi We can be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot *potete stare a casal ? avere 15 annil ? essere stanchil * essere scemi You can be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot possono stare a casal avere 15 annil essere stanchil essere scemi They can be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot Table 19. Constraints on the personal inflection ofPUÒ

The most remarkable fact suggested by these tables is the absolute permeability of the third and sixth persons (that is, those that are outside the control of the speech situation) to the epistemic reading and the stronger resistance of the enunciation persons. The more the speaker, due to the semantics of the verb, loses his/her control over the state of affairs, the more this resistance decreases. So, for example, while devo stare a casa (I must be at home) has only an awkward epistemic interpretation the clause devo essere scema {I must be an idiot), which represents a state of affairs over which the speaker does not

INFLECTIONAL AND DISTRIBUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS

23 123

supposedly have epistemic control, is more natural in an epistemic interpretation. It should also be noted that the behaviour of the three forms under examination does not diverge remarkably (with the exception of some peculiar resistances of the inflection of PUÒ, which, as was argued in chapter 4, is a weak epistemic). Let us consider whether the present or past inflection of these forms influences the nature of the constraints operating on their personal inflection. It will be assumed that the speaker has greater control over present states and events (in other words, on events and states simultaneous with the speech situation) as compared to past states and events. It will be assumed, therefore, that the forms inflected in the past are less subject to personal inflection constraints.

past (-control) + control

I person sarò stato a casa I will have been at home IV person saremo stati a casa We will have been at home III person sarà stato a casa He/she/it will have been at home

-control

present (+ control) ?staròacasa I will be at home *staremo a casa We will be at home staràacasa He/she/it will be at home

f

Table 20. Constraints on the past andpresent epistemic future personal inflection

past (-control) + control

-control

present (+control)

I person

dovevo stare a casa ?devo stare a casa I must have been at home I must be at home IV person dovevamo stare a casa *dobbiamo stare a casa We must have been at home We must be at home III person doveva stare a casa deve stare a casa He/she/it must have been at home He/she/it must be at home

Table 21. Constraints on the past and present inflection of DEVE

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EPISTEMIC MODALITY

past (-control) + control

-control

present (+control)

I person

potevo stare a casa *posso stare a casa I can have been at home I can be at home IV person potevamo stare a casa *posssamo stare a casa We can have been at home We can be at home III person poteva stare a casa può stare a casa He/she/it can have been at home He/she/it can be at home

Table 22. Constraints on the past and present inflection ofPUÒ

As expected, if the state of affairs described is a past state, and consequently is outside the control of the speech situation, there are no constraints on the personal inflection. To sum up, the parameter of epistemic control not only explains the general resistance of the enunciation persons to be employed as subjects of epistemic utterances, but it also explains all the cases where this resistance is infringed: that is, all the cases where the state of affairs is out of epistemic control, because of the verbal semantics or the (past) time of occurrence. 3.2 DOVREBBE and POTREBBE

In the following table the constraints operating on the epistemic interpretation of the conditional forms of dovere andpotere are illustrated.

INFLECTIONAL AND DISTRIBUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS

+ control I person II person III person IV person V person VI person

125

-control

Dovrei stare a casal ? avere 15 anni/ *essere stanca/ *essere scema I should be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot Dovresti stare a casa/ lavere 15 anni/ * essere stanco/ * essere scemo You should be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot Dovrebbe stare a casal avere 15 anni/ essere stanco/ essere scemo He/she/it should be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot Dovremmo stare a casa/ ?avere 15 anni/ *essere stanchi/ * essere scemi We should be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot Dovreste stare a casal avere 15 annil *essere stanchil ?essere scemi You should be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot Dovrebbero stare a casal avere 15 annil essere stanchil ?essere scemi They should be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot

Table 23. Constraints on the personal inflection of DOVREBBE

+ control

-control ►

I person

?potrei stare a casal ?avere 15 annil essere stancai essere scema I could be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot II person ?Potresti stare a casal ?avere 15 annil essere stancol essere scemo You could be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot III person Potrebbe stare a casal avere 15 annil essere stancol essere scemo He/she/it could be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot IV person ?Potremmo stare a casa / ? avere 15 annil * essere stanchil "essere scemi We could be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot V person Potreate stare a casal avere 15 annil essere stanchil essere scemi You could be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot VI person Potrebbero stare a casal avere 15 annil essere stanchil essere scemi They could be at home/ be 15/ be tired/ be an idiot Table 24. Constraints on the personal inflection of POTREBBE

The most remarkable fact about these tables is the different behaviour of the two forms. While POTREBBE, like the indicative forms of the modals and the epistemic future, displays a greater number of constraints in the contexts where the epistemic control is higher, DOVREBBE has a correspondingly greater number of constraints in the low-control contexts.

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EPISTEMIC MODALITY

The peculiarity of the behaviour of DOVREBBE can be explained by taking into account the semantic representation given to this form in chapter 4, when it was described as the marking of a conditioned inference of necessity. There we saw that DOVREBBE marks the fact that the speaker has an uncertain (conditioned) control over the knowledge that leads him to conclude the truth of the modalized proposition. This proposition, due to the uncertainty of the premises, is put forward as the tentative conclusion of a deductive process. This means that a certain amount of epistemic control, albeit uncertain and conditioned, is necessary for DOVREBBE to be employed correctly. This explains why an utterance like (33) cannot have an epistemic reading (the speaker does not have any control over the premises of such a conclusion). (33)

*Dovr-ei ess-ere scem-a mus--COND.1SG be-INF idiot-F.SG "I should be an idiot" It should also be said that, in any case, the use of DOVREBBE in contexts where the speaker has control over the state of affairs, yields an effect that is described in the literature as "lack of consciousness", the typical effect of indirect evidentials. Tatevosov (2001: 446) gives some examples of this effect in two North-Caucasian languages, Dargwa and Bagvlal. In these languages, the perfect has the value of an indirect evidential: when it is used in the first person (that is, when it is used to speak of states or events upon which the speaker should have a high epistemic control), it produces this effect. An example from Bagvlal is in (34) and one from Dargwa is in (35): (34)

den

musa-b

lSG.ERG

Musa-GEN.N

husa field

b-eL'i-b-o ek¿a NEU-plow-NEU-CVB AUX-PRS "(It appears) I plowed Musa's field! But I don't remember it. I am getting old.)" (Tatevosov, 2001: 447)

INFLECTIONAL AND DISTRIBUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS (35)

127

du-di-/ niko'a:/ ace taman lSG-OBL-ERG long.ago work end b-a:q'-ib-li-da N-make.PFV-PST-VB-1SG "I finished my work long ago (but I do not remember that)" "I finished my work long ago (at least that is what I thought)" (Magometov, 1963: 165 -quoted in Tatevosov, 2001: 447)

Similarly, in Italian an utterance like (36), may have as possible contexts (37) and (38): (36)

Dovr-ei essere mus--COND.lSG be-INF "I should be at home"

(37)

"(I have amnesia, but) I should be at home (if I am not wrong)"

(38)

"(there was no light along the stairs that took me to this door, but) I should be at home (if I was not wrong in counting the number of levels I go up)".

a to

casa house-SG

4. Constraints on the distributton As was recalled in chapter 2, it is commonly acknowledged that the "subjectivity" of epistemic modality imposes a set of distributional constraints on the epistemic forms: namely, modalized propositions occurring in the protasis of conditional constructions, and modalized propositions occurring in interrogative contexts prove to be agrammatical, and epistemic markers tend to occupy more external positions than deontic forms. It should be noted that this last constraint is to be ascribed to the metapropositional, rather than to the performative nature of epistemic modality (see chapter 1 for a distinction between the different senses of the notion of subjectivity). In fact, this behaviour can be considered as a particular case of a more general and universal tendency of grammatical operators universally being ordered in a way that diagrammatically reflects their different semantic scopes (Foley and VanValin, 1984, Bybee, 1985, but also Tesnière, 1939). Thus, epistemic modals, as propositional operators, necessarily have a more external position compared to deontic modals, which are predicational operators.

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EPISTEMIC MODALITY

The agrammaticality of epistemically modalized propositions occurring in the protasis of conditional constructions and in interrogative contexts, by contrast, should be considered as imposed, albeit indirectly, by the performative nature of epistemic modality. Both constraints, in fact, depend on the genuine subjectivity of epistemic modality, i.e. on the fact that the speaker's evaluation is only based on his personal conjectures. What determines the agrammaticality of modalized propositions occurring in the protasis of conditional constructions is the fact that there is a contradiction between the function fulfilled by the protasis and that fulfilled by epistemic forms. The protasis, in fact, serves the function of suspending the evaluation of the truth of the hypothesized proposition, whereas genuine epistemic forms (and, at least in principle, not the evidential forms) serve precisely to express the speaker's evaluation of this truth. Analogously, the agrammaticality of epistemic forms occurring in interrogative contexts depends on the fact that, as Bellert (1977: 344-45) puts it, it is not possible to "ask a question and at the same time to evaluate the truth, or the degree of truth, of the proposition that is being questioned". It will be remembered that in chapter 1 genuine epistemicity was considered as an instantiation of performXity: it brings into existence the speaker's opinion Consequently the agrammaticality of modalized propositions occurring in the protases of conditionals and in interrogative contexts can be considered as a correlate of the performativity of epistemic modality It was conjectured in the previous chapter that Italian is a low performative language The limited constraints on the temporal and personal inflection corroborated this conjecture The question that arises now is whether and to what extent the two aforementioned distributional constraints hold for a language like Italian which is supposedly a low performative language. , 4.1 Conditional constructtons As expected, the epistemic future and the forms DOVREBBE and POTREBBE cannot occur in the protasis of conditional constructions: (39)

*Sestarà a casa, allora lo troveremo 1ì "If it will be [be.IND.FUT.3SG] at home, we will find it there"

(40)

*Se dovrebbe stare a casa, ,llora lo troveremo lì "If it should be [must.C0ND.3SG be.INF] at home, we will find it there"

INFLECTIONAL AND DISTRIBUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS (41)

129

Se potrebbe stare a casa, aliara lo troveremo lì "If it could be [can.COND.3SG be.INT]athome, we will find it there"

By contrast, the forms DEVE and PUÒ can occur in such contexts: (42)

Se deve esserci stato un momento anteriore al Mille in cui la sculturapuò essere stata introdotta nella penisola italiana a eollocata in un contesto cultuale paleocristiano le migliori condizioni per­ ché questo avvenisse si sono avverate in epoca giustinianea "If there was [must.IND.PRS.3SG be.INF.LOC be.PTCP.PST.M.SG] a moment anterior to the year 1000, in which sculpture can have been introduced into the Italian peninsula and placed in the Early Christian context, the best conditions for that took place in the Justinian period" (Arte)

(43)

Se può essere stato fortuito il caso che Crookes fosse in possesso di queiparticolari campioni, non fu cerro casuallelabilità con cui determinò le caratteristiche chimiche e fisiche del nuovo elemento "Even if the fact that Crookes possessed those particular samples may have been [can.IND.PRS.3SG be.INF be.PTCP.PST.M.SG] fortuitous, certainly, the ability he demonstrated in determining the chemical and physical characteristics of the new element was not a matter of chance" (Int)

The occurrence of DEVE and PUÒ in the protasis of conditional constructions produces what Verstraete (2001) calls an "echoing" effect. In other words, "they do not express the current speaker's opinion, as they do in normal main clauses, but echo an opinion that has already been voiced in the preceding discourse" (Verstraete, 2001: 1518). The fact that DOVREBBE and POTREBBE do not occur in such contexts may have grammatical reasons, i.e. may depend on the fact that any conditional form whatsoever is not accepted in the protasis of a conditional construction. By contrast, the divergence of behaviour between the epistemic future and the indicative forms of the modals can be explained with the low performativity of the latter. We have mentioned that what hinders the occurrence of epistemic forms in protases is the contradiction between the judgment these forms ex-

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press and the suspension of judgment that the protasis, as such, imposes. Now, if it is an evidential form, like DEVE or PUÒ that occurs in a protasis, the judgment to be suspended does not concern the truth of the proposition, but the real existence of an evidential source. Therefore, there is no contradiction. 4.2 Interrogative contexts Italian epistemic forms are not agrammatical when occurring in interrogative contexts. They are frequently found in such contexts, indeed, with the effect of shifting the origo of the evaluation from the speaker to the interlocutor. For example, the epistemic utterance in (44) can be paraphrased as in (45): (44)

(45)

Ho impiegato tre anni a fare Momo. Tre anni in cui ho lavorato faticosamente e con cura. Dietro a tutto questo tempo ci sarà un senso, o no? "I spent three years realizing Momo. Three years, during which I have worked hard and carefully. Does all this time make sense, or doesn't it [lit. behind all this time there beIlND.FUT.3SG a sense or not]?" (Ven211201) Dietro tutto questo tempo pensi che ci sia un senso o no? "Do you think that all this time make sense, or don't you?"

Further evidence is in the following examples: (46)

Ma c 'è anche un altro aspetto che ha destato moile perplessità: non poteva, questa, essere una buona opportunità per avere dati attendibili sulla penetrazione dell'information technology nelle case degli italiani? "But there is also another aspect that aroused great perplexity: could not [NEG canIlND.lMPF.3SG] this be a good opportunity to get reliable data on the incidence of information technology in Italian homes?" (Di301101)

(47)

Ma non potrebbe semplicemente stare di là, ,no "But could not [NEG can.COND.3SG] it simply be in the other room, what do you think?"

INFLECTIONAL AND DISTRIBUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS

131

Even if not attested within the corpora, it is possible to imagine grammatical utterances where the epistemic forms of dovere occur in interrogative contexts: (48)

Secondo te deve stare qui? Io non lo vedo "Should [must.IND.PRS.3SG] it be here, according to you? I do not see it"

(49)

Secondo te dovrebbe stare qui? Io non lo vedo "Should [must.C0ND.3SG] it be here, according to you? I do not see it" While the grammaticality of the occurrence of DEVE and PUO' in conditional constructions may depend on the peculiar low performativity of these forms, the fact that epistemic forms do occur in interrogative contexts has other explanations. As Verstraete (2001: 1523) has shown, the occurrence of modalized propositions in interrogative contexts cannot be considered as agrammatical: it simply imposes a different interpretation. The origo of the evaluation is not identified with the speaker, but with the interlocutor This effect is due to the performativity of epistemi modality, which in an interrogative context brings into existence not the expression of the speaker's opinion, but the interlocutor's. Verstraete writes on the subject that the epistemic forms: establish a position of.. .commitment with respect to the propositional content of the clause and are therefore susceptible to the interactive performativity encoded in the declarative-interrogative contrast, which allows the speaker either to take the responsibility for this commitment in his own turn, or to transfer it to the interlocutor in the next. (Verstraete, 2001: 1523)

According to Verstraete this holds true universally. 5. Summary Table 25 summarizes the discussion so far by showing to what extent the Italian epistemic forms obey the morpho-syntactic constraints imposed by epistemic modality functional pressures

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EPISTEMIC MODALITY

Temporal inflection

Markers on enunciation persons YES

Occurrence in protases NO

Epistemic future

NO

DEVE

YES (with a shift of the origo of YES evaluation)

YES

PUÒ'

YES (with a shift of the origo of YES evaluation)

YES

DOVREBBE

YES (with a shift of the origo of YES evaluation)

NO

POTREBBE

YES (with a shift of the origo of YES evaluation)

NO

Occurrence in interrogative YES (with a shift of the origo of evaluation) YES (with a shift of the origo of evaluation) YES (with a shift of! the origo of evaluation) YES (with a shift of the origo of evaluation) YES (with a shift of the origo of evaluation) |

Table 25. The morpho-syntactic constraints operating upon Italian epistemic forms

It clearly emerges that Italian epistemic forms only partially obey these constraints. The epistemic future, which voices a genuine epistemic and therefore expressive meaning, submits to the highest number of constraints, in other words it is considerably affected by the functional properties of the epistemic value it expresses. The remaining forms, however, respond much more freely to these constraints. It was conjectured that due to the high frequency of the epistemic future, Italian modal forms, albeit employed as epistemic markers, retain their focal evidential meaning more than in other languages. This entails their being easily employed as descriptive forms. They describe in fact an inferring process, rather than expressing a genuine evaluation. Their descriptive nature explains why they only partially obey the constraints imposed by the subjective nature of epistemic modality. In other words, in Italian evidential forms are borrowed and employed for the expression of epistemic modality. Even if these forms effectively fulfil their function of epistemics, their deep evidential nature is revealed by the fact that they only partially respond to the morphological and syntactic properties of expressive forms. Seeing it from another point of view, the Italian epistemic system reacts in a peculiar way to the constraints imposed by the functional properties of epistemic modality, proving, by the way, to be a low performative system.

VIL ASPECTUAL CONSTRAINTS ON THE PROPOSITIONAL CONTENT

1. Introductory remarks The sentence: (1)

Luigi dev-e st-are a cas-a Luigi must-IND.PRS.3SG stay-INF to house-SG "Luigi must be at home" admits both a deontic and an epistemic reading, whereas the sentence: (2)

Luigi dev-e and-are a cas-a Luigi must-IND.PRS.3SG go-INF to house-SG "Luigi must go home" admits only a deontic interpretation. It will be argued in the present chapter that the different behaviour of sentence (1) vs. sentence (2) depends on the aspectual value of the modalized proposition. In other words, it will be shown that in the proposition (3) there is an aspectual feature, which is absent in the proposition (4) and that this aspectual feature blocks the epistemic reading of sentence (2): (3)

[Luigi andare a casa] [Luigi go home]

(4)

[Luigi stare a casa] [Luigi be at home]

Seeing it from another point of view, it will be argued that there are constraints on the aspect of epistemically modalized propositions. These constraints will be easily identified by resorting to theoretical instruments provided by traditional studies in verbal semantics, namely, the notions of'actional class' and aspect, which will be briefly introduced in §2. Once we have isolated the predicates admitting an epistemic reading, it will be first observed what ac-

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EPISTEMIC MODALITY

tional class they belong to (§3), then what aspectual value (§4) they exhibit. It will emerge that both actional and aspectual values admitting epistemic modalization present an aspectual feature of incompleteness (§5). A characterrzation of aspectual incompleteness wiil be provided first tn intuitive terms (§5.2). This will be followed by a topological representation of it, inspired by Desclés's (1989, 1994) and Desclés and Guéntcheva's (1995) works (§5.3). In the next chapter it will be argued that incompleteness characterizes not only epistemically modalized propositions but all propositions that mark their propositional status. In other terms it will be suggested that aspectual incom­ pleteness is a marker of propositionality. The typological validity of aspectual incompleteness as a marker of propositionality will also be assessed. This part of the work does not aim simply to observe whether a given proposition admits or does not admit epistemic modalization, but also to study the different behaviour of the five grammatical epistemic forms. It will result in a neat asymmetry among the different epistemic forms. The epistemic future will prove to be the unmarked epistemic form that is admitted in a great variety of contexts, while the modal potere will be confirmed as a much more constrained form compared to the others (§5.1). 2. Tools of analysis. Actional class and aspect An aspectual analysis of a predicate requires at the outset an observation of its inherent properties, i.e. those aspectual characteristics inscribed in its lexical meaning. Vender's (1957 (1967)) elaboration of the traditional notion of ac­ tional class, is the theoretical instrument for this analysis. Vendler(1957 (1967))- following a long tradition dating back to Aristotle's Metaphysics (1048b), recently given new life by Ryle (1949) and reconsidered after Vendler by Kenny (1963), Mourelatos (1978), Verkuyl (1989) and Dowty (1979) - has classified predicates on the basis of their inherent temporal properties. He has thus distinguished four kinds of classes of predicates, or actional classes, to use Bertinetto's (1997) terminology: - states -activities - accomplishments - achievements. Each of these classes is characterized by a certain number of semantic and syntactic properties. From a semantic standpoint, the class of states is represented by those predicates like to stay, to resemble, to be fifteen, to be tired,

ASPECTUAL CONSTRAINTS

135

which indicate "inalienable qualities... of the subject, or states of affairs which are not modifiable without cancelling out the very existence of that state of affairs" (Bertinetto, 1991: 30 - translation ours). The class of activities comprises predicates like to walk, to run, to write, to talk, which describe "a process that lasts a certain amount of time, without either provoking a variation in the state of the subject nor being addressed to reaching a goal" (Bertinetto, 1991: 32 translation ours).The class of accomplishments comprises predicates like to di­ gest, to get slim, to learn, which describe a goal-oriented process. The class of achievements comprises predicates like to leave, to find, to jump which describe a punctual (that is without duration) goal-oriented event. These semantic characterizations result from the different combinations of the features [± durative] [± telic] [± dynamic] displayed by the four classes (among others, Bertinetto 1997: 18-19). The syntactical properties of the four action classes are detected by the following syntactic diagnostics (listed in Bonomi and Zucchi, 2001): (a) occurrence with the progressive; (b) occurrence with durative adverbials; (c) occurrence with "in x time" adverbials; (d) occurrence within the frame construction "x has V-ed and also y has done it"; (e) validity of the inference "x V progressive => it is true the x V-ed"; (f) occurrence as complements of phasal verbs. Table 26 summarizes the semantic and syntactic properties of each action class. In the first line the combinations of the different aspectual features are illustrated. From the second to the sixth line the way the different classes react to each syntactic diagnostic is summarized.

136

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

Semantic features Progressive For x time

STATES

ACTIVITIES

(to talk, to write) + durative -telic +dynamic

(to digest, to get thinner) + durative +Helic +dynamic

NO

YES

YES

(to wake up, to leave) -durative + telic + dynamic not always

YES

YES

YES

NO

(to be at home, tobe 15) + durative -telic -dynamic

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

ACHIEVEMENTS

In x time NO NO YES NO XV-ed and also NO YES YES Not always Y has done it Vprogr>V-ed Nonexistent YES Nonexistent NO Phasal verbs NO YES YES NO Table 26. Semantic and syntactic properties of the four actional classes

Vender's classification as well as the correctness of the syntactic diagnostics illustrated have been the subject of huge debate in the literature (Taylor, 1977,Mourelatos, 1983,Verkuyl, 1989, Desclés, 1989,Bertinetto, 1997,Bonomi and Zucchi, 2001,133 and following). In particular, it was not clear whether it was correct to assign aspectual properties at the lexical level. The most radical criticism in this sense has been made by Verkuyl (1989), who has maintained that aspectual properties must be "taken away from the verb and be assigned to higher levels of sentential structures": to the verbal phrase and to the sentence. Verkuyl (1989: 78) has shown that the same verb can change aspectual properties according to the object or the subject accompanying it, i.e. according to the VP or the sentence it belongs to. For example, among the following sentences: (5)

(a) She played that sonata (b) She played sonatas (c) She hated that sonata (d) She hated sonatas (e) Soldiers played that sonata (f) Adults hated that sonata (g) Nobody hated sonatas (h) She didn't play that sonata

only (a) can be considered as "terminative" -i.e. telic, although all the verbs listed are telic out of context. The plural objects in (b), (d) and (g) and the past tense in (c) yield a de-telicization of the VP Similarly the plural subjects in (e)

ASPECTUAL CONSTRAINTS

137

and (f) and the indefinite subject of (g) yield a de-telicization of the sentence. Verkuyl's position has the value of highlighting the compositionality of aspect, which should be considered as a sentence-level rather than a strictly verbal notion. Nevertheless, it totally excludes, perhaps counter-intuitively, that even a partial assignment of aspectual properties may take place at the lexical level. He writes: "In this approach there is no room at all for four Vendler-classes as part of the explanation"(Verkuyl, 1989: 90). A more moderate and likewise interesting position is Pustejovsky's (1995). Pustejovsky - like many other authors (Kenny, 1963, Dahl, 1973, Comrie, 1976, Mourelatos, 1978, Desclés, 1989, Desclés and Guentchéva, 1995)- proposes to distinguish three types of events, instead of the four actional classes identified by Vendler. He thus distinguishes between states, processes, and generic transitions52 (including both accomplishments and achievements). States, processes, and transitions are considered as primitives for the representation of the sub-eventual structure of verbal predicates. Each event -claims Pustejovsky - can be seen as structured in sub-events, each being a logical part of the principal event. For example, the event e3 denoted by the verb to build can be considered as structured in two sub-events: a process e1 and a resulting state e2 (Pustejovsky, 1995: 69). A graphical representation of the sub-eventual structure of the event denoted by to build can be: (6)

e3 (to build)

e1

(process)

(resulting state)

The event e3 denoted by the verb to begin nan be eonsidered aa structured in two sub-events: a process e1 and a transition e2 (Pustejovsky, 1995: 203):

138

EPISTEMIC MODALITY (7)

e3 (to oegin)

e1

(process)

(transition)

Interestingly, Pustejovsky has noted that the sub-events can present a hierarchical relation. Depending on the contexts, one of the two sub-events can be more prominent than the other. The most prominent sub-event is called the "head" of the event (Pustejovsky, 1995: 72). For example, in a sentence like (8), e1, the process of building is the head of the event e3, whereas in the sentence (9), the head of the event is the sub-event e2 (the resulting state): (8) (9)

That building was built in a few months That building was built in 1970

In a sentence like (10) the head of the event is e1 (the process of beginning to understand), while in the sentence (11) the head of the event is e2 (the transition through which one begins a book): (10) (11)

I begin to understand I begin the book

Pustejovky's approach, like Verkuyl's, highlights the fact that aspectuality is determined only compositionally. Nevertheless, it does not exclude that a partial indication of these properties can also be found in the verbal semantics. Pustejovsky considers verbal semantics as underspecified at the lexical level underspecified not totally absent - and he claims that it can only be specified at the compositional level. The aspectual properties underspecified at the lexical level are represented by the potential semantic heads, which are, anyway, finite in number. In other words, as Pustejovsky (1995: 74) puts it: "A predicate should be as many ways ambiguous as there are potential heads". In the present work the theoretical approach underlying Pustejovsky's model will be adopted. Bertinetto's (1997) terminology distinguishing between actional class - i.e., aspectual meaning assigned at the lexical level - and aspect - i.e., aspectual meaning assigned compositionally - will be accepted. The no-

ASPECTUAL CONSTRAINTS

139

tion of actional class will be employed as a first approximation for the individuation of the constraints operating on the semantics of epistemically modalized propositions. The aspect of modalized propositions will then be observed. 3. Stativityofthepropositional content The following sentences show that only propositions displaying stative predicates can be epistemically modalized: (12)

STATES [+epistemic+deontic] Gianni dev-e ess-ere stanc-o / Gianni mus-IND.PRS.3SG be-INF tired-M. SG quindiciann-i have-INF fiftenn year-PL "Gianni must be tired/be fifteen"

(13)

ACTIVITIES [-epistemic+deontic] Gianni dev-e cammin-are / scriv-ere Gianni must-IND.PRS.3SG walk-INF write-INF "Gianni must walk/ write"

(14)

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Gianni dev-e diger-ire/ Gianni must-IND.PRS.3SG digest-INF "Gianni must digest/ get thinner" (15)

ACHIEVEMENTS

[-epistemic+deontic]

dimagr-ire get.thirmer-INF [-epistemic+deontic]

Gianni dev-e salt-are/ part-ire Gianni must-IND.PRS.3SG Jump- INF leave-INF "Gianni must jump/ leave" The epistemic reading is in fact allowed only in (12), which presents the stative predicates be tired and be fifteen in the propositional content. The sentences (13), (14), and (15) having activities, accomplishments, and achievements in the propositional content do not admit an epistemic reading. This constraint does not hold only for the sentences modalized by DEVE, but also for the sentences modalized by PUÒ (see (16)(19))and for those modalized by the epistemic future (see (20)-(23))

140

EPISTEMIC MODALITY [+epistemic+deontic] stanc-o tired-M. SG

(16)

STATES Gianni può ess-ere Gianni can. IND.PRS.3SG be-INF "Gianni may be tired"

(17)

ACTIVITIES Gianni può cammin-are Gianni can.IND.PRS.3SG walk-INF "Gianni can walk"

[-epistemic+deontic]

(18)

ACCOMPLISHMENTS Gianni può diger-ire Gianni can.IND.PRS.3SG digest- INF "Gianni can digest"

[-epistemic+deontic]

(19)

ACHIEVEMENTS Gianni può salt-are Gianni can.IND.PRS.3SG jump-INF "Gianni can jump"

[-epistemic+deontic]

(20)

STATES sar-a stanc-o Gianni Gianni be- IND.FUT.3SG tired-M. SG "Gianni will be tired"

[+epistemic+temporal]

(21)

ACTIVITIES Gianni cammin-er-a Gianni walk-IND.FUT-3SG "Gianni will walk"

[-epistemic +temporal]

(22)

ACCOMPLISHMENTS Gianni diger-ir-à Gianni digest-IND.FUT-3SG "Gianni will digest"

[-epistemic +temporal]

ASPECTUAL CONSTRAINTS

(23)

ACHIEVEMENTS

141

[-epistemic +temporal]

Gianni salt-er-à Gianni jump- IND.FUT-3SG "Gianni will jump" Stativity is also an important feature for the propositions modalized by the conditional forms DOVREBBE and POTREBBE, but for different reasons. All propositions introduced by the two conditional modals admit an epistemic reading regardless of the actional class of their predicates. Nevertheless, only stative predicates allow us to interpret the state of affairs described in the propositional content as simultaneous with the speech process: (24)

(25)

STATES Gianni dovr-ebbe/ potr-ebbe Gianni must-C0ND.3SG can-COND.3sG ess-ere stanc-o adesso be-INF tired-M.SG now "Gianni should/could be tired now" OTHERACTIONALCLASSES

Gianni dovr-ebbe/ potr-ebbe cammin-are/ Gianni must-COND.3SG can-COND.3SG walk-INF diger-ire/ salt-are in futuro digestI- INF jump-INF in future "Gianni should/ could walk / digest /jump in the future" In other words, actional classes other than states impose a predictive interpretation of the modals DOVREBBE and POTREBBE. The analysis so far conducted is summarized in table 27.

142

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

STATES

ACTIVITIES

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

ACHIEVEMENTS

DEVE

+ep.

-ep.

-ep.

-ep.

PUÒ

+ep. +ep.

-ep. -ep.

-ep. -ep.

-ep. -ep.

DOVREBBE

+ep. +ep.

+ ep.pred. + ep.pred.

+ ep.pred. + ep.pred.

+ ep.pred. + ep.pred.

Epistemic future POTREBBE

Table 27. Constraints on the actional class of modalizedpropositions

Seemingly, only the propositions represented by stative predicates can be epistemically modalized. A partial exception is represented by the propositions within the scope of DOVREBBE and POTREBBE, which admit an epistemic reading, albeit strictly predictive, when they are represented by actional classes other than states. Nevertheless, it is possible to express a judgment about the events represented by non-stative predicates, resorting to the aspectual modifications that will be described in the next section. 4. The aspect ofthe propositional content 4.1 Progressives If we use a progressive construction of the epistemic future, we can say that we think that right now Gianni is performing one of the actions described by the non-stative predicates that we have considered in the previous section: (26)

Gianni star-à Gianni stay- IND.FUT.3SG salt-ando jump-GER

cammin-ando / diger-endo/ walk-GER diges--GER

"Gianni will be walking/ digesting/jumping" More awkwardly, we can use a progressive construction introduced by the DEVE and DOVREBBE and say:

ASPECTUAL CONSTRAINTS

143

(27)

?dioma dev-e st-are cammin-ando/ Gianni must- IND.PRS.3SG stay-INF walk-GER diger-endo/ salt-ando diges--GER jump-GER "Gianni must be walking/ digesting/jumping"

(28)

?Gianni dovr-ebbe st-are cammin-ando/ Gianni mus--COND.3sG stay-INF walk-GER diger-endo/ salt-ando diges--GER jump-GER "Gianni should be walking/ digesting/jumping"

By contrast, it is not possible to use progressive constructions introduced byPuò and POTREBBE: (29) *Gianni può st-are cammin-ando/ Gianni can.IND.PRS.3SG stay-lNF walk-GER diger-endo/ salt-ando diges--GER jump-GER "Gianni can be walking/ digesting/jumping" (30)

*Gianni potr-ebbe st-are cammin-ando/ Gianni can-COND.3SG stay-lNF walk-GER diger-endo / salt-ando diges--GER jump-GER "Gianni could be walking/ jumping/ digesting"

To sum up, it is possible to express a judgment about the events represented by every predicate, regardless of its actional class. If the predicate is a nonstative, it is possible to resort to a progressive construction, preferably in the future. In this case a neutrallzatton of the semanttc diitincttons among epiis temic forms takes place, the epistemic future being the syncretic form Less naturally, it is possible to preserve the semantic distinction between dovere and the epistemic future by using a progressive construction introduced by the indicative or the conditional forms of dovere. It is not possible, however, to resort to progressive constructions introduced by potere. Table 28 summarizes these facts

144

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

STATES

(stare "to stay")

Epistemic future

Starà

DEVE

deve stare

DOVREBBE

dovrebbe stare

PUÒ

può stare potrebbe stare

POTREBBE

ACTIVITIES

(camminare "to walk") Starà cam­ inando ?Deve stare camminando ?dovrebbe stare camminando

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

ACHIEVEMENTS

?Deve stare digerendo ?Dovrebbe stare digerendo

Deve stare partendo ?Dovrebbe stare partendo

(digerire "to digest") Starà digerendo

(partire "to leave") Starà partendo

Table 28. Resources fortihe epistemic modalization of the fouract ional classes

It should be noted incidentally that the weak grammaticality of the forms in (27) and (28), rather than semantically motivated, is to be ascribed to the nature of the Italian progressive. The Italian progressive, as shown by Bertinetto (1990: 336), "does not add to verbal morphology potentialities that would be otherwise non-existent". The progressive aspect, in fact can be expressed in Italian by simple imperfective forms, which does not happen in other languages, such as English. The weakness of the progressive within the Italian verbal morphology paradigm entails that the progressive is in Italian a mere verbal periphrasis and that it is not part of the verbal morphological system, as for the English progressive. As a verbal periphrasis, the Italian progressive displays defectivism, and the weak grammaticality of the infinitival progressive forms is a genuine case of defectivism. 4.2. Habituais It was argued in §3 that activity and accomplishment predicates cannot be epistemically modalized. It should be specified that sentences like (31) and (32) do admit an epistemic reading, which selects, however, the habitual or attitudinal aspect of the predicate:

ASPECTUAL CONSTRAINTS (31)

ACTIVITIES +ep Cammin-er-à/ walkIIND.FUT-3sG

145

dev-e/

dovr-ebbe/

must-IND.PRS.3SG

must-C0ND.3sG

potr-ebbe cammin-are bene can-COND.3SG walk-INF well "(S)he will walk well/ (s)he must/should/ could walk well" (32)

ACCOMPLISHMENTS +ep Diger-ir-à bene dev-el digest-IND.FUT-3SG well must-IND.PRS.3SG dovr-ebbe/ ?potr-ebbe diger-ire bene must-COND.3SG can-COND.3SG digest-INF well "(S)he will digest well/ (S)he must/ should/ could digest well"

The epistemic interpretation of (31) may take place in a context in which we are talking about a baby who is almost one year old, which induces us to think that he is now able to walk (attitudinal); or in a context in which we are talking about Gianni who is very fit, which suggests that he is used to walking (habitual). The epistemic interpretation of (32) may arise in a context in which we say that Marta is really thin, although she is a gourmet, which induces us to think that she normally has a good digestion (habitual). It should be emphasized that non-stative predicates introduced by the form PUÒ do not admit an epistemic interpretation, not even under a habitual reinterpretation of the predicate: (33)

-ep

Può cammin-are/ can.IND.PRS.3SG walk-lNF "(S)he can walk well"

diger-ire bene digest-lNF well

This proves, once again, the weak epistemicity of this form. Achievements behave only partially like activities and accomplishments. These predicates, in fact, like the others, admit in their habitual interpretation an epistemic reading of the utterances modalized by DEVE and the epistemic future:

146

EPISTEMIC MODALITY (34)

ACHIEVEMENTS +ep Salt-er-à/ dev-e salt-are jump-IND.FUT-3SG must- IND.PRS.3SG jump- INF spesso often "(S)he will jump / (s)he must jump often"

But when introduced by DOVREBBE and POTREBBE, these predicates do not admit this kind of epistemic interpretation of the modal: (35)

ACHIEVEMENTS -ep Dovr-ebbe/ potr-ebbe mus--C0ND.3 SG can-COND.3SG "(S)he should/ could jump often"

salt-are spesso jump-lNF often

As regards achievements as well, the form PUÒ does not admit epistemic interpretation: (36)

ACHIEVEMENTS Può salt-are spesso can.IND.PRS.3SG jump-lNF often "He can jump often" All in all - even if with some exceptions, which mostly highlight the asymmetry between dovere and potere - a proposition displaying a habitual predicate can be epistemically modalized. -ep

4.3 Perfects The behaviour of perfect predicates is much simpler. By perfect predicates we mean those predicates whose aspectual value marks the enduring, at the reference moment, of the results of an event which took place previously. The perfect aspect is marked in Italian by anterior forms of the verb, in our case by the anterior future and the past infinitive. A proposition displaying a perfect predicate admits epistemic interpretation regardless of its actional class and the epistemic form which introduces it:

ASPECTUAL CONSTRAINTS (37)

+ep

Sar-à be-IND.FUT.3SG

147

st-at-o

ssanc-o/

be-PTCP.PST-M.SG

tired-M.SG

avr-à

cammin-at-o/

have-IND.FUT.3SG

walk-PTCP.PST-M. SG

avr-à

diger-it-o/

have- IND.FUT.3SG

diges--PTCP.PST-M. SG

avr-à

salt-at-o

haveIIND.FUT.3SG

jump-PTCP.PST-M. SG

"(S)he will have been tired/ have walked/ have digested/ have jumped" (38)

+ep

Deve ess-ere st-at-o must- IND.PRS.3SG be-INF be-PTCP.PST-M.SG stanc-o/ av-er cammin-at-o/ tired-M.SG have-INF walk-PTCP.PST-M. SG diger-it-o/ have-iNF diges--PTCP.PST-M.SG salt-at-o have-iNF

jump-PTCP.PST-M.SG

"(S)he must have been tired/ have walked/ have digested/ have jumped" (39)

+ep

Può ess-ere st-at-o can.IND.PRS.3SG be-INF be- PTCP.PST-M. SG stanc-o/ av-er cammin-at-o/ tired-M.SG have-iNF walk-PTCP.PST-M. SG diger-it-o/ have-iNF diges--PTCP.PST-M.SG salt-at-o have-iNF jump-PTCP.PST-M.SG "(S)he must have been tired/ have walked/ have digested/ have jumped"

148

EPISTEMIC MODALITY (40)

+ep

Dovr-ebbe

ess-ere

st-at-o

must-C0ND.3 SG

be-INF

be-PTCP.PST-M. SG

stanc-o/ av-er cammin-at-o/ tired-M.SG have-INF walk-PTCP.PST-M. SG diger-it-o/ have-lNF digest-PTCP.PST-M. SG salt-at-o have-lNF jump-PTCP.PST-M. SG "(S)he should have been tired/ have walked/ have digested/ havejumped" (41)

+ep

Potr-ebbe ess-ere st-at-o can-COND.3SG be-iNF be-PTCP.PST-M. SG stanc-o/ av-er cammin-at-o/ tired-M.SG have-lNF walk-PTCP.PST-M.SG diger-it-ol have-lNF digest-PTCP.PST-M. SG salt-at-o have-INF jump-PTCP.PST-M.SG "(S)he could have been tired/ have walked/ have digested/ havejumped"

5. Conclusions Although the discussion so far conducted is quite complex, it is easy to draw two kinds of conclusions, one concerning the asymmetries among epistemic forms, the other the aspect of epistemically modalized propositions. 5.1. Asymmetries among epistemic forms We have frequently noticed that the epistemic future, the modal dovere and the modal potere do not behave in the same manner. The epistemic future proves to be, among the Italian grammaticized epistemic forms, the unmarked one.53 It is the only epistemic form that can be used without constraints to modalize propositions displaying strive, progressive, habitual, and perfect predicates. Moreover, the epistemic future progressive construction is the most natural solution for the epistemic modalization of non-stative propositions. Its use is more natural than the use of progressive constructions introduced by the modal dovere, which are awkward, and the use of progressive constructions introduced by the modal potere, which are overtly ungrammatical (§4.1). As regards

ASPECTUAL CONSTRAINTS

149

non-stative propositions, it is indeed possible to speak of a neutralization of the semantic distinctions among epistemic forms, which are synchretized in the epistemic future progressive construction. It is this fact (which we have explained with the defectivism of the progressive construction) above all that suggests that the epistemic future is the unmarked form for the expression of epistemic modality in Italian. It is also worth highlighting that there is an asymmetry between the two modals dovere and potere. While dovere, albeit more weakly than the epistemic future, can epistemically modalize propositions displaying stative, progressive,habitual and perfect predicates, potere - in particular in the indicative form PUÒ - appears to be only limited to the modalization of propositions displaying stative or perfect predicates. It cannot be used with progressives and habituais. 5.2. The incompleteness of the propositiona content Besides the peculiar constraints of each single epistemic form, it is possible to summarize the examination conducted in this chapter by saying that the only propositions admitting epistemic modalization are those displaying stative, progressive, habitual or perfect predicates. It is therefore a reasonable hypothesis that there is an aspectual feature shared by the stative actional class and by progressive, habitual, and perfect aspect. This aspectual feature is supposedly what allows them to be epistemically modalized. In the following an intuitive characterization of this aspectual feature will be provided. A topological characterization of it will be attempted in the next section. What is common to stative, progressive, habitual, and perfect predicates is that they do not describe changes. Stative predicates do not describe changes by definition, since they indicate "inalienable qualities...of the subject, or states of affairs which are not modifiable without cancelling out the very existence of that state of affairs" (Bertinetto, 1991: 30 - translation ours). The semantic characterization of progressive aspect is quite a controversial matter in the literature (see Bertinetto, 1997, 95-110 and Sasse, 2002 for a review). Nevertheless it is easy to argue that, no matter how described, the progressive aspect is not regarded as the description of a change. According to some authors, progressives serve the purpose of turning non-stative predicates into statives (Vlach, 1981, Dowty, 1986, Langacker, 1987, 1991 Parsons, 1989). These authors see the progressive as the aspect that, rather than focalizing on the development of an event, frames the event with he effect of showing statically a dynamic fact, or in o her words, of describing a dynamic state. Mittwoch (1988

150

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

quoted in Bertinetto, 1997), for example, describes the progressive aspect as a still in a motion picture. In this perspective, the semantic characteristics of the progressive are reconducted to those of states, and therefore, considered as inconsistent with the description of a change. According to other authors (Comrie, 1976, Leech and Swartvik, 1981, Bertinetto, 1997, Desclés, 1994, Desclés and Guentcheva, 1995), the progressive does not describe a dynamic state, but an ongoing process. In other words its function is to catch the internal evolution of a change that has begun, but that is not accomplished. In this perspective, the fact that the progressive is regarded as not describing the final state of a change is enough to infer that it is not considered as the description of a change. The habitual aspect provides information about the regularity of a given event, without focalizing the event as such and the change it causes. If one considers the fact that this aspect can be paraphrased with the construction essere solito + infinitive (or in English to be used to + gerundive), or in its attitudinal form, with the construction essere capace di + infinitive (in English to be able to + infinitive), it is evident that the semantic characteristics of the habitual aspect can be traced back to those of stative predicates. Finally, the perfect aspect does not focalize an event as such, but the resulting state of an event. Its semantic characteristics can therefore be traced back to those of states. Following Lazard (2002), we will call "incompleteness" the aspectual feature shared by all the aspectual and the actional values not describing an event. .

5.3 A topological representation of aspeccual lncompleteness Aspectual incompleteness has so far been characterized in intuitive terms. In this section a more solid representation of this aspectual feature will be attempted, which will help to explain in the next chapter why in the scope of an epistemic operator there must be a proposition displaying an aspectual feature of this kind In order to do that, we will resort to the representation of aspectual values in topological terms proposed in the nineties by Jean Pierre Desclés. Desclés (1994) has shown that aspectual operators (among which he includes those that we have treated as actional classes) play a twofold role: they both describe how a predicative relation is viewed and specify its temporal coordinates. In other words they fulfil the function of indicating the validity interval of a predicative relation: for how long a given predicative relation viewed in a given way, holds true (for example, indefinitely, in the case of states; until a certain find point in the case of telic predicates repeatedly in the case of habitual ones, etc.). The representation of the temporal and aspectual properties

ASPECTUAL CONSTRAINTS

151

of a predicate thus has at the outset a representation of a temporal dimension, or, to be more precise, the representation of the validity intervals of a predicative relation, i.e. those in which that relation holds true. This kind of representation can be obtained by resorting to a few descriptive tools borrowed from general topology: instants, intervals, open and closed boundaries. An interval is defined as "an oriented set of contiguous points (which are members of a continuous line) delimited to the left and to the right by two boundary points" (Desclés, 1989: 166). Since the interval being examined is a temporal interval, the contiguous points are interpreted as instants. A representation is provided in (42): (42) (to the left)

| interval boundary points

| (to the right)

Boundary points can be either closed or open. Closed boundary points belong to the interval, open boundary points do not belong to the interval. An interval can be: 1) closed, if it is comprised between two closed boundary points; 2) open, if it is comprised between two open boundary points; 3) open to the left, if it is comprised between a open boundary point to the left and a closed boundary point to the right; 4) open to the right, if it is comprised between an open boundary point to the right and a closed boundary point to the left. The four possible intervals can be represented as in the following: (43)

[

closed

]

]

open

[

]

open to the left

]

[

open to the right

[

Using these representational tools we will propose that stative, progressive, habitual and perfect predicates can all be represented as intervals open to the right. Incompleteness can thus be characterized as the property of a predicate to be representable as a topological interval open (at least) to the right. A stative predicate describes, by definition, a time-stable situation, whose validity does not change with time. It follows that the "temporal zone in which a stative predicate is considered as true is an open topological interval" (Des-

152

EPISTEMIC MODALITY

clés, 1994), i.e. an interval without closed boundary points either to therightor the the left. A stative predicate like (47) can be represented as in (48): (47)

I am fifteen

(48)

]////////////////////[ I am fifteen