Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Modal Sentences
    Show more authors
    • You may already have access via personal or institutional login
  • Select format
  • Publisher:
    Cambridge University Press
    Publication date:
    01 January 2026
    22 January 2026
    ISBN:
    9781108989954
    9781108839372
    DOI:
    https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108989954
    Dimensions:
    (216 x 140 mm)
    Weight & Pages:
    0.551kg, 348 Pages
    Dimensions:
    Weight & Pages:
    • Series:
    Key Topics in Semantics and Pragmatics
    Subjects:
    Language and Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, Semantics and Pragmatics
You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Selected: Digital
    Add to cart View cart Buy from Cambridge.org
    Series:
    Key Topics in Semantics and Pragmatics
    Subjects:
    Language and Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, Semantics and Pragmatics
    Information

    Book description

    Building on the logical tradition of possible world semantics, this innovative book explores the rich and diverse empirical domain of modality in language, offering an ambitious theory of linguistic modality as indicative of uncertainty. It covers a wide variety of languages ranging from English, Greek, Italian and French, to Native American and Asian languages, and studies modals alongside evidentials, questions, and imperatives, to enable a deeper understanding of modality. The authors introduce a new analysis of linguistic necessity as conveying evidential bias, identifying new categories such as flexible necessity modals, and offering a framework for the linguistic category of evidentiality as a branch of epistemic modality. They also study the relationship between questions and modals through the concepts of nonveridical equilibrium, reflection, and evidential bias. Laying out the formal semantic tools step-by-step, it is essential reading for both scholars and students of semantics, philosophy, computational linguistics, typology and communication theory.

    Refine List

    Actions for selected content:

    Select all | Deselect all
    • View selected items
    • Export citations
    • Download PDF (zip)
    • Save to Kindle
    • Save to Dropbox
    • Save to Google Drive

    Save Search

    You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

    Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
    Cancel
    ×

    Contents

    Contents

    Metrics

    Altmetric attention score

    Full text views

    Total number of HTML views: 0
    Total number of PDF views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    Book summary page views

    Total views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    * Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

    Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

    Accessibility standard: Missing or limited accessibility features

    Why this information is here

    This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

    Accessibility Information

    The PDF of this book is known to have missing or limited accessibility features. We may be reviewing its accessibility for future improvement, but final compliance is not yet assured and may be subject to legal exceptions. If you have any questions, please contact accessibility@cambridge.org.

    Content Navigation
    Table of contents navigation

    Allows you to navigate directly to chapters, sections, or non‐text items through a linked table of contents, reducing the need for extensive scrolling.

    Index navigation

    Provides an interactive index, letting you go straight to where a term or subject appears in the text without manual searching.