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Part of
Recent Developments in Functional Discourse Grammar
Edited by Evelien Keizer and Hella Olbertz
[Studies in Language Companion Series 205] 2018
► pp. 131–168

On objective and subjective epistemic modality again

Evidence from Portuguese and Spanish modal auxiliaries

 | University of Amsterdam
 | Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP)
This aim of this chapter is to prove the linguistic reality of the distinction between objective and subjective epistemic modality as made in FDG, according to which the former modifies the Episode and the latter the Propositional Content. The chapter studies the two basic Spanish modal auxiliaries poder ‘can, may’ and deber ‘must’ and its Portuguese cognates dever and poder in order to see (i) which of the criteria (proposed by Hengeveld (1988) for the lexical expression of this distinction) yield testable criteria for the grammatical expression of epistemic modality and (ii) if the objective-subjective dichotomy somehow relates to the degrees of possibility and necessity expressed by these modal auxiliaries. With respect to (i), it is argued that there are two testable criteria, i.e. non-locatability in time and space and the boundedness to the ‘locutionary agent’ of propositions, for the identification of subjective auxiliary expressions. As for (ii), it turns out that the expressions of auxiliaries of necessity are prone to express subjective epistemic modality, whereas those of probability and possibility generally express objective epistemic modality.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Objective vs. subjective epistemic modality: Definition and preliminary criteria
  • 3.Which criteria are applicable to Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish epistemic modals?
    • 3.1‘Subjectively modalized propositions cannot be questioned’
    • 3.2‘Subjectively modalized propositions cannot be hypothesized’
    • 3.3“Subjective modality can be formulated in positive terms only”
    • 3.4“Subjective modality is bound to the moment of speaking”
    • 3.5‘The source of the subjective modalization is the speaker’
    • 3.6Summary
  • 4.Objective and subjective modals in Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish
    • 4.1Poder
    • 4.2Dever and deber
    • 4.3Intermediate conclusion
  • 5.Subjective epistemic modality and inferential evidentiality
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Corpora
Published online: 22 November 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.205.05olb
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