Can We Define "Must"? The Semantics of Modality

Описание: How do we capture the meaning of "may" or "can"? What kinds of linguistic math do we need to understand them? In this week's episode, we take a look at modality: where words like "must" fit in our meanings; how we consider many ways the world could be to account for their semantics; and how the same string of sounds can have a lot of flavours.

This is Topic #90!

This week's tag language: Cornish!

Related videos:
Logical Connections: How Logical Is Language?    • How Logical is Language? Sentential Logic  
Let's Talk About Sets: How Do We Build Meaning with Math?    • How Do We Build Meaning with Math? Set The...  
Quantifying Sets and Toasters: What Does "Most" Even Mean?    • What Does "Most" Even Mean? Generalized Qu...  

Last episode:
Relatively Close: How Can Sentences Work Like Adjectives?    • How Can Sentences Work Like Adjectives? Th...  

Other of our semantics and pragmatics videos:
Topic of Focus: How Do We Signal What's Important When We Talk?    • How Do We Signal What's Important When We ...  
Downward Spiral: Why Can't "Any" Go Just Anywhere?    • Why Can't "Any" Go Just Anywhere? NPIs  
Building Common Ground: How Do We Build Shared Worlds in Conversation?    • How Do We Create a Shared World in Convers...  

Our website also has extra content about this week's topic, on the syntax of modals, at: http://www.thelingspace.com/episode-90/

Find us on all the social media worlds:
Tumblr:   / thelingspace  
Twitter:   / thelingspace  
Facebook:   / thelingspace  

And at our website, http://www.thelingspace.com/ !
You can also find our store at the website, https://thelingspace.storenvy.com/

We also have forums to discuss this episode, and linguistics more generally.

Sources:
A good portion of the presentation was based off of Kai von Fintel's Intensional Semantics notes (http://web.mit.edu/fintel/fintel-heim...)

We also consulted Angelika Kratzer's papers from 1977, 1981, and 1991, where all these ideas about modality originally come from:

The 1977 paper: http://semantics.uchicago.edu/kennedy...

The 1981 paper: http://semantics.uchicago.edu/kennedy...

The 1991 paper: https://udrive.oit.umass.edu/kratzer/...

For background -- historical and otherwise -- we consulted Basic Concepts in Modal Logic (https://mally.stanford.edu/notes.pdf) and William Starr's lecture notes: (http://williamstarr.net/teaching.html).

Finally, we drew some inspiration from Seth Cable's recent (and wonderfully lucid) Formal Semantics notes: http://people.umass.edu/scable/LING62...

Looking forward to next time!