Free Choice in Modal Contexts
Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: This article proposes a new analysis of modal expressions which (i) explains the difference between necessity and possibility modals with respect to the licensing of Free Choice any and (ii) accounts for the related phenomena of Free Choice disjunction in permissions and other possibility statements. Any and or are analyzed as operators introducing sets of alternative propositions. Modals are treated as quantifiers over these sets of alternatives. In this way they can be sensitive to the alternatives any and or introduce in their scope.
Author: Aloni, Maria
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2156013757