LANG A338F SEMANTICS

Modality & Evidentiality

1. Modality
(i) What is modality?
Modality refers to the ways in a language that we can use to express a certain attitude
toward a proposition.

(ii) Highlight the strategies of modality in the text below.

School Violence
There are a number of possible reasons for school violence. Perhaps children who
have problems at school or at home feel frustrated because they cannot solve their
problems. They might not be able to talk to their teachers or parents and may
sometimes feel that they have no friends. This frustration could possibly (further
reduce the commitment) turn to anger and they may take it out on other people.
Children who watch a lot of violent TV shows may think that violence is the best way
to solve problems. Adults may need to help these children to express their feelings in
a peaceful way.

Remarks
The first four sentences are about the nature of the problem. The writer uses hedges
throughout. This suggests that he/she shows less commitment to the truth-value of the
propositions.

(iii) What are the two types of modality?

Epistemic modality expresses the possibility or necessity of the truth of a proposition,

based on what is known about the real world.

Deontic modality concerns moral and legal obligations/permission, according to some

code of social practice (i.e. certain standards must be met).

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(iv) Modality and polysemy
Because modal verbs are polysemous, it is difficult to pin down the meaning
communicated by the modal if it appears in a single sentence. When this happens,
there is semantic ambiguity.

Imagine two contexts for each of the following sentences, so that it can be used with
an epistemic reading and a deontic reading.

a.) He must work in Central.

Context 1 for epistemic reading:

He commutes to Central every morning. He wears a suit.

Context 2 for deontic reading:

You are his boss. He is now working an office in Tsim Sha Tsui. The office in
Central needs him badly. So you think it is necessary for him to work in the
Central office.

b.) He must be French.

Context 1 for epistemic reading:

He speaks English with a French accent.

Context 2 for deontic reading:

He is non-French. He wants to be on the French national team. So it is necessary to
become a French citizen first.

c.) She should be a teacher at OUHK.

Context 1 for epistemic reading:

You see her do research in the library. But she does not look like a student.

Context 2 for deontic reading:

You think being a teacher at OUHK is a good idea. This is your advice for her.

d.) She should like her work.

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 Context 1 for epistemic reading:
You see that she gets along with her colleagues and her experience is highly
valued.

Context 2 for deontic reading:

You see that she does not enjoy her work. But she is well paid and is liked by her
colleagues. So you think there is no reason for her not to like her work.

2. Epistemic modality

In Biber et al. (1999), epistemic modality is studied as epistemic stance, which presents
‘speaker comments on the status of information in a proposition.’

Epistemic stance is linked with expressing certainty (or boosting) and doubt (or hedging).

The following tokens are commonly found in newspaper editorials, news stories and
feature articles. Try to group them into boosters and hedges accordingly.

of course in some cases estimate

generally found to apparent
particularly found that relatively
nearly in fact naturally
around room for proof
never always perhaps
wrong would seen as
tend to almost exactly

3. Lexical associations of modality (dynamic verbs)

The verbs that show the strongest association with modal verbs are mostly mental verbs
(e.g. I can’t cope with this; I could tolerate her). The mental verbs usually express various
emotions, attitudes or cognitive states that are intrinsically personal, and thus they
commonly co-occur with modals expressing a personal stance.

In the following set of verbs, identify the mental verbs that have a higher frequency of
association with modal verbs. (Use your intuition.)

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 interact exit
reach guarantee
aid admit
resist think
become handle
begin solve
settle for imagine
assure pause
report afford
tolerate hurt
consider help
wake up survive
appeal understand
estimate suffice
conclude feel
cope (with) discern
tell depend
listen find

4. Evidentiality

Evidentiality refers to the ways in which a speaker can mark different attitudes towards
the factuality of a proposition and a related semantic category which allows a speaker to
communicate his/her attitude to the source of information.

Evidentiality may rely on the following sources:

(i) Personal experience
e.g., Sensory evidence (I saw that …), belief (I think that …)
(ii) Knowledge gained from other individuals
e.g., hearsay evidence (I’m told that …, they are supposed to be…)

(i) Provide two examples of evidentiality from each of the two sources.

Possible answers:
1) Personal experience
- I hear his voice is shaking.

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 - In my _opinion_, we’d better to leave here now. (belief)

2) Hearsay evidence
- I am __informed__ that the company will close down soon.

- They are __expected__ to be here to stay for two months.

(ii) Identify the markers of evidentiality in each of the following sentences:

a. I hear that Fred doesn’t like skiing. (personal)

b. From my previous experience you need a cup of tea. (personal)
c. According to the weather forecast (Professional / official / authoritative source)
it will be raining heavily tomorrow. (make your statement more persuasive)
d. People say he’s a bit unsure of himself. (Quantitative source of information)
(More people mean higher truth value)
e. I read (have evidence to prove your argument) that the jeweler was the
ringleader.
f. I am told I’d better go to the lecture.
g. It smells like they’re having a barbecue next door.

(iii) For the following sentence, suggest five different ways to express different degrees
of evidential commitments

Lucy is sick.

Suggested answers:
I think Lucy is sick.
I can see that Lucy is sick.
I’m told that Lucy is sick.
Apparently Lucy is sick. (everyone knows that)
Lucy is sick, so they say.