Modality in Modern English
![10an initial distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic, or root modality. Both types
of modality have as their basis the notions of necessity and possibility, but the former
deals with the necessity or possibility of the truth (or non-truth) of propositions while the
latter deals with the necessity or possibility of the actualisation of situations. Epistemic
modality reflects the speaker’s judgment of the likelihood that the proposition underlying
the utterance is true, the epistemic scale of likelihood ranging from weak epistemic
possibility (That may be John) to epistemic necessity (That must be John , ‘it is
necessary that [that is John] is true’ and That can’t be John = ‘it is necessary that [that is
not John] is true’). Root modality reflects the speaker’s judgements about factors
influencing the actualisation of the situation referred to in the utterance. Within root
modality we find root possibility, root necessity and two categories that are normally
treated separately within root modality, namely ability and volition.
Cutting across the root necessity and root possibility categorisation is the category
of deontic modality, which includes obligation a type of root necessity and permission
a type of root possibility. Deontic modality typically refers to ‘the necessity or possibility
of acts performed by morally responsible agents’. Deontic modality also implies an
authority, or ‘deontic source’ which may be a person, a set of rules, or something as
vague as a social norm responsible for imposing the necessity (obligation) or granting
the possibility (permission). It differs from epistemic possibility in that it does not imply
a speaker’s evaluation of how possible it is that some proposition is true but rather refers
to the effect of circumstances on the possibility of actualisation of some situation; it
differs from ability in that it refers to possibility arising out of enabling or disabling
circumstances outside the subject referent, as opposed to enabling or disabling factors
that are entirely internal to the subject referent. The non-deontic root possibility meaning
of Can you come tomorrow? can thus be paraphrased by ‘is it possible for you to come
tomorrow?’ plus ‘are there any external circumstances preventing you or do external
circumstances allow you to do so?’. Finally, we come to ability and volition. These](https://docx.uz/documents/97c6b1d9-d0e9-49a8-9d7a-119c2b67c124/page_10.png?v=1)
Modality in Modern English