Open AccessModality, Weights, and Inconsistent Premise Sets
Author(s) -
Alex Silk
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
proceedings from semantics and linguistic theory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2163-5951
pISSN - 2163-5943
DOI - 10.3765/salt.v0i0.2641
Subject(s) - modal verb , premise , modality (human–computer interaction) , semantics (computer science) , deliberation , computer science , linguistics , extension (predicate logic) , conversation , natural language processing , artificial intelligence , epistemology , verb , philosophy , programming language , political science , politics , law
This paper investigates two types of data that appear to motivate complicating the semantics for weak necessity modals. I argue that these data can be captured using the same conceptual resources within a conservative extension of the standard quantificational semantics. The resulting analysis illuminates previously puzzling and underappreciated semantic and pragmatic properties of weak and strong necessity modals, and clarifies the special role that expressions of weak necessity play in conversation, deliberation, and planning.