160171 SE Seminar aus Grammatiktheorie: Current topics in modality (2021W)

Modality involves how languages allow us to talk about situations that may not necessarily be real– it's the realm of can, must, should, may, (im)possible, (un)necessary, and similar expressions in other languages. In this course we will be examining the range in how languages encode these meanings– how they carve up the conceptual space and lexicalise it (or not). We will be looking at how semantic theories model these meanings, and in particular at how some more recent work from less studied languages and constructions (variable-force modality, covert modality) can contribute to our understanding of modality as a linguistic phenomenon.