•  274
    We defend the view of epistemic `must' as weak and claim that `must p' is used when the speaker does not know p. Novel arguments for this well-known account are provided. The theory is extended to epistemic future.
  •  210
    Introduction
    with Claire Beyssade and Fabio Del Prete
    In Alda Mari, Claire Beyssade & Fabio Del Prete (eds.), Genericity, Oxford University Press. pp. 1-92. 2012.
    Introduction to genericity in the nominal, verbal and sentential domain.
  •  75
    A unified analysis of the future as epistemic modality
    Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 36 85-129. 2018.
    We offer an analysis of future morphemes as epistemic operators. The main empirical motivation comes from the fact that future morphemes have systematic purely epistemic readings—not only in Greek and Italian, but also in Dutch, German, and English will. The existence of epistemic readings suggests that the future expressions quantify over epistemic, not metaphysical alternatives. We provide a unified analysis for epistemic and predictive readings as epistemic necessity, and the shift between th…Read more
  •  70
    Tense, abilities and actuality entailment
    with Fabienne Martin
    In Floris Paul Maria Roelofsen Dekker Aloni (ed.), Proceedings of the Sixteenth Amsterdam Colloquium, . 2007.
  •  53
    Genericity (edited book)
    with Claire Beyssade and Fabio Del Prete
    Oxford University Press. 2012.
    This book provides an up-to-date introduction to the study of generics and pursues the enterprise of the influential Generic Book edited by Gregory Carlson and Jeffry Pelletier, which was published in 1995. Genericity is a key notion in the study of human cognition as it reveals our capacity to organize our perceived reality into classes and to describe regularities. The generic can be expressed at the level of a word or phrase (ie the potato in The Irish economy became dependent upon the potato…Read more
  •  53
    Actuality Entailments: When the Modality is in the Presupposition
    In Maxime Amblard, Philippe de Groote, Sylvain Pogodalla & Christian Rétoré (eds.), Logical Aspects of Computational Linguistics. Celebrating 20 Years of LACL (1996–2016), Springer. pp. 191-210. 2016.
    We show that actuality entailments arise with goal-oriented modality only and endorse Belnap’s view of that goal-oriented modals use historical accessibility with a fixed past and an open future. This modal-theoretic assumption allows us to spell out the precise modal-temporal configuration in which the actuality entailment arises and our predictions are borne out by the data, cross-linguistically. We also show that, when any assumption about the identity of worlds at branching point is leveled …Read more
  •  43
    Each Other, Asymmetry and Reasonable Futures
    Journal of Semantics 31 (2). 2014.
    Reciprocal sentences display a variety of interpretations, ranging from ‘strong reciprocity’ to ‘inclusive alternative orderings’. In this interpretation, every element in the reference set participates with some other member in the relation provided by the predicate either as the first or second argument. Current reciprocal theories cannot fully explain why some sentences that satisfy these truth conditions are in fact false and unacceptable, such as ‘#the boys are taller than each other’ or ‘#…Read more
  •  43
    Italian is a well-known exception to the cross-linguistic generalization according to which `belief' predicates are indicative selectors across languages. We newly propose that languages that select the subjunctive with epistemic predicates allow us to see a systematic polysemy between what we call an expressive-`belief' (featuring only a doxastic dimension) and an inquisitive-`belief' (featuring both a doxastic and an epistemic dimension conveying doxastic certainty (in the assertion) and epist…Read more
  •  35
    The semantic roots of positive polarity: epistemic modal verbs and adverbs in English, Greek and Italian
    with Anastasia Giannakidou
    Linguistics and Philosophy 41 (6): 623-664. 2018.
    Epistemic modal verbs and adverbs of necessity are claimed to be positive polarity items. We study their behavior by examining modal spread, a phenomenon that appears redundant or even anomalous, since it involves two apparent modal operators being interpreted as a single modality. We propose an analysis in which the modal adverb is an argument of the MUST modal, providing a meta-evaluation \ which ranks the Ideal, stereotypical worlds in the modal base as better possibilities than the Non-Ideal…Read more
  •  25
    French future: exploring the future ratification hypothesis
    Journal of French Language Studies 1-26. 2015.
    International audience.
  •  17
  •  8
    The Italian futuro as a non-biased epistemic necessity: a reply to Ippolito and Farkas
    with Anastasia Giannakidou
    Linguistics and Philosophy 46 (6): 1269-1284. 2023.
    In a recent paper, Ippolito and Farkas (Linguist Philos, 45(4):943–984, 2022b) (I &F) question the premise that Italian future is epistemic necessity; in this brief response we want to show that there is no empirical motivation for abandoning it once we employ a more flexible framework of modality such as the one advanced in Giannakidou and Mari (Linguist Philos 41(6): 623–664, 2018) (G &M) which posits a ranking meta-evaluation in the modal structure that explains the empirical objections raise…Read more
  •  6
    Contingent valuation surveys generally elicit stated preferences by asking how much a respondent would be willing to pay for an environmental improvement. By drawing on linguistic theory, we propose that the modal phrasing of this question establishes a particular type of commitment towards a hypothetical payment, namely a subjective want or desire. Based on the idea that beyond subjective desires, considerations about what is morally adequate may guide expressed values and that elicitation of t…Read more
  •  2
  • The French future: Evidentiality and incremental information
    In Ad Foolen, Helen de Hoop & Gijs Mulder (eds.), Evidence for evidentiality, John Benjamins. 2018.