scholarly journals Epistemic stance without epistemic modals: the case of the presumptive future

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 459
Author(s):  
Michela Ippolito ◽  
Donka F. Farkas

This paper deals with the non-temporal use of the future in Italian knownas ‘epistemic’ or ‘presumptive’ (PF) in declaratives and interrogatives. We firstdistinguish PF from epistemic necessity and possibility, as well as from weaknecessity modals, providing in the process the main empirical challenges PF raises.We then propose and justify a semantic account that treats PF as a special normalitymodal that involves a subjective likelihood component. Since in our account theprejacent (the proposition in the scope of the modal) is at issue, the use of PF triggersthe implicature that the speaker is not in a position to appeal to what she knows inorder to support her commitment to the prejacent. This, we claim, is the source ofthe intuition that PF is often used to offer a “guess” relative to the question underdiscussion (QUD).

Mind ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 129 (515) ◽  
pp. 809-829
Author(s):  
David Boylan

Abstract This paper concerns a puzzle about the interaction of epistemic modals and future tense. In cases of predictable forgetfulness, speakers cannot describe their future states of mind with epistemic modals under future tense, but promising theories of epistemic modals do not predict this. In §1, I outline the puzzle. In §2, I argue that it undermines a very general approach to epistemic modals that draws a tight connection between epistemic modality and evidence. In §3, I defend the assumption that tense can indeed scope over epistemic modals. In §4, I outline a new way of determining the domain of quantification of epistemic modals: epistemic modals quantify over the worlds compatible with the information accumulated within a certain interval. Information loss can change which interval is relevant for determining the domain. In §5, I defend the view from some objections. In §6, I explore the connections between my view of epistemic modality and circumstantial modality.


2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 105
Author(s):  
Anamaria Falaus
Keyword(s):  

This paper investigates the properties of the Romanian presumptive mood and the role it plays in the distribution of the epistemic indefinite <em>vreun</em>. We focus on the morphologically complex future-based paradigm, which includes forms based on the literary and colloquial variants of the future auxiliary. The colloquial forms are shown to have lost the ability to express purely temporal meanings, being used exclusively with modal-evidential readings. We further argue that the future-based presumptive is closely related to epistemic modals, with which it shares the ability to express indirect inferential evidentiality. We capitalize on their contrasting behavior in factive settings to explain the interaction with the epistemic determiner <em>vreun</em>. Specifically, we argue that the key property that makes the (colloquial) future-based presumptive a suitable licensor for the <em>vreun </em>is its incompatibility with contexts where the modalized proposition is established to hold.


1961 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 29-41
Author(s):  
Wm. Markowitz
Keyword(s):  

A symposium on the future of the International Latitude Service (I. L. S.) is to be held in Helsinki in July 1960. My report for the symposium consists of two parts. Part I, denoded (Mk I) was published [1] earlier in 1960 under the title “Latitude and Longitude, and the Secular Motion of the Pole”. Part II is the present paper, denoded (Mk II).


1978 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 387-388
Author(s):  
A. R. Klemola
Keyword(s):  

Second-epoch photographs have now been obtained for nearly 850 of the 1246 fields of the proper motion program with centers at declination -20° and northwards. For the sky at 0° and northward only 130 fields remain to be taken in the next year or two. The 270 southern fields with centers at -5° to -20° remain for the future.


Author(s):  
Godfrey C. Hoskins ◽  
Betty B. Hoskins

Metaphase chromosomes from human and mouse cells in vitro are isolated by micrurgy, fixed, and placed on grids for electron microscopy. Interpretations of electron micrographs by current methods indicate the following structural features.Chromosomal spindle fibrils about 200Å thick form fascicles about 600Å thick, wrapped by dense spiraling fibrils (DSF) less than 100Å thick as they near the kinomere. Such a fascicle joins the future daughter kinomere of each metaphase chromatid with those of adjacent non-homologous chromatids to either side. Thus, four fascicles (SF, 1-4) attach to each metaphase kinomere (K). It is thought that fascicles extend from the kinomere poleward, fray out to let chromosomal fibrils act as traction fibrils against polar fibrils, then regroup to join the adjacent kinomere.


Author(s):  
Nicholas J Severs

In his pioneering demonstration of the potential of freeze-etching in biological systems, Russell Steere assessed the future promise and limitations of the technique with remarkable foresight. Item 2 in his list of inherent difficulties as they then stood stated “The chemical nature of the objects seen in the replica cannot be determined”. This defined a major goal for practitioners of freeze-fracture which, for more than a decade, seemed unattainable. It was not until the introduction of the label-fracture-etch technique in the early 1970s that the mould was broken, and not until the following decade that the full scope of modern freeze-fracture cytochemistry took shape. The culmination of these developments in the 1990s now equips the researcher with a set of effective techniques for routine application in cell and membrane biology.Freeze-fracture cytochemical techniques are all designed to provide information on the chemical nature of structural components revealed by freeze-fracture, but differ in how this is achieved, in precisely what type of information is obtained, and in which types of specimen can be studied.


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