Modality: Issues in the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface

Reviews / Votes

Neil Smith, University College London, UK: This innovative treatment of modality in natural language blends insights from linguistics, philosophy and psychology to give a new overview of a complex phenomenon. Papafragou develops a largely relevance-theoretic account of the modals, which claims that they are not ambiguous but that their interpretation depends crucially on the notion of metarepresentation. A core part of the book is an elegant explantion for the order of emergence of the modals in first language acquisition. It will be essential reading for all future work in the area. Tanja Mortelmans: As one of the many studies on the English modals, Papafragou's work stands out as a relevance-theoretic account of the meaning of the English modals, which also pay considerable attention to theoretical issues concerning the semantic options of polysemy, ambiguity and monosemy. Pragmatics, Vol 12, No. 1 Marta Carretero, Complutense University, Madrid: This book is a welcome contribution to the literature on semantics and pragmatics, both in general and on the English modals in particular...P offers a meritorious account...and her proposals deserve deep reflection by readers of all orientations. Language, Vol 79, No. 2