Modals and conditionals in instrumental practical reasoning: The case of Polish

Sztencel, Magdalena and Duffy, Sarah E. (2021) Modals and conditionals in instrumental practical reasoning: The case of Polish. Linguistics Vanguard. ISSN 2199-174X (In Press)

Text Sztencel_Duffy_Modals_and_conditionals_in_instrumental_practical_reasoning_the_case_of_Polish.pdf - Accepted Version Restricted to Repository staff only until 16 September 2022. Download (270kB) | Request a copy

Abstract

This paper investigates the relation between conditionals and modals in Polish. In particular, it looks into whether modalised indirect reports of conditionals – specifically, reports which involve the use of root modality verbs – reflect the number of alternative antecedents foregrounded in the context of the reported conditional utterance. It has been found that the root possibility modal mogȩ is preferred when many alternative antecedents are foregrounded (i.e. when p is interpreted as a sufficient but not necessary condition for q), whereas the root necessity modal muszȩ is preferred in contexts where there are no alternative antecedents (i.e. when p is interpreted as a necessary condition for q). The results are comparable to those obtained for English (c.f. Sztencel and Duffy 2018), thus providing initial support for their cross-linguistic generalisability. Furthermore, a parallel is drawn between the basic structure of instrumental practical reasoning (e.g. Walton 2007) and modalised indirect reports of conditionals. This parallel offers a rationale for the method of investigating instrumental practical reasoning by the proxy of indirect speech reports.

Actions (login required)

View Item

Downloads