How many meanings for ‘may’? The case for modal polysemy

The standard Kratzerian analysis of modal auxiliaries, such as ‘may’ and ‘can’, takes them to be univocal and context-sensitive. Our first aim is to argue for an alternative view, on which such expressions are polysemous. Our second aim is to thereby shed light on the distinction between semantic context-sensitivity and polysemy. To achieve these aims, we examine the mechanisms of polysemy and context-sensitivity and provide criteria with which they can be held apart. We apply the criteria to modal auxiliaries and show that the default hypothesis should be that they are polysemous, and not merely context-sensitive. We then respond to arguments against modal ambiguity (and thus against polysemy). Finally, we show why modal polysemy has significant philosophical implications.

Experimental modal analysis and dynamic component synthesis

Mode of access: Internet.

Terraforming: Ecopolitical Transformations and Environmentalism in Science Fiction /

Terraforming is the process of making other worlds habitable for human life. This book asks how science fiction has imagined how we shape both our world and other planets and how stories of terraforming reflect on science, society and environmentalism.

Thèse de littérature sur les vicissitudes et les transformations du cycle populaire de Robin Hood.

Thèse--Faculté des lettres de Paris.

Histoire politique nationale : origines, développements et transformations des institutions dans les anciens Pays-Bas /

v. 2 complété et publié par Prosper Poullet.

Monograph of the bombycine moths of North America, including their transformations and origin of the larval markings and armature.

Part 3 edited by Theodore D.A. Cockerell.

Les transformations sociales des sentiments.

At head of title: ...Fr. Paulhan.

Results-oriented cultures : implementation steps to assist mergers and organizational transformations : report to Congressional subcommittees /

GAO-03-669.

How the economic transformations in Europe will affect the United States.

Mode of access: Internet.