34.2763, Confs: Thematic Session Proposal for a Workshop on the Concept of Possibility and its Morphological, Syntactic and Pragmatic Realizations in Natural Language

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-34-2763. Wed Sep 20 2023. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 34.2763, Confs: Thematic Session Proposal for a Workshop on the Concept of Possibility and its Morphological, Syntactic and Pragmatic Realizations in Natural Language

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Date: 20-Sep-2023
From: Patrick Duffley [Patrick.Duffley at lli.ulaval.ca]
Subject: Thematic Session Proposal for a Workshop on the Concept of Possibility and its Morphological, Syntactic and Pragmatic Realizations in Natural Language


Thematic Session Proposal for a Workshop on the Concept of Possibility
and its Morphological, Syntactic and Pragmatic Realizations in Natural
Language

Date: 21-Aug-2024 - 24-Aug-2024
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Contact: Patrick Duffley
Contact Email: Patrick.Duffley at lli.ulaval.ca

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics

Meeting Description:

Within linguistics, possibility has been approached in different ways,
but generally with circumspection. Palmer (1979) treats it as
constituting, along with necessity, the core of the category of
modality. In Palmer (2001), modality is defined as depicting the
reality-status of the proposition in terms of some form of irrealis.
This implies that the relation between possibility and irrealis needs
to be explored. Mithun (1999) draws a distinction between realis,
which presents events as real, actualized or occurring, and irrealis,
which presents them as not actualized or “purely within the realm of
thought.” Bybee (1998) has criticized the notion of irrealis as being
too inconsistent crosslinguistically to constitute a useful analytical
category and very rarely attested in binary opposition to realis in
the languages of the world. On the other hand, von Prince, Krajinović
and Krifka (2022) have argued recently that “irrealis is real” and
represents a crosslinguistically meaningful notion that can be
properly understood if split into two domains – the possible and the
counterfactual. They characterize these domains in terms of a
branching time framework in which the possible is defined as the
successor of the actual and the counterfactual as being neither actual
nor possible. But isn’t the successor of the actual the future and not
the merely possible? And if possibility is a species belonging to the
genus of irrealis, what is its relation to the other species belonging
to this genus?

In the verbal domain, the possible worlds model has been used by
Kripke (1959, 1972) to distinguish the notions of possibility and
necessity by mobilizing the distinction between existential and
universal quantification. Possibility is defined via existential
quantification, as the case where a proposition is true in at least
one but not all possible worlds; necessity is defined by universal
quantification, as representing a proposition as true in all possible
worlds. One may wonder however whether the distinction between She may
be at work and She must be at work is adequately described by saying
that the first is true in at least one and perhaps more but not all
possible worlds, while the second is true in all such worlds. Kripke’s
definition of possibility could also be accused of being circular, as
it employs the notion of ‘possible worlds’ in order to define the
notion of ‘possible’. In addition, it seems incapable of
distinguishing between the two forms of possibility expressed by the
modal auxiliaries can and may in English. The peculiar meaning of
epistemic may in a use such as She may be at work has been
characterized by van der Auwera (2001: 28-31) as ‘POSS (NOT P)’. In
contrast, following Aristotle, he defines the standard notion of
possibility (‘POSS P’) in terms of necessity, as ‘NOT NEC (NOT P)’.
None of these glosses corresponds however to the meaning expressed by
may in uses such as You may go to the washroom now or Enrollment
information may be found on the Faculty website, nor to the use of can
in She can swim. This casts doubt on their adequacy as tools for
describing the meanings of these modals in a manner that respects
their natural semantic unity. But what tools do we need to achieve
this type of description and to handle differences such as that
between can and may?

Kratzer (1991) has added to the modal toolkit the notions of ordering
source and modal base. The ordering source is the set of propositions
that represents the normal course of events in a given possible world.
The modal base is the set of propositions which forms the basis of the
evaluation that a given modality obtains, the result of this
evaluation being termed the modal force (e.g. ‘possible’/‘necessary’).
Thus John can open a beer bottle with his teeth is analyzed as ‘Given
his abilities, the strength of his teeth, etc., it is possible for
John to open a beer bottle with his teeth.’ While this framework
specifies the setting in which possibility is embedded, one may wonder
what it says about the definition of possibility itself. Moreover, it
seems to offer no means for distinguishing between the uses of may vs.
can to express permission (You may/can go to the washroom): both would
be paraphrased as ‘Given the fact that the relevant authority-figure
has granted permission, it is possible for you to go to the washroom.’
Are other models able to capture this difference?



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