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

Abstract

This paper deals with the non-temporal use of the future in Italian known as "epistemic" or "presumptive" (PF) in declaratives and interrogatives. We first distinguish PF from epistemic necessity and possibility, as well as from weak necessity 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 normality modal that involves a subjective likelihood component. Since in our account the prejacent (the proposition in the scope of the modal) is at issue, the use of PF triggers the implicature that the speaker is not in a position to appeal to what she knows in order to support her commitment to the prejacent. This, we claim, is the source of the intuition that PF is often used to offer a “guess” relative to the question under discussion (QUD).