Coarse Modality with Italian Magari

Abstract

Kratzer’s (1981a) classic quantificational account of natural language modality relies on premise sets (ordering sources) to derive the preorder on the domain of quantification required to get the truth conditions right. On the basis of novel data from Italian documenting a particular type of epistemic modal statements that come with an “antievidential” character, this paper advances a new argument for employing premise sets as opposed to taking orders as a primitive (Lewis 1981).