Remarks on Operators and Modalities - University of …aix1.uottawa.ca/~romlab/pubs/Rivero.1972.pdf · REMARKS ON OPERATORS AND MODALITIES ... those which are constituents of the

MARIA-LUISA RIVERO

REMARKS ON OPERATORS AND MODALITIES

0. INTRODUCTION*

This paper studies the notions of operators and modalities as applied to

linguistic analysis and the theoretical implications of adopting an analysis which treats modalities and operators as objects of a different nature from those which are constituents of the proposition or nucleus (the terms are used here as synonyms). Our conclusions indicate that there is at present strong evidence against the assumption that both modalities and operators belong to a common constituent which is separated from the relational elements (i.e. verbs and nouns) in a given Phrase-Marker. Elements which have been considered by some linguists (notably Pieter Seuren, 1969) as new kinds of units in transformational grammar can be analyzed sometimes as

clauses, sometimes as predicates, but they do not require the theoretical

apparatus and the transformational machinery which a modality-operator node versus a proposition or nucleus-node implies.

If logicians need to distinguish between operators and predicates to avoid the possibility of having predicates on predicates and if their rules of inference and implication require that the modality be in some way distinguished from the proposition, the linguist can make these distinctions and solve problems of scope through levels of embedding (or perhaps interpretation rules) rather than by means of a tree with extra relations or components.

The outline of this paper is as follows. Section 1 presents the notions of

operator and modality as defined in this study. Section 2 discusses per formatives, Section 3 modals and modal adverbials, Section 4 quantifiers, Section 5 conditionals, Section 6 tenses, and Section 7 presuppositions.

1. OPERATORS AND MODALITIES IN LINGUISTICS

Philosophers have long been concerned with the different kinds of meaning involved in a sentence and they have made a distinction between what a

sentence is about, that is, a 'state of affairs' or its subject matter, and that

for which the speaker uses the sentence, or its mood of entertainment:

A proposition is a term capable of signifying a state of affairs. To define a proposition, as

* This work was supported in part by the Canada Council through Grant S71-0533. I wish to thank Meralin Meek for many stylistic improvements.

Foundations of Language 9 (1972) 209-241. All rights reserved.

210 MAR A-LUISA RIVERO

an expression which is true or false, is correct enough but inauspicious, because it easily leads to identification of the proposition with the statement or assertion of it; whereas the element of assertion in a statement is extraneous to the proposition asserted. The proposition is something assertable: the content of the assertion, and this same content, signifying the same state of affairs, can also be questioned, denied, or merely supposed, and can be entertained in other moods as well (Lewis, 1946, p. 49).

That part which determines what the sentence is about is sometimes called the proposition, while that aspect of the sentence which determines how it is used is called the modality, although this terminology is by no means universal in the literature, as we shall later see.

This division between modality and proposition goes back to Aristotle (De Interpretatione, Ch. 12 and 13, and Prior Analytics, 1.3 and 13), who

according to Bochenski (1961), considered that modalities determine the

arguments (one or several) of a given sentence but not the whole sentence... that is, modalities do not apply to the whole proposition but only to the

arguments. It was Aristotle's disciple Theophrastus who modified this modal

logic and considered that the modality or mode affects the whole proposition or sentence and not its terms alone. This distinction is found among the Scholastics in its more traditional form: a (modal) proposition is one formed

by a dictum and a modality, and the modality can affect only the arguments

(modality de re or divisa) or it can affect the whole proposition (modality de dicto or composita).l 2

1 This problem which can be classified as one of scope has received some attention from transformational linguists recently. That negation sometimes does not affect the sentence as a whole but only a part of it has been generally explained by postulating an underlying proposition for that part which is negated. Consequently, there is only sentence negation in the theory of grammar, that is, negation de dicto or composita, and constituent negation has been avoided in deep structure. It has been proposed by Baker, with a different ter

minology and with no comparisons to the traditional modalities, that an element com

parable to a traditional modality can have both a composite sense and a divided sense. In his recent article on questions, he (1970) introduces an operator Q which can either affect the whole proposition as in I ask if he came or which can affect only the arguments: I ask who came. That is, Q can have a reading de re or a reading de dicto. For a discussion of this proposal see our section on performatives. 2 Some of the texts of the Scholastics are purely grammatical and the properties of their

examples are discussed from a linguistic point of view. If we compare the following text which was written by Paul of Venice with current discussions of the scope of quantifiers in relation to their relative position in surface structure, the similarity of the ideas is

striking: Some say that always when the mode simply precedes or follows the expression with the

infinitive, then the sense is definitely called 'composite' in every case, e.g. 'It is possible that Socrates runs', 'that Socrates runs (Socratem currere) is possible'. But when the mode

occupies a place in the middle the sense is called 'divided', e.g. 'for Socrates it is possible to run'. Others on the other hand say that when the mode simply precedes, the sense is composite, as previously, but when it occupies a middle place or comes at the end, then the sense is divided, e.g. 'of A I know that it is true' 'that A is true is known by me' ... So I say otherwise, taking a position intermediate between them: when the mode simply precedes a categorial or hypothetical dictum it effects the composite sense; and when it

REMARKS ON OPERATORS AND MODALITIES 211

Although the classical modalities were four in number, that is, possibile, impossibile, contingens, necessarium, it has frequently been noticed that the notion of modality could be expanded to include other modal functors. The Stoics Ammonius and Philoponus admit an indeterminate number of modalities which are 'expressions of the conscience.' They are the subjective modi (Bochenski, 1937, p. 683).

These subjective modi are studied by Pseudo-Scot who, besides the four classical modalities, considered dubium 'doubted', scitum 'known', opinatum 'opined', apparens 'apparent', volitum 'willed', and dilectum 'preferred', among others. There are modern versions of this extended notion of modality. In his book An Essay in Modal Logic, Von Wright (1951) distinguishes between alethic modalities, that is, the four classical modal functors, epistemic modalities (verified, undecided, falsified), deontic modalities

(obligatory, permitted, indifferent, forbidden), and existential modalities, which include the quantifiers. He also mentions another tentative type of

modality, dynamic modalities, which would include can and has the ability to... whose meaning is always de re and never de dicto. According to the

linguistic point of view which formalizes modalities as originating in an

independent node, the consequence of this extended notion of modality is that embedding may disappear from the grammar if the parallelism between verbs which allow embedding, and modal functors is formalized in a con sistent way. This consequence has been noticed by Ch. Fillmore as shown

by his introduction of the notion of modality as independent from the

proposition in his theory of grammar:

In the basic structures of sentences, then, we find what might be called the 'proposition', a tenseless set of relationships involving verbs and nouns (and embedded sentences, if there are any), separated from what might be called the 'modality' constituent. [emphasis

mine, M.R.] (Fillmore, 1968, p. 23)

The interest in modalities disappeared in the Renaissance and did not

reappear until the time of Husserl who speaks of states of affairs which are meant by propositions and modifications, but there are discussions in the XIX century which can readily be translated into Scholastic terms. It seems to me that it is implicit in the first quotation below that tense is considered as a modality de re although the similarities between the problems on the

scope of tense and the discussions on divided and composed senses of the Schoolmen was not seen at the time:

occurs between the verb and the first extreme it is taken in the divided sense; but when it follows at the end, it can be taken in the composite or the divided sense. Paul of Venice, Logica Magna 1 21, 76 va, as cited by Bochenski (1961) Bochenski (1937) dismisses syntactic texts of this nature as of no interest to the logician, but they are of the utmost interest to the linguist.

212 MARIA-LUISA RIVERO

... Thus the propositions ... he came yesterday: John will arrive, if reduced to their logical form as Judgments, must be thus expressed ... he is the person who came yesterday; John is he who will arrive. Francis Bowen, A treatise on Logic, 1870, as cited in Prior (1957, p. 107-108).

The above paragraph exemplifies the more common view in the XIX

century to which Mill objects in his System of Logic:

A remark of a similar nature may be applied to most of those distinctions among proposi tions which are said to have reference to their modality; as difference of time or tense; the sun did rise, the sun is rising, the sun willrise. The differences, like that between affirma tion and negation, might be glossed over by considering the incident of time as a mere

modification of the predicate: thus, The sun is an object having risen .... But the simplifica tion would be merely verbal. Past, present, and future do not constitute so many different kinds of rising; they are designations belonging to the event asserted, to the sun's rising today. They affect, not the predicate, but the applicability of the predicate to the particular subject. That which we affirm to be past, present or future, is not what the subject signifies, nor what the predicate signifies, but specifically what the predication signifies; what is expressed by the proposition as such, and not by either or both of the terms. J. S. Mill, System of Logic, I, iv, 2 as cited in Prior (1957, p. 106-107).3

As pointed out in the Kneales' The Development of Logic, (Kneale and

Kneale, 1966), Frege in his Begriffsschrift dismissed modal distinctions as irrelevant to his purpose. Modern interest in modal logic begins with the

work of C. I. Lewis.

The philosophical parallel to the linguistic assumption that there is a

modality which must be separated from the proposition itself is found in the

writings of a variety of modern logicians. Lewis (1946) proposes symbolic devices indicating the various moods of entertainment to disengage the

proposition from its mood: + -p for assertion of p, H for its postulation, etc. This is essentially equivalent to O P which he had already proposed in

his 1918 Survey of Symbolic Logic. In 1949, Hare proposed to distinguish two elements in an imperative sentence: the dictor and the descriptor. The

descriptor, as its name indicates has a descriptive function while the dictor

reflects the mood:

The distinction which we have made between descriptors and dictors enables us to state

concisely what is the relation of an imperative sentence to the corresponding indicative sentence. The two sentences have the same descriptor, but different dictors; in other words,

what one states to be the case, the other commands to be the case. (Hare, 1949, p. 29.)

By 1952 Hare expands his distinction between a proposition and its entertain

ment to cover other types of sentences besides imperatives. In his book he

considers sentences as containing both a 'phrastic' and a 'neustic'. The

phrastic refers to what the sentence is about or to its subject matter while

the neustic indicates that which is said about the reference of the phrastic. This distinction is sub-sentential. The same conception is found in Erik

3 For a discussion of tense as a modality see section 6.


Stenius' article 'Mood and Language-Game' (1967), who distinguishes between a sentence radical that specifies a state of affairs and a mood that determines whether a speaker is declaring that the state of affairs holds, whether he is questioning it, etc....

The notion of modality as distinct from the propositional content of a sentence does not have as long a tradition in linguistics as it does in logic. In 1964 Katz and Postal propose that interrogative and imperative sentences be analyzed into a nucleus and a Q morpheme for questions (with the reading 'I request that you answer...') or an I morpheme for imperatives (with the

reading 'the speaker requests that...'). This I morpheme is also found in Thorne (1966). The status of Q and I is not discussed in Katz and Postal

(1964) although the Q morpheme is used in the transformations just like any of the other constituents which are dominated by the nucleus node.

There is an obvious parallelism between Hare's (1949) dictor and Katz and Postal's I morpheme, although the nature of I is not clear in Katz and Postal's presentation, as we have already pointed out.

In his article John Lyons (1966) makes a more definite proposal in which the

parallelism between the philosophical views which we have briefly mentioned and modalities in linguistic analysis is evident. He states that grammatical categories (aspect, mood, tense, number, and definiteness) are not to be

regarded as constituents of sentences in the same sense as the major lexical

categories (nouns and verbs). Not only should the two categories be dis

tinguished in deep structure, but the kinds of rules which introduce them into the grammar should be distinguished as well. Lyons makes explicit one of the possible interpretations of the system first proposed by Katz and Postal: there are two sets of elements, (categorial and non-categorial or

'grammatical') in a sentence, and they are generated by two distinct sets of rules. Phrase-structure rules generate the categorial component, that is, the

proposition, while a different type of rule, undefined as yet, generates the

'grammatical elements' or modalities. Lyons notices that the number of candidates for his non-categorial or modality component can become quite extensive. This statement corresponds with Fillmore's observation that

embedding may not be present in a grammar which proposes a modal

component. We will discuss this problem in more detail later on. In Fillmore (1966 and 1968) we find a proposal which is similar to Lyons'.

Sentences have a basic structure composed of a 'proposition', a tenseless

relationship involving verbs and nouns, and of a 'modality' constituent, separated from the first, and including negation, tense, mood, and aspect, as well as some sentence adverbials:

Sentence --- Modality + Proposition

214 MAR fA-LUISA RIVERO

The formal status and the rules which relate the modality to the proposition are not discussed in these articles.

The notion of modality has sometimes been expanded in logic to include

quantification. We have already mentioned that Von Wright (1951) speaks of existential modalities, that is, quantifiers. In linguistics this parallelism in formalization is first suggested by Bach (1968):

It is natural to think about adapting a system of operators (quantifiers) like those used in logical systems and allowing these operators to function with the variables in the deep structures of sentences .... Among the operators will be a generic operator, an all operator, a some, a focus or definiteness operator, a question operator, and the like. (p. 106)

The important aspect, as far as our discussion is concerned, is that

quantifiers of various kinds and the element question are considered on a par. In footnote 9 of the same page Bach mentions that Lakoff and Ross, in a

subsequent discussion, made the claim that many of the operators Bach lists should be considered as the verbs or predicatives of underlying sentences. But for Bach the whole class of operators cannot be reduced to a subclass of

predicates. The lengthiest discussion of the notion of modalities and operators as a

separate entity in transformational grammar is to be found in Operators and Nucleus by Pieter A. M. Seuren (1969) who proposes, in a similar fashion to

Fillmore, that there is an operator-component, that is, an extended

modality node, and a nucleus component to be distinguished in sentences of natural language:

In the model of the base proposed here two main constituents are distinguished for every deep structure representation of a sentence, viz. the operators and the nucleus. The latter is presented as a predicative construction consisting of a main verb and nominal items in the position of subject, direct, indirect, or prepositional object. The operators delimit the truth value of the predication expressed in the nucleus; they include an existential and a universal quantifier, tense, modalities, negation, and performatives. (jacket of the book)

Within the class of elements which should be considered as operators or modal functors Seuren includes the following: assertion, question, im

perative, suggestion, which are considered as sentence qualifiers, that is, elements which cannot modify embedded clauses, tenses, modals, quantifiers, and negation, among others.4

4 Within a very different theoretical framework, in a recent article Halliday (1970) proposes that modalities (in the restricted sense of modal verbs and related lexical items) are not part of the thesis (proposition) and are outside of the scope of negation, tenses, and question elements.

Modality, ..., is the speaker's assessment of probability and predictability. It is external to the content, being a part of the attitude taken up by the speaker: his attitude, in this case, towards his own speech role as 'declarer'. (p. 349) [emphasis mine M.R.]

This corresponds with the proposals we are discussing within generative grammar.


Seuren departs from two hypotheses: (a) the base is semantic, that is, there is no intermediate level of deep structure and (b) transformations do not affect meaning. We accept these assumptions as the basis for our dis

cussion, and in what follows we have omitted all reference to works which

depart from the notion that transformations may change the meaning of a

given structure. By showing the superiority of a theory without this specific notion of modality, it becomes unnecessary to compare the merits of the

modality hypothesis with those of a proposal taking as basic a level of deep structure and the meaning-changing power of transformations. In other

words, the merits of the generativist approach or the interpretive approach can be discussed with no reference to the modality proposal, given that this last is weaker than the generative semantics proposal which departs from

equivalent hypotheses. The notion of modality discussed in this paper is both syntactic and

semantic and differs from that advanced by Jackendoff (1971) who speaks of a modality component in a semantic representation which is to be dis

tinguished from syntax. We will not discuss this last proposal. This paper discusses the notion of extended modality as developed in the

studies of Lyons (1966), Fillmore (1966, 1968), and Seuren (1969). Therefore, we define a modality or (modal) operator as an element which is generated in a PM separated from verbs and nouns and other relational items, if any. It is of a different character from those relational elements which are dom inated by the nucleus or proposition node (nucleus and proposition being taken as synonymous at this point without prejudice to any particular theory). The question to which this study is addressed is the following: Is the distinction between a (modal) operator component and propositions or nuclei needed in the analysis of natural language? We can anticipate that our conclusions will be that the distinction between a modality and a

proposition is unwarranted in sytactic analysis, and that not only is there no evidence in the literature to favor this division but that a number of published arguments can be interpreted as counterexamples to the claim that modalities should be distinguished formally from other elements in a sentence. The

following sections of this article discuss some of the evidence against the

modality-proposition distinction, and by implication, against the differentia tion operator-predicate in natural language.

Some of the elements which Lyons, Fillmore, and Seuren propose to treat as operators or modalities can best be analyzed as clauses with all the

properties of sentences in the nucleus or proposition component; other modal elements have the same properties as predicatives or verbs. It follows that no qualitative distinction can be made between the nucleus component and the modality component on the one hand, and operators and predicates


on the other, and that many aspects of scope need no additional apparatus for their description but can be reflected through degrees of embedding. In other words, the assumption that there is a modality component and a

propositional component implies that the representation of the syntactico semantic structure of a sentence cannot be achieved by a tree but needs extra relations of one kind or another (an 'annotated tree' to adopt McCawley's (1970) expression in a somewhat different context). We feel that there is

strong evidence against such extra relations to incorporate the properties of the units which Seuren specifically considers as operators, but which under less definite proposals have been separated from the propositional content

by other linguists.

2. PERFORMATIVES

We will first consider declarative sentences, that is, statements or assertions. In his article Ross (1970), incorporated into linguistics the term of per formative which was first proposed by Austin (1962). Every simple de clarative sentence has for Ross an underlying structure in which the super ficially independent sentence is embedded in a matrix whose main verb is a 'dicendi' verb with a first person subject and a second person object. In other words, Ross presents evidence in favor of the assumption that a sen tence of the type of (la) has the same underlying structure as a sentence of the type of (lb) and that all the common properties of both (la) and (lb) can be explained through the postulation of this higher verb, implicit for

(la), explicit for (Ib), plus its subject and its object:

(la) I bought a car.

(lb) I say to you that I bought a car.

To account for declarative sentences, Seuren (1969) proposes a modal

operator for assertion which is generated in the modality component. That

is, example (la) should be represented as (PM1) according to Ross' proposal, and as (PM2) according to Seuren's proposal (we are concentrating on the notion of 'statement' of 'assertion' and omitting all other aspects). The difference between (la) and (Ib) is explained by Ross through the postulation of the rule of Performative Deletion in (la): the matrix sentence disappears in a transformational process. Although Seuren does not give a definite answer to the problem of the relationship of (la) and (lb) he proposes, as a

possible solution, that sentences with overt performatives of the type of

(lb) be treated as transformational variants of sentences of the type of (la). In other words, both (la) and (lb) are assigned the same underlying struc

ture, (PM2), and there is some sort of copying transformation which rewrites the modality as an overt verb.


SO

NP VP

I V NP NP

ILI A say S to you

(PM1) I bought a car

S

Mod Nucleus

(PM2) ASS I bought a car

Ross gives three arguments to show that there is an abstract performative of the type say in sentences like (la), but since Seuren recognizes as well the

presence of an abstract element of assertion which can also be rewritten as

say, these types of arguments do not lead to the rejection of one proposal over another. It is the arguments in favor of the presence of I and you which

make us choose between the two proposals and advance Ross' analysis as

more adequate than Seuren's. To show this we will simply reproduce one of the arguments presented by George Lakoff (1970b) in his article, pointing out at the same time that similar conclusions follow from the arguments

dealing with reflexives advanced originally by Ross. There are constructions of type (2) (the example is Lakoff's), which require

either a first or a second person pronoun when they appear unembedded:

(2) It would be wise to wash {Yourself (*h f *themselves) (myself j

But when sentences like (2) are embedded, the construction must have a

pronoun which agrees in person, number, and gender with either the subject or the indirect object of the next highest sentence.

(3) John told Sue that it would be wise to wash herself

[himself j (*yourself, *myself).

Under the performative analysis, the constraint stated for (3) is identical to

the constraint needed for (2), but under the proposal which treats assertions

as formed by a modal functor plus a nucleus we would need two unrelated

218 MAR A-LUISA RIVERO

principles, one for (2) and a second one for (3). But these two unrelated

principles, uneconomic as they may be, do not save the modality-proposition hypothesis. Consider an example with an overt performative:

(4) I say to you that it would be wise to wash yourself

(*himself, *themselves)

Is the constraint for this example the same as the one needed for (3), that

is, in terms of matrix sentence and embedded sentence, or is it the constraint needed for (2)? If (4) is a transformational rewriting of the same structure which underlies (2), then the constraint for (2) and (4) should be the same constraint. But this conclusion implies that modalities must be assigned syntactic structures of the 'relational kind', and that they must be assigned first and second persons. In other words, the operator component must

reduplicate the structure of the nucleus, but then we have lost all reason to differentiate formally between nucleus and operators. If the constraint is stated in a parallel fashion for (3) and (4), once the copying of the modal

operator has taken place, we would still need an independent constraint to account for (2). This argumentation could be expanded to cover other exam

ples dealing with Iand you in Ross' paper (1970) and Lakoff's paper (1970b). We must therefore conclude that declarative sentences cannot be explained

in terms of a modal operator and a nucleus unless the notion of an operator component is modified in such a way as to become indistinguishable from the nucleus itself.

Let us turn now to the work on subjunctives done by Robin Lakoff(1968). In Latin there are a number of independent subjunctives with diverse

meanings: imperative (ambiguous in itself), optative, jussive, concessive, etc.... Lakoff accounts for the properties of these constructions with un embedded subjunctives by postulating verbs which are present in the under

lying structure but absent in the surface structure. These abstract verbs have the same syntactic properties as overt verbs belonging to the same meaning class. Roughly speaking, this proposal is similar to that advanced by Ross for English declaratives and would be formalized along the lines of (PM1).

To account for the various meanings of these independent subjunctives, we would have to postulate, under the modality-proposition hypothesis, sev eral modal operators parallel to the assertion functor represented in (PM2).

To see which proposal is best able to account for the facts of Latin, let us

discuss some of the material presented by R. Lakoff (1968) and reinterpret it for the purposes of this paper.

To account for independent subjunctives with an optative reading, R. Lakoff postulates an abstract verb VEL whose subject may be identical


to the subject of the lower sentence, which is always a first person. This correlates with the fact that real verbs of wishing in Latin (i.e. volo, cupio, opto) can have a subject which is identical to that of the lower complement. Independent subjunctives may also be interpreted as commands; R. Lakoff accounts for this by postulating an abstract verb IMPER. The subject of this abstract verb can never be identical to that of the lower complement. This correlates with the fact that real verbs of command (i.e. impero) can never have identical subjects to that of their complement sentences. Therefore an

example such as the following (taken from R. Lakoff's) can never be inter

preted as a command, only as a wish:

(5) Homo hic ebrius est, ut opinor. Utinam ita essem!

(PI. Amph. 575) 'This man is drunk, I think. I wish I were!'

Under the proposal which treats independent subjunctives interpreted as commands as complements of an abstract verb of command, the constraint for these independent sentences and for the subjunctive complements of true verbs of command is the same and can be stated in simple terms. The

hypothesis which proposes that performatives of the command type be formalized as operators and which treats command verbs which are not used

performatively as the only true verbs in the nucleus, would need two different sets of principles. If the relationship between overt performatives of the command type and commands with no matrix verb is to be preserved, the

operator would have to be assigned the same syntactic relations which are found in the nucleus. In summary, the same arguments against the postula tion of a functor of assertion argue against the postulation of a functor of command or a functor of wishing.5

5 Questions are a problematic area of linguistic analysis at the present moment. The

assumption that there is an implicit or explicit sentence with a performative verb of the

type ask which dominates all questions, direct or indirect, can explain some universal

properties of questions (Bach, 1971). This could be considered as indirect evidence in favor of an abstract performative verb dominating direct questions, and parallel, (with all the theoretical differences discussed in this paper), to Seuren's QU operator, which cannot

modify an embedded sentence. But there must be some other element or elements with no

performative reading which have both the property of binding a variable (Seuren, 1969; Baker, 1970) and that of relative scope (Baker, 1970) if we are to account for wh-questions.

Seuren proposes two different operators: QU and 1(x) to describe embedded wh

questions. Qu is basically the equivalent of the QU operator, but it ranges over embedded structures. We seriously question the need for a distinction between Qu and QU on two

independent grounds. First, if we admit that there is an element in question (an operator or an abstract verb)

which is used performatively because it need not dominate immediately the sentence it

questions, especially when that S is superficially embedded, (this possibility is pointed out

by Bach, 1970) there is no need to differentiate between QU and Qu as non-embedded/ embedded. If QU is considered as the abstract counterpart of verbs of the type of ask

220 MAR IA-LUISA RIVERO

In this section we have presented evidence in favor of the following con clusion: the assumption that 'propositional attitudes' (Russell, 1962)6 should be formalized as higher sentences with similar properties to other overt sentences is able to explain phenomena which the hypothesis which separates them from the relational elements cannot explain. We therefore conclude that a performative analysis is superior to a modality

proposition analysis.

3. MODALS

It has been noticed repeatedly that English modals should not, at a deeper level, be considered as constituents of the sentence they modify in surface structure. In his paper Ross (1969) argues in favor of an analysis in which

modals (and auxiliaries in general) are treated as main verbs of a matrix in

which the sentence they modify is embedded. A similar proposal is found in Huddleston (1969). To these two papers we may add the proposal in a recent study by Peter A. Schreiber that modal adverbials of the type of

possibly and probably should be derived from higher predicates which im

mediately dominate the sentence to which the adverb is prefixed in surface structure (Schreiber, 1971).

Roughly speaking, under this 'main-verb' proposal, sentences of the type

and wonder, there is no need to differentiate between QU and Qu in the same way as de claratives with overt performatives are considered parallel to assertions both by the per formative proposals and the modality proposal.

Second, that two operators, Qu and ?(x) lead to the wrong solution in embedded wh

questions can be seen if we consider the following examples in light of the modality proposal. As noticed by Baker (1970) whose examples we are using, a sentence is ungram matical if it has a wh-word and an if or whether at the same time:

(i) *We're not sure whether who Bill saw.

This is captured by Baker by postulating a unique questioning element with no perform ative reading, Q, (an equivalent of Seuren's Qu and ?(x)) which is rewritten as if or whether unless it is replaced by the wh-questioned word when moved to the front of the sentence. But under Seuren's proposal whether and if are transformational variants of Qu and the wh-element is a transformational variant of the operator 1(x). The prediction following this proposal, that they could both coexist within the same embedded sentence, is false.

After this discussion on questions, it is obvious that the problem of the nature of Baker's Q morpheme or Seuren's (x) operator remains. What is that element in questions which does not have a performative reading and has scope? Can an element such as Baker's Q, range over the whole proposition, such as in an if-question (that is, have a sense de dicto) or apply simply to the terms (that is, sense de re)? 6 We don't attach importance to the distinction propositional attitude/modality at this point. In philosophy, a propositional attitude is a higher sentence with a personal subject, while a modality is one which takes a sentential subject. This distinction is partially lost when the notion of underlying structure is distinguished from that of surface structure (e.g. verbs which undergo Psych-movement or Flip are underlying propositional attitudes, but surface extended modalities).


(6a)-(6b) should all be derived from an underlying structure of the type (PM3). Tenses are ignored in (PM3) and (PM4).

(6a) It is possible that John loves fish.

(6b) Possibly, John loves fish.

(6c) John may love fish.

A very different approach but with the parallel effect of removing the

auxiliary from the deep structure of the sentence it modifies is presented by Seuren (1969): modals should be considered as operators which cannot be used performatively and which should be generated in a modality component which is separate from the nucleus. Modal adverbials are transformational variations of modal auxiliaries and originate as operators as well. Sentences

(6a)-(c) would be represented as (PM4) under this proposal.

S

NP V

S possible

(PM3) John loves fish

S

Modality Nucleus

POSS

(PM4) John loves fish

As was the case in the previous section, we find two very different solutions for the same set of phenomena: Ross', Huddleston's, and Schreiber's

proposal implies that phenomena connected with modals and modal ad verbials can be captured by the relationships established in a tree while Seuren's proposal modifies the tree and adds to it extra relations of a new

kind. As pointed out by Ross (1969), there are sentences which provide evidence

in favor of the assumption that the string which follows a modal in surface

structure must be a constituent which is dominated by S. So is an element

which pronominalizes sentences, and it can also replace the string which

follows an auxiliary:

222 MARfA-LUISA RIVERO

(7a) I hope that we will win in Vietnam, but no sane man hopes so.

(7b) They said that Tom may be here and so he may.

The parallelism between (7a) and (7b) leads Ross to the conclusion that what follows an Auxiliary is a Sentence. But notice that this type of argument points towards a common solution of the two proposals we are discussing: the modal must be removed from the most immediate S-node which dominates it in surface structure, but it does not argue in favor of one proposal over another. However, there are arguments which lead to the main-verb proposal over the operator-proposal.

We will consider first an argument presented by Ross. By assuming that basic order in German is SVO7, and that there is a rule which obligatorily moves verbs in dependent clauses to the end of their VP, Ross is able to explain the order of the modals in (8) with relation to the other found in (9), (10), and (11).

(8) Gwendolyn muss von Kasimir gesehen worden sein

'Gwendolyn must have been seen by Casimir'.

(9a) Kasimir sieht Gwendolyn 'Casimir sees Gwendolyn'. (9b) weil Kasimir Gwendolyn sieht 'because Casimir sees Gwendolyn'. (lOa) Gwendolyn wurde von Kasimir gesehen 'Gwendolyn was seen by

Casimir'.

(lOb) weil Gwendolyn von Kasimir gesehen wurde 'because Gwendolyn was seen by Casimir'.

(1la) Gwendolyn ist von Kasimir gesehen worden 'Gwendolyn has been seen by Casimir'.

(lb) weil Gwendolyn von Kasimir gesehen worden ist 'because

Gwendolyn has been seen by Casimir'.

If there is a rule which moves verbs to the end of their VP, we can see

that this transformation treats not only sehen in (9b) as a true verb, but

werden in (lOb) and sein in (1 b) as true verbs as well. The underlying order of the modals in (8) must be the one represented in (PM5). First, gesehen moves to the end of its VP (von Kasimir gesehen), then worden moves to the end of VP3 (von Kasimir gesehen worden) finally, sein moves to the end of

VP2 (von Kasimir gesehen worden sein). Muss is not moved because it does not appear in a dependent clause. The important aspect of this argument is that in order to explain the syntactic behavior of modals in German no

difference has to be made between a true verb such as sehen and an auxiliary.

7 Bach had originally proposed that basic order in German was SOV, but he himself finds counterexamples to his proposal and agrees with Ross' hypothesis. See Bach (1971).


S

NP VP1

Gwendolyn VI S

muss VP2

V2 S

sein VP3

V3 S

worden VP4

V4 NP

(PM5) gesehen von Kasimir

This argument indicates that the analysis which treats modals as main verbs is to be preferred over an analysis which treats them as operators originating in an independent modality component.

For a second argument in favor of the 'verb-proposal' and against the

'operator-proposal' for modals we will consider some of the material dis cussed by R. Lakoff (1968) in connection with abstract verbs which are not used performatively.

Embedded Latin sentences with ut and a subjunctive may be negated by a non or by a ne, although no semantic distinction has been found for this selection. R. Lakoff proposes that the distinction is merely syntactic: ne occurs when ut introduces an object complement, non when ut introduces a

subject complement. There is a real verb fieri potest 'It is possible', which takes a subject complement whose negation can only be a non:

(12) Nec fieri possit, ut non statim alienatio facienda sit (Cic, Lael. 21, 76) 'Nor would it be possible that a separation should not be made immediately' [emphasis mine, M.R.]

There are independent subjunctives with this same potential meaning and with a non as negation (in the following example the potential meaning of the subjunctive is translated by the English modal could):


(13) Ego ipse cum Platone non invitus erraverim (Cic. Tusc. 1, 40) 'I myself could err not unwillingly with Plato'.

R. Lakoff accounts for the meaning of these sentences with independent subjunctives, and for the presence of the non by postulating an abstract verb POSS which takes subject complements.

Under the modality proposal it is likely that sentences of type (13) would be analyzed as being composed of a nucleus plus a modal operator of

potentiality, and it is also logical to conclude that (12) would be a trans formational variation of a sentence composed of a nucleus plus a modality component with an operator of potentiality. The presence of a non in (12) could be explained in the following way: the operator of potentiality is

transformationally rewritten as a higher clause whose subject is the under

lying nucleus and then, and only then, is the negation rewritten as non. But this explanation can never apply to sentences of the type of (13). Since the

operator is never rewritten under any overt form, we would have to state in an arbitrary fashion that any sentence with the operator POSS must be

negated by non, ignoring the parallelism between this phenomenon and the behavior of subject complements in general; or, as a second possibility, we would have to assign to the operator underlying structures which allow them to take nuclei as subjects. That is, we would be assigning to operators proper ties belonging to the elements which are constituents of the nucleus. We will consider now some of the data discussed by Schreiber (1971)

dealing with modal adverbials. As noticed by Schreiber, a modal adverb cannot appear in the complement of a verb of ordering:

(14) *I command you probably to leave.

If probably (together with such modal adverbs as allegedly, apparently, cer

tainly, clearly, conceivably, evidently, obviously, possibly, presumably, un

doubtedly, unquestionably, etc.) is analyzed as a predicate which takes a sen tential complement, the constraint which is violated in (14) is quite simple.

The complement of a matrix sentence must have a subject which is identical to the object NP of the matrix, but since the subject of a modal adverb is

always a sentence, the resulting string is ungrammatical with no exception. To capture this phenomenon under the modality proposal, we would have to

assign the relationship of subject and predicate to elements which must be

generated as operators (I command you, a transformational variant of the

operator IMP, and possibly, a transformational variant of the operator POSS) or give a list of all operators which cannot coccur in the modality component with IMP, losing, therefore, all parallelism between the deviance of sentences of the type of (14) and examples such as *Icommandyoufor him to leave. Noti


ce that these sentences violate the same constraint when imperatives are treated as performative sentences and modal adverbials as verbs of higher sentences, but different constraints under the modality proposal.

An independent argument to treat modal and auxiliaries as true verbs can be found in Huddleston (1969). He shows that separate tense selections are associated with modal and aspectual auxiliaries. Consider the following example:

(15) John could speak ten languages.

Huddleston associates a past tense with the modal could and a nonpast with the lexical verb speak. It is this property of auxiliaries to be modified by tense

which makes them resemble true verbs and which allows us to account for the two time-adverbials found in sentences of the following type:

(16) Now we will have no money at the end of the month.

The important point here, is that it is shown again that true verbs of the type of speak and have in (15) and (16) are parallel in their behavior to traditional auxiliaries such as can and will. This correlation between modals and verbs which do not take sentential complements, is very interesting to the present discussion. It could be argued, in some far-fetched way, given our arguments against modalities up to the present moment, that the parallelisms between elements which have been considered as operators and verbs which take sentential complements are due to the fact that such verbs should really be

considered as operators and removed from the nucleus. That is to say, there is no embedding in the nucleus, embedding is a surface representation of

operator-nucleus relationships. But as our present discussion on modals

indicates, if we follow this conclusion to its logical limit we would have to remove from the nucleus verbs which do not take sentential complements and

assign them to the operator component. Notice that this is basically our con clusion throughout the paper, namely, that there are not two components but only one, where all the relationships dealing with scope and related

problems are treated through degrees of embedding. We have discussed four different types of phenomena which can be treated

in a satisfactory way by the hypothesis that modals and modal adverbs are

predicates of higher sentences, but for which the modality approach must

impose ad hoc classifications or reduplicate the relationships found in the nucleus. These phenomena are: the surface order of modal verbs in subordi

nate and main clauses in German, the form of the negation in the complement of modal predicates (both abstract and overt) in Latin, the constraints be

tween commands and modal adverbials in English, and tense selections which


are associated with the auxiliaries. Our conclusion, based on these different

arguments, is that modals are better analyzed as main verbs than as operators of an independent component.

4. QUANTIFIERS

In the Aristotelian tradition quantifiers in logic are not conceived as separate from the quantified function and its copula. It is only since Frege that the

quantifier is considered as separate and is so symbolized. In a parallel fashion, quantifiers in natural language have until recently

been considered as constituents of the same underlying clause as the quanti fied NP and the main verb to which they come to be connected in surface

structure. The proposal that quantifiers originate outside of the clause in which they appear as constituents dates back to G. Lakoff's thesis (1965). Lakoff proposed that quantifiers be treated as predicates of higher sentences.8

The proposal that quantifiers not be introduced as constituents of the noun

phrase they quantify is based on the following observation: a theory based on the assumption that transformations do not affect meaning must separate the quantifier from its noun phrase in order to explain the behavior of quan tifiers with respect to transformations. This very same observation leads Pieter Seuren (Seuren, 1969) to a somewhat different proposal from that of Lakoff. Under his modality-proposition hypothesis, quantifiers should be treated as operators, that is they should be separated from the NP they quan

tify, and from the nucleus component. Quantifiers are modalities in an ex tended sense. That quantifiers should be considered as parallel to other modal

operators has been proposed by Von Wright (1951), as we have already point ed out. This proposal for logical analysis can only be interpreted by linguists as a statement about the formal parallelism of modalities and quantifiers. It

cannot possibly indicate preference for one analysis over another unless

linguistic arguments are presented. Therefore, we have two proposals which are equivalent in that they separate the quantifier from the function it quan tifies. Much of the evidence which has been presented in support of quantifiers as higher predicates indicates that the quantifier must be separated from its

NP, that it is not dominated by an NP. That is to say, it constitutes a refuta

tion of the more traditional analysis which treats quantifiers as some type of

predeterminers. This is clearly seen in Carden (1968). But the kind of evidence which merely indicates that the quantifier is not a

constituent of an NP cannot help us to decide which of the two proposals,

8 We will limit the present discussion to Pre-Determiner quantifiers and omit Post Determiner quantifiers as in the many boys. For ample discussions of these quantifiers see Lakoff (1970a), Partee (1970), and Carden (1970b).


the one which considers quantifiers as higher verbs, or the one which con siders them as separate modalities or operators, is the one to be preferred.9

As an argument which leads us to the selection of the proposal of quanti fiers as higher verbs over the assumption which treats them as operators of a separate component from the nucleus, I will briefly present a discussion of the effect of quantifiers on the rule of Neg-transportation. I first presented this conclusion in Rivero (1970) although the modality alternative was not considered there.

In Spanish there is a rule of Neg-transportation which moves a negation semantically connected with an embedded sentence to the matrix sentence.

A verb allowing Neg-transportation to apply when it appears in the matrix is querer 'to want'. An example such as (17a) may share its underlying struc ture (PM6) with example (17b), or may have originated in a structure whose

negation was over the matrix sentence. That is, (17a) is an ambiguous sentence.

(17a) No quiero que Maria cante 'I don't want Mary to sing'. (17b) Quiero que Maria no cante 'I want Mary not to sing'.

S

NP VP

Yo V NP

quiero S

(PM6) \ NEG Marfa cante

There are elements which, in order to be grammatical, must appear in negative clauses in underlying structure such as palabra de... '(not) a word of...', and which are not acceptable in a surface clause which is negative if that clause was not negative in underlying structure as well.10

As a consequence of this, example (18a) is no longer ambiguous; its only possible interpretation is that of (18b). The grammaticality of palabra de... in (18a) indicates that the negation could only come from the embedded structure and that it should never be attributed to the matrix:

(18a) No quiero que Maria hable palabra de ingles 'I don't want Mary to speak a word of English'.

9 We will accept as a general conclusion that there are aspects of quantifiers which require their analysis as separate from the NP, and other aspects which must be explained through the use of late constraints in the derivation. For a bibliography on this last aspect, which

we will ignore here, see Carden (1970a, p. 287, ft. 13). 10 Motivation for this statement can be found in Rivero (1971).


(18b) Quiero que Maria no hable palabra de ingl6s 'I want Mary not to speak a word of English'.

Consider now the following set of examples. The (b) sentences have a quanti fier in the embedded string:

(19a) Quiero que los ninios no hablen palabra de ingles 'I want the children not to speak a word of English'.

(19b) Quiero que muchos ninos no hablen palabra de ingl6s 'I want many children not to speak a word of English'.

(20a) No quiero que los ninos hablen palabra de ingles 'I don't want the children to speak a word of English'.

(20b) *No quiero que muchos ninos hablen palabra de ingles.

When we compare (20a) with (20b) we must conclude that it is the presence of the quantifier which is responsible for the deviance of (20b). Under the

hypothesis which treats quantifiers as predicates of higher sentences, (20b) can be explained if we assume that quantifiers are verbs which, as most of the

S

NP VP

Yo V NP

quiero S

(PM7) NEG los ninos hablen palabra de inglfs

S

NP VP

Yo V NP

quiero S

NP VP

ninos S muchos

(PM8) NEG niios hablen palabra de singles


other verbs in Spanish, are not favorable environments for Neg-transporta tion. Compare the underlying structure of (19a) and (20a), that is (PM7),

with that of (19b), that is (PM8). In (PM7) Neg-transportation can apply because the verb of the sentence

which dominates the NEG element is a favorable environment for the rule, but in (PM8) between querer 'to want' and the element NEG there is an

intervening clause whose predicate is muchos and the structural description of Neg-transportation is not met. That a quantifier such as muchos does not allow Neg-transportation to apply can be seen in sentences of the following type:

(21a) Muchos nifos no hablan palabra de frances

'Many children do not speak a word of French'.

(21b) *No muchos niios hablan palabra de frances

The ungrammaticality of (21b) can be explained in two different ways: first, the negation in (21b) applies to the clause in which the quantifier is a predi cate, in which case the constraint that palabra de be a constituent of a negative clause in underlying structure is violated because the negation is not in the lower clause. Second, Neg-transporation has applied to transport the nega tion in the lower clause to the quantifier clause. Given that muchos is not

marked for Neg-transportation, it has produced an ungrammatical string. Both solutions require that the quantifier be treated as a higher predicate.

If quantifiers are treated as operators which belong to a modality compo nent, there is no reason why (20b) should not be grammatical. If the quantifier is not a constituent of the nucleus there is no reason why it should block the

movement of the negation in the same manner as most verbs. The important aspect of the analysis of quantifiers as higher verbs is that it predicts that

quantifiers will behave as most verbal forms with respect to Neg-transporta tion. This transformation applies only to a small list of verbs in the language and our expectation is that if quantifiers are verbs Neg-transportation should not apply to the majority of them. Our assumption treats the deviance of

(20b) in the same way as the deviance of (22a), a string in which Neg-trans portation has applied all the way to the matrix although there is an inter

mediate predicate, contar, which blocks the rule:

(22a) *No quiero que cuentes que los niinos hablan palabra de frances '1 don't want you to tell that the children speak a word of French'

(22b) Quiero que cuentes que los niiios no hablan palabra de frances 'I want you to tell that the children don't speak a word of French'

1 The English gloss has a grammatical reading with a word being interpreted as just one

word, but that meaning is impossible in Spanish. That is, (21a) is always deviant in Spanish.


This parallelism cannot be captured by the theory which treats quantifiers as operators. We therefore conclude that those aspects of the behavior of

quantifiers which require the postulation of structures in which the quantifier must be distinguished and separated in underlying structure from the NP it

quantifies, are better explained by the proposal which treats quantifiers as

higher verbs. There is no need for the creation of a separate component of a different nature than the nucleus, for the analysis and description of quanti fiers in natural language.

5. CONDITIONALS

In (Lewis, 1946) we find the proposal that an operator 'Hp' be used for the

postulation of a proposition, which in the context of this work implies that there is some sort of element in conditionals which should be separated from the proposition itself.

Von Wright (1957) proposes that the conditional be considered as a mode of asserting:

Conditionals have usually been studied as a kind of proposition, demanding analysis. Here I propose to deal with the conditional as a mode of asserting (p. 127). I shall distinguish two modes of asserting: the categorial and the conditional. When we assert the proposition q conditionally, we consider it conditional on or 'relative to' some other proposition p (p. 130).

Since to assert is to perform an act, conditionals are therefore connected

with actions, that is, with performatives. These philosophical approaches to the problem of conditionals could be

interpreted syntactically in two different ways, depending on the value assign ed to elements of the type of 'Hp' in Lewis or to the notion of assertion in

Von Wright. First, we would like to point out that there is a reason, at a more abstract

level of representation, not to consider the conditional particle as a constituent

of the clause it precedes in surface structure. When a conditional clause is

pronominalized, the semantic content of the particle if is never included in the reference of the pronominalization. Consider the following example:

(23) If Peter had failed the test, I would have understood it.

We are only concerned with the reading in which what I understand is Peter's

failing the test, not something else totally unrelated to the elements which are present in the chain. The pronoun it in the consequent refers back to the

first clause in the chain, but with no conditional meaning attached. If we

assume that the if particle is external to the clause which follows it, that is, that there is a more abstract level of representation from which if is excluded

as a constituent of the antecent clause of the conditional construction, we can


explain the reading assigned to the it in (23): what is pronominalized is the sentence Peter failing the test. It seems to be true in general that a pronoun

whose antecedent is a clause preceded by a conditional particle never includes

conditionality in its reference. This leads us to the syntactic conclusion, parallel to the suggestion made by Lewis and Wright, that in a conditional structure there are propositions and something else which corresponds in natural language with the particle if.

Once the conditional particle has been separated from the clause it pre cedes, two possibilities seem to be open:

(a) The conditional particle is the surface realization of an element whose relational properties are similar to those of verbs, nouns etc., and it can be

incorporated into a PM whose constituents are all relational.

(b) The conditional particle is the surface realization of an operator which is outside of the component which dominates all relational elements (that is, the node which is named nucleus or proposition).

Notice that these two possibilities can reflect the observation that the con ditional particle is outside the clause it precedes in surface structure equally as well, and that both capture the observation made by Von Wright to the effect that the conditional should be considered as a mode of asserting. If

asserting is formalized through the use of an operator then the conditional

particle is the reflection of an operator, if, on the other hand, assertion is formalized through an abstract performative verb, then the conditional

particle is related to an underlying performative verb. In my paper (Rivero, 1972) I studied the properties of the conditional

particle, and I argued in favor of the hypothesis that it should be treated as a predicate belonging to the class of world-creating verbs of the type of imagine and suppose. If is a predicate of a higher sentence which immediately domi nates the clause it precedes in surface structure. There are arguments of various natures supporting this assumption. For instance, clefting of con

NP ditional clauses parallels clefting of V- | structures, the if particle being

S treated as a V plus complementizer sequence while the sentence which follows

NP the if is treated as an I complement, as the following examples indicate:

S

(24a) If John fails his test... (24b) If it is that John fails his test... (25a) Suppose that John fails his test... (25b) Suppose that it is that John fails his test...


Notice that this type of clefting cannot be applied to temporal particles of the type of when or to causal particles such as because. The parallelism be tween the examples in (24) and those of (25) can be easily captured of the conditional particle is assigned an underlying structure where it dominates the clause which follows it in surface structure, as in (PM9).

S

NP V

(PM9)1

(PM9) / \ John fails his test

Bruce Fraser (1969) has pointed out that when even precedes if, it neu tralizes the hypothetical force of a conditional. Even if you came is to be

interpreted as as well if you came as if you didn't. But this neutralization is found under more general conditions as well. When even precedes a world

creating verb it neutralizes the force of this verb to refer only to one world. That is, the combination even/world-creating verb has the reading under all

imaginable conditions or in all possible worlds. Even supposing that you came is to be interpreted as Supposing that you came and supposing that you did not come. In other words, the modification of if by even produces the same seman

tic effect as the modification of world-creating verbs by even. If, in view of

our previous argument which assigned a structure of the type of (PM9) to the conditional particle, we assume that if is a verb, this argument indicates that it is a verb of the same semantic category as suppose and imagine.

As a third argument which was originally presented in (Rivero, 1972) we will

turn to some material in Classical Greek. There are two types of negation in

Classical Greek: ,rj and oiic). Within the conditional structure the if-clause is always negated with a tu while the consequent is negated with an OVKo:

(26) Tatra OUK div 6uvavTo iotstv, ei Ail 8taitrl ETxpitq eXp&vto 'They would not be able to do this if they did not lead an abste

mious life' X.C., 1, 2, 16

It is interesting to notice that expressions denoting possibility, verbs of

wishing, hoping, promising and expecting, that is, world-creating verbs

require a #U?) as the negation of their complement sentence. Notice that under the analysis we have proposed so far for the conditional particle if, this is but

one phenomenon. The conditional particle is an underlying element of the


semantic class 'world-creating verbs', which immediately dominates the clause which it comes to precede in surface structure, that is, its underlying comple ment. If world-creating verbs require that their complements be negated by a #i/, an antecedent sentence in a conditional construction should be negated by a #j/ as well.12

In connection with the section of performatives we take the parallelism between the conditional particle and certain verbs to indicate that this

particle should be classified among verbs and that these verbs are not opera tors in the sense discussed in this paper. In conclusion, the special category of operators is not needed for performatives, modals (including modal ad

verbials) and quantifiers, and it is not needed for conditionals either.

6. TENSE

Tense is a category which has been considered as not belonging to the propo sition proper by a number of philosophers. Although it is implicit in some

12 That the consequent of a conditional construction is not directly dependent, or a complement of the conditional particle-verb is seen by the fact that it is negated by ooK rather than by /. Another argument which points towards the same conclusion comes from Spanish. When a conditional structure is embedded in a sentence wth a verb which

requires a subjunctive complement, such as dudar 'to doubt', the apodosis can only be in the subjunctive, as it can be observed in (i):

(ia) *Dudo que los otros, si lo supieran (Subj.), actuarian (Ind.) de manera tan honrada.

(ib) Dudo que los otros, si lo supieran (Subj.), actuaran (Subj.) de manera tan honrada. 'I doubt that the others, if they knew it (Subj.), would act (Subj.) in such an honest way.'

The mood of the if-clause is not affected by the nature of the highest verb in the tree in

(ib), while the consequent clause must exhibit the mood which is required by the same

higher verb. In other words, the if-clause is independent of the verb dudar while the con

sequent behaves as a complement of the same verb. If the antecedent and the consequent of a conditional structure are analyzed as two coordinated sentences with the configuration diagrammed in (PMi) these facts about classical Greek and Spanish can be accounted for.

(PMi) implies that the conditional particle is not to be considered as a two-place predicate, but rather as a one-place predicate within a coordinate structure.

SO

51 S2

I S

NP V

S3 if

(PMi)


Scholastic writings that tense may be a modality, it was not specifically dis cussed among traditional modalities. Tense distinctions were not seriously studied after the Renaissance (i.e. Port-Royal Logic). As I have already pointed out, in the XIX century any time indication was assigned to the

terms, with the exception of J. S. Mill who felt that it should be assigned to the whole proposition (Prior, 1957, p. 105ff.). I find that this implies that tense

was considered essentially as what a Scholastic would have called a modality de re.

Among more recent studies, J. N. Findlay has proposed that tenses should be included among modal logics (1941, p. 52, ft. 1).

Prior proposes that tense be treated as a dyadic operator whose first

argument is a name (time) and whose second argument is a statement. That

is, tense should be considered as a two-place predicate of the form: 'It is the case on... that...'.

These brief statements simply show that philosophers have felt the need to separate the tense from the proposition itself, in the same way that tradi tional modalities and quantifiers have been separated.

In transformational grammar, tense has been discussed in a number of studies such as Kiparsky (1968), Huddleston (1969), McCawley (1969), and R. Lakoff(1970).

We only need to read the last article and consider the vagueness of the

different proposals to reach the conclusion that no satisfactory account of tenses exists today in transformational grammar. Nevertheless we feel that there is some evidence, tentative as the solutions are, indicating that tense should not be considered as an operator belonging to a separate component from that where true verbs in the language are generated.

Huddleston's proposal that English auxiliaries are main verbs and have their own tense has already been discussed in connection with modals.

Kiparsky analyzes tenses as adverbs and McCawley treats them as originating as higher predicates. Both these proposals have in common their treatment of tense as a constituent (or constituents) which appears as a member of a

'regular' or 'standard' P-Marker which is relational in nature (Kiparsky did not write his paper under the modality optic, but as we will show later on, his arguments imply the conclusion we are stating here). Furthermore, if we notice that some adverbs originate as higher predicates as well, Kiparsky's proposal and McCawley's hypothesis are equivalent in that aspect which is relevant to this paper: tense as a category which, though separated in some

way from the clause including it in surface structure, is a predicate no different

from other overt verbs.

Although no detailed studies on tenses have appeared under the modality

proposition hypothesis, Lyons (1966), Fillmore (1968), and Seuren (1969)


have all indicated that tense should be considered as an operator belonging to the modality component and not as an element to be found in the propo sition or nucleus. We will now consider some of the evidence presented in the articles we

mentioned above which indicates that if tenses were differentiated from true verbs or from elements in the nucleus constituent, some phenomena which are easily explained under the proposal which treats tenses as predicates would require ad hoc and independent explanations.

First, by assuming that tense is a constituent and that it undergoes a pro cess of deletion which is similar in some ways to that which true verbs undergo Kiparsky is able to explain the conjunction of true pasts with present (with past meaning) which is often found in such languages as Old Irish and Greek.13 The sequence Past-Past is reduced to Past-Zero, which is morphologically realized as Past-Present, given that the Present is the unmarked form.

The process of deletion which explains the sequence Past-Present with the

reading Past-Past is then no different from the process of deletion which accounts for the reading of strings of the form I sing and he does it too. Tense is subject to an optional rule which deletes recurrent instances of identical

constituents, and the rule is the same one which affects true verbs. Under the

modality-proposition hypothesis we would need two unrelated principles to account for the fact that verbs can be deleted under identity conditions and that tenses can be deleted under similar conditions as well. Verbs such as sing

would appear in the nucleus; tenses would be assigned to the modality component which functions under different principles from those applying to elements in the nucelus.

Second, in his paper on tense, McCawley (1969) shows that the antecedent/ pro-form relationship exists between a time adverbial considered as an antecedent and the tense ending as the anaphoric device which pronomina lizes it. That is, a pronoun must be commanded or preceded by its antecedent, and a past tense must be commanded or preceded by the time adverbial (the examples are McCawley's):

(27a) Although Max was tired last night, he couldn't sleep. (27b) Although Max was tired, he couldn't sleep last night. (27c) Max couldn't sleep last night, although he was tired.

(27d) *Max couldn't sleep, although he was tired last night.

In (27d) the time adverbial last night does not precede nor command couldn't

sleep. If time adverbs and tense markers are regarded as members of the same

13 Since Kiparsky's article is rich in examples and sources of additional examples I will

simply present the main lines of the argument.


category, and the tense ending as a pronominalization of a time adverbiall4 this can be easily reflected. But what is important to our discussion is that the

antecedent-noun/pronoun relationship and the antecedent-verb/pro-verb relationship is reduplicated by the antecedent-adverb/tense-as-a-pro-form relationship. This implies that if we assign nouns and verbs to the nucleus and tenses and adverbs to the modality component, we would be ignoring this

parallelism. Under an analysis which treats tenses as elements which originate as verbal forms, the fact that they enter into pronominalization relationships parallel to those of true verbs is totally predictable.

Thirdly, I will consider some of the semantic effects of the Future tense.

My examples are in Spanish whose Future is inflectional and morphologically on a par with the Past tenses, and unrelated to the Spanish modals. In my

paper on conditionals (Rivero, 1972) I have pointed out that when a factive verb is embedded in a world-creating verb, it loses its factivity.15

Consider the following examples:

(28a) Me doy cuenta de que llueve mucho aqui, *si es que llueve. 'I realize that it rains a lot here, *if it is that it rains'.

(28b) Imagina que me doy cuenta de que Ilueve mucho aqui, si es que llueve.

'Imagine that I realize that it rains a lot here, if it is that it rains'.

Dare cuenta 'to realize' is one of those factive verbs whose factivity is neutral

ized when embedded in a world-creating verb, or when in the if-clause of a

conditional construction.'6

(28a) is an anomalous sentence because the clause that it rains a lot here is

presupposed to be true in the first part of the string (given that it is embedded in a matrix with a factive verb), and not presupposed to be true in the second

part because of the presence of the conditional. That the presupposition has been neutralized by the presence of a world-creating verb, imaginar, in (28b) can be seen by the logical coherence of this last example.

The inflectional ending which in Spanish is called the Future (we will ignore

14 As far as I can see, McCawley's proposal blends two philosophical traditions, the one represented by A. N. Prior who considers that the theory of tenses belongs among modal logics, that is that tense is some sort of operator or predicate, and that of Strawson (1952)

who places the study of tenses within the theory of reference along with the study of words like 'he' and 'I'. That there are aspects of the study of tenses which parallel the study of reference and pronominalization has also been proposed in linguistics by Allen (1966). 15 This statement is too general. As Lauri Karttunen has pointed out, there are some factives which retain their factivity under all conditions (Karttunen, 1970). But my argu

ment remains valid for a more reduced class of factives, which is enough for the purposes of this paper. 16 Notice that under the analysis presented in Section 5 for conditionals this is one and the same phenomenon.


here whether it is the surface representation of one or several underlying structures) has the property of neutralizing factivity in the same manner as

world-creating verbs:

(29) Me dare cuenta de que Ilueve mucho aqui, si es que llueve 'I will realize that it rains a lot here, if it is that it rains'.

In the above example the truth of the complement de que lueve mucho aqui 'that it rains a lot here' is no longer presupposed. This phenomenon is

directly attributable to the presence of the world-creating verb or of the Future tense, and is totally independent of the tense of the clause which is embedded in the factive verb:

(30a) Me doy cuenta de que llovio mucho aqui anoche, *si es que llovi6 'I realize that it rained a lot here last night, *if it is that it rained'.

(30b) Me dare cuenta de que llovi6 mucho aqui anoche, si es que llovi6 'I will realize that it rained a lot here last night, if it is that it

rained'.

If based on the conclusions reached by Kiparsky we assume that tense must be an underlying constituent of the same formal nature as time adver

bials, that is, derived from a higher predicate, we can conclude that (28b) and

(29) reflect a similar situation: there is a verb classified as world-creating, imaginar in (28b) and the future tense in (29), which block the factivity of the lower verb, darse cuenta 'to realize', both in (28b) and (29). In other words

we are assuming that the Future is a world-creating verb.17

In conclusion, tenses in Indo-European underwent the same process of deletion as true verbs, the antecedent/pro-form relationship found between a true verb and a pro-verb is paralleled by the adverb/tense relationship and the Future tense shares some semantic properties with world-creating verbs. These facts seem to indicate that the hypothesis that tenses are verbs and therefore are in some way independent from the propositional content, is to be preferred over the proposal which considers them as operators belonging to a modality component, separate from the proposition into which they are

incorporated in surface structure but different in a formal way from true verbs.

7. PRESUPPOSITIONS, THE SPEAKER'S POINT OF VIEW

The representation of presuppositions in underlying structure remains a difficult problem in linguistic analysis today, and this paper will not try to

17 This idea can be correlated with Peirce's notion that collections of future individuals are like collections of possible individuals or of imaginary individuals (Peirce, 1961).

238 MARiA-LUISA RIVERO

provide any answers to the question. We will just make some short and ten tative observations.

There is evidence which indicates that presuppositions must be connected with the underlying structure of sentences and represented formally at that level (Rivero, 1971). How the representation is to be effected remains very

much of an open question. Several possibilities have been hinted at in the

literature, accepting the assumption that presuppositions are not a question of surface grammar:

(a) Presuppositions should not appear in the syntactic representation of a sentence but should be given as meaning postulates or inference rules opera ting on underlying representations. This position has explicitly been taken by

Karttunen (1971) and by Bellert (1970, 1971). (b) That they should be represented in the underlying structure of a

sentence through the use of the same formal devices as regular assertions. This is basically McCawley's proposal when he discusses distinctions between NPs being used referentially and non-referentially, as in French relative clauses in the Indicative (referential sense) or in the Subjunctive (non-referen tial interpretation) (McCawley, 1970). It is also the solution proposed in my paper on presuppositions (Rivero, 1971).

A third proposal which has not been discussed in the literature and which can be considered as a variation of (b) is the following one. Presuppositions should be treated as modal operators belonging to a separate component. That is, each proposition in the nucleus would be assigned an operator or

several, giving it a truth value (e.g. true for factive complements, false for counterfactual conditionals). There are interesting possibilities to explore under this third assumption. For instance, I showed in my paper (Rivero, 1971)

NP that complement sentences of the type | can have a referential sense (verb

S in the indicative) and a non-referential sense (verb in the subjunctive) just like

any other type of NP, and that the referential interpretation must be derived from a different source from the non-referential interpretation. How is this

referential use of NP-complements to be formalized? The distinction must be reflected in underlying structure because it has syntactic consequences (e.g. the referential interpretation blocks a number of transformations). Suppose

NP we tried to capture this kind of parallelism between | structures and oth

S ers NP's by postulating a 'presuppositional operator' for the referential use which ranges over the whole proposition or only over a given term. Notice that this 'presuppositional operator' would be similar to Baker's Q operator


which can range over the whole clause (e.g. if-question) or bind a variable

(wh-question). This operator would allow us to reflect the fact that although the 'referential' NP-complement is attributed to the speaker, it does not con stitute an assertion. The question which will remain unanswered in this study is whether this 'presuppositional operator' is not a regular predicate or some sort of 'existence-truth' quantifier. In other words we are asking the following: if there are aspects of presuppositions which need to be syntactically incor

porated into the representation of a sentence18, do we need a modality com

ponent to reflect them or can we do it through the standard PM's?

8. CONCLUSIONS

This paper has examined the philosophical notions of modality and propo sitional attitude and their application to the analysis of natural language.

The conclusions indicate that such operators as performatives, modal verbs and modal adverbials, quantifiers, the conditional if, and tenses are best considered as relational elements in a Phrase-Marker. The assumption that there is a separate component, the operator or modality node, which subsumes these constituents in underlying structure, runs into numerous

counterexamples and must be rejected.

Department of Linguistics, University of Ottawa

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