Modality, Scale Structure, and Scalar Reasoning

Abstract

AbstractEpistemic and deontic comparatives differ in how they interact with disjunction. I argue that this difference provides a compelling empirical argument against the semantics of Kratzer, which predicts that all modal comparatives should interact with disjunction in the same way. Interestingly, an identical distinction is found in the semantics of non‐modal adjectives: additive adjectives like ‘heavy’ behave logically like epistemic comparatives, and intermediate adjectives like ‘hot’ behave like deontic comparatives. I characterize this distinction formally and argue that the divergence between epistemic and deontic modals explained if we structure their semantics around scalar concepts: epistemic modals should be analyzed using probability (an additive scale), and deontic modals using expected value (an intermediate scale).