Understanding Of Modality Research Articles

Modal Foundationalism in Brandom´s Interpretation of Hegel

Brandom’s reading of Hegel’s metaphysics offers an excitingly rich interpretation within the context of contemporary modal metaphysics. Brandom reads Hegel’s determinate negation in the way that the concepts of material incompatibility and material consequence relations operate. Brandom recognizes incompatibility as a modal concept and places it as a primitive in the foundation of Hegel’s metaphysics. This paper examines of Brandom’s modal foundationalist claim in comparison to how Hegel conceives of modality in his Logic. Upon this examination, the paper suggests that Brandom’s interpretation remains problematically indifferent to the anti-foundationalist aspect of Hegel’s Logic and Hegel’s understanding of modality.

Critical Discourse Analysis of Modal Verbs in 2017 BRICS Talk—A Perspective of Functional Systemic Grammar

Modality received considerable attention from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective. Modality can be realized by finite modal operators and modal adjuncts. This paper tries to analyze modal verbs used by five hosts of different nations in the 2017 BRICS Talk, a special program made by CGTN ahead of the ninth BRICS Summit. Based on systemic functional grammar (SFG) on the sub-systems of modality, five small corpora are established and quantified to investigate the number, frequency and distribution of modal verbs. Through the corpus-based research, the author finds that there are similarities and variations on the use of modal verbs in different anchors, which reveals different power relations behind their utterances. The findings are interpreted in terms of individual, cultural differences between the five moderators. This paper contributes to research that probes into power relations in the context of media from a CDA perspective and provides further understanding of modality in the public discourse.

A Systemic Functional Study of the System of Modality in Chinese

In previous systemic functional studies of modality in Chinese, the systems of types and degrees of modality have been discussed; however, the system that characterizes the realization of types and degrees of modality has been largely neglected, and realizations of modality have not been systematically explored. This paper explores the system of MODALITY in Chinese and realizations derived from the system from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics. In this study, the systems of types and values of modality in Chinese are re-examined. The system of types of modality excludes usuality, since it distinguishes itself from modalization and modulation essentially. The system of values of modality is treated as a cline. More importantly, the study gives a systematic and comprehensive description of the system of MANIFESTATIONS that describes the realization of modality, which distinguishes among explicitly subjective, explicitly objective, and implicitly subjective realizations of modality. The present study is the first attempt to systematically and critically examine the systems of types, values, and realizations of modality in Chinese. It may contribute to a better understanding of modality in the particular language of Chinese, and may lend support to system-based typology, supplementing structure-based typology.

A STUDY ON MODALITY IN ENGLISH-MEDIUM RESEARCH ARTICLES

The present paper contributes to the increasing investigation into the lexico-grammatical features of the English-medium research articles (RAs). The study investigated the use of modality in the RAs both as a whole and across the sections, and compared these features between two subsets - RAs from an internationally established journal and those from a non-indexed journal published in Vietnam. Data for the study was 30 RAs over a three-year time span from 2017 to 2019 from English for Specific Purposes and VNU Journal of Foreign Studies. The findings indicate a small disproportion in the frequency between these two groups of authors, with the international subset having a slightly higher normalized frequency. Modality distribution across sections suggests the same decreasing order for both subsets, which starts from Conclusion to Results and Discussion, Literature review, Introduction and ends with Method, with Conclusion being the section with the highest frequency, and Method with the lowest. Additionally, the international subset consistently has a slightly higher normalized frequency in all sections than that in the Vietnamese subset. It is expected that the issues unfolded from this study could theoretically contribute to a better understanding of modality in research papers in general and in those in the discipline of Applied Linguistics in particular; practically, the thesis is also hoped to promote the Vietnamese researchers in their endeavor to join the international academic community.

Self-Re-Interpretations (Of the Trace): From Restricted to General Substitutability

This article elaborates on Christopher Norris's claim that certain aspects of Derrida's work are amenable to formalisation in modal-logical terms. Norris contends that any adequate analysis of the logic behind Derrida's work must provide an account of the notions of possibility, necessity, and necessary possibility, particularly as they are related to Derrida's notion of iterability. This article examines the further hypothesis that Derrida's understanding of modality, according to which possibilities must be accounted for even if they are never realised, might even better be described in terms of possible worlds. In possible-worlds semantics, the conceptual meaning of a statement is constituted by the set of alternative contexts in which that statement is true. This article argues, however, that possible-worlds semantics would be unthinkable without the experience that one referent can be substituted for another. The possibility of this experience is best described in Derridean terms. Read through Derrida's thought of the trace, the properly semantic substitutions (of names in view of a thing and of things in view of a concept) may come to be seen as dependent on the substitution of the thing for itself; on what Derrida calls ‘the substitution of the unique for the unique’.

The Difference Between Modal Verbs in Deontic and Epistemic Modality

Modality is always interesting to discuss. Understanding it is crucial for both language teachers and learners. This essay discusses the concept of modality, its types and uses. It has a goal to find the difference between deontic and epistemic modality that is indicated by their modal verbs. It also provides the readers a better understanding of modality, particularly of its types and uses. The result of the analysis shows that in general, deontic modality indicates obligation and permission, while epistemic modality expresses possibility and prediction. However, the difference between deontic and epistemic modality is not a clear cut, since one single modal verb can express both types, and one single proposition can be expressed by more than one modal verb.

Rationalism and Necessitarianism

AbstractMetaphysical rationalism, the doctrine which affirms the Principle of Sufficient Reason (the PSR), is out of favor today. The best argument against it is that it appears to lead to necessitarianism, the claim that all truths are necessarily true. Whatever the intuitive appeal of the PSR, the intuitive appeal of the claim that things could have been otherwise is greater. This problem did not go unnoticed by the great metaphysical rationalists Spinoza and Leibniz. Spinoza’s response was to embrace necessitarianism. Leibniz’s response was to argue that, despite appearances, rationalism does not lead to necessitarianism. This paper examines the debate between these two rationalists and concludes that Leibniz has persuasive grounds for his opinion. This has significant implications both for the plausibility of the PSR and for our understanding of modality.

A sociosemiotic interpretation of linguistic modality in legal settings

While a much investigated concept because of its importance in shaping human discourse, modality has still not been given an agreed understanding. Using authentic Chinese court judgments in Hong Kong, this paper aims to unravel the complexity of modality as exemplified in its usage in the legal domain. It examines formal, semantic, and functional approaches to modality, showing their weaknesses in identifying and explaining modality in legal discourse. It proposes a socio-semiotic approach as an alternative for giving us a better understanding of modality in respect of its meaning and function in our language as a sign system.

Critical Notice of Scott Soames's Case against Two-Dimensionalism

This rich and stimulating book1 gives both a clear and cogent big picture of what is at stake in an important current philosophical debate, and some spirited and incisive arguments about the details. It is a defense of what its author regards as a major shift in our thinking about the sources of the intentionality of our speech and thought, and an attack on what he regards as a counterrevolution that is attempting to resurrect the view that was dominant prior to the shift in a new and more sophisticated form. The shift was “the Kripkean revolution,” led by Saul Kripke in Naming and Necessity, assisted by David Kaplan, Hilary Putnam, and Keith Donnellan. The counterrevolution exploits a piece of technical apparatus, two-dimensional modal semantics, which has its original application in the work of the revolutionaries themselves. The “ambitious two-dimensionalists,” who are the primary target of Soames’s critique, generalized the kind of two-dimensional semantics for indexical and demonstrative expressions developed by David Kaplan and used it to try “to reinstate descriptivism in the philosophy of language, internalism in the philosophy of mind, and some version of conceptualism in our understanding of modality in the face of the challenges that rocked these positions more than thirty years ago” (329). But, Soames argues, this attempt avoids “the deepest and most important philosophical consequences” (54) of Kripke’s work.

(Re)thinking modality: A text-world perspective

Abstract The late Paul Werth’s model of human discourse processing, Text World Theory (Werth 1994, 1995a, 1995b, and 1999), has been subject to some dramatic evolutionary changes over the last decade. Here I examine in particular the text-worlds created by the presence of modalized propositions in literary fiction and suggest a number of modifications to Werth’s (1999) handling of this area of discourse. I question Werth’s explanation of modality and use Simpson’s (1993) modal grammar of narrative fiction to formulate a refined text-world account of the conceptual structure of modalized propositions. As a consequence of this investigation, however, I also suggest that a text-world perspective on modality may have much to offer both to Simpson’s modal grammar and to our understanding of modality as a whole.

Let’s be Realistic about Serious Metaphysics

In the history of western philosophy, we find two traditional views of “serious metaphysics”: Aristotle’s and Kant’s. Albeit not as clear as we might prefer, from Aristotle we learn that metaphysics is the study of “being qua being”. We take this to mean a study of reality as it is, in itself, independent of how we conceptualize it. From Kant, we learn that this is not quite possible, that our conceptual apparatus is employed in all thought, even thought about “being qua being”. For him, knowledge of metaphysics is encompassed by necessary knowledge that is synthetic ap riori, derived by transcendental argument moving from our experiences to their necessary prerequisites. While neither put it perhaps in exactly these words, both Aristotle and Kant took their subject matter to be the actual world as it is, and not merely the study of a world as it could possibly be but actually is not. On one hand, considering how things possibly are is useful to metaphysics insofar as this shines light on how things actually are. On the other hand, however, from considering possibility for its own sake, or possibility not predicated upon that which is actual, we gain no insight into the actual world and we are not doing a good job with our metaphysics. Undoubtedly, our technical understanding of modality has become more nuanced than it was for these old world philosophers. Nevertheless, they have determined the parameters of the subject matter for serious metaphysicians. As in introduction to what is meant here by “serious metaphysics”, Kant’s second analogy can serve as a paradigm: we find it a metaphysically necessary, synthetic ap rioritruth that causes temporally precede their effects. This is not a causal truth, but rather a condition on the application of the concept of causation. Neither is this a truth of logic or a conceptual truth because one cannot derive a contradiction from the claim that it is false. (This is saying nothing more than that it is a synthetic and not an analytic truth. 2 ) There is no logical contradiction in considering a world where effects precede their causes, as there is in considering a world with

“Ways of worldmaking”: A study of narrative transmission in Henry James'sThe Aspern Papers

Summary In this paper I argue that an understanding of modality ‐ especially when deployed in so‐called unreliable homodiegetic narration ‐ essentially requires an understanding of the referential functions of language. These functions, often performed by ¡mplicatures and, in Goodman's terms, “exemplifications”, create the “worlds” whose cognisability becomes a presupposition upon which our grasp of the relevant modality is predicated. James's novella, The Aspern Papers, offers a complex form of such a narrative transmission; one that would remain, I argue, only partially recoverable without the deployment of the text immanent postulates proffered by my theoretical exposition of the ironic modalities of unreliable homodiegetic narrative.