UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 9 (1997)
Modality in language development: a
reconsideration of the evidence
ANNA PAPAFRAGOU
The set of English modal verbs is widely recognised to communicate two broad clusters of
meanings: epistemic and root modal meanings. A number of researchers have claimed that
root
meanings are acquired earlier than epistemic ones; this claim has subsequently been
employed
in
the linguistics literature as an argument for the position that English modal verbs are
polysemous
(Sweetser 1990). In this paper I offer an alternative explanation for the later emergence of
epistemic interpretations by liniking them to the development of the child's theory of mind
(Wellman 1990). If correct, this hypothesis might have important implications for the shape
of
the
semantics of modal verbs.
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