On modal tenses and tensed modals

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the interaction between temporal configuration and the interpretation of modal verbs in French and Spanish, two languages that exhibit wider and more transparent morphological options than English, but diverge from each other in significant ways. I show that mere backward-shifting of the time of the modal is not sufficient for conveying a counterfactuality implicature, and call into question the hypothesis that counterfactual and epistemic construals constitute a genuine ambiguity. It is suggested that, when assessing statements involving scheduled or foreclosed events, we need to take a third time into account, the “time of decidedness”, over and above the time of modal evaluation and the time of the event, and that perfect (or perfective) morphology with modals –whether realized on the modal or on the dependent infinitive- may have the effect of signaling that the issue is decided at the time of evaluation.

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