This book covers the essentials of modality and offers both foundational ideas and cutting edge advances. The book consists of what are essentially tutorials on modality and modal notions, covering definitions of modality, morphosyntactic form, conceptual and logical semantics, historical development, and acquisition. There are also specific chapters on modality in Zapotec and American Sign Language, which show the range of forms that modal notions can take. To assist its tutorial function, the book closes with a comprehensive conceptual outline of all the chapters.

Key features:

textbook covers the essentials of modality Well-known editor Cognitive categories are currently among the most important areas of research in linguistics and beyond (biology, psychology)

Contents

Modality: Overview and linguistic issues Jan Nuyts

Typological approaches to modality Ferdinand de Haan Formal approaches to modality Stefan Kaufmann, Cleo Condoravdi and Valentina Harizanov

Historical aspects of modality Elizabeth Traugott

Acquisition of modality Soonja Choi

Modal expression in Valley Zapotec Pamela Munro

Modality in American Sign Language Sherman Wilcox and Barbara Shaffer

Topical Outline Erin Eschenroeder, Sarah Mills and Thao Nguyen