Can We Define "Must"? The Semantics of Modality

How do we capture the meaning of "may" or "can"? What kinds of linguistic math do we need to understand them? In this week's episode, we take a look at modality: where words like "must" fit in our meanings; how we consider many ways the world could be to account for their semantics; and how the same string of sounds can have a lot of flavours.
This is Topic #90!
This week's tag language: Cornish!
Related videos:
Logical Connections: How Logical Is Language? • How Logical is Languag...
Let's Talk About Sets: How Do We Build Meaning with Math? • How Do We Build Meanin...
Quantifying Sets and Toasters: What Does "Most" Even Mean? • What Does "Most" Even ...
Last episode:
Relatively Close: How Can Sentences Work Like Adjectives? • How Can Sentences Work...
Other of our semantics and pragmatics videos:
Topic of Focus: How Do We Signal What's Important When We Talk? • How Do We Signal What'...
Downward Spiral: Why Can't "Any" Go Just Anywhere? • Why Can't "Any" Go Jus...
Building Common Ground: How Do We Build Shared Worlds in Conversation? • How Do We Create a Sha...
Our website also has extra content about this week's topic, on the syntax of modals, at: www.thelingspac...
Find us on all the social media worlds:
Tumblr: / thelingspace
Twitter: / thelingspace
Facebook: / thelingspace
And at our website, www.thelingspac... !
You can also find our store at the website, thelingspace.s...
We also have forums to discuss this episode, and linguistics more generally.
Sources:
A good portion of the presentation was based off of Kai von Fintel's Intensional Semantics notes (web.mit.edu/fin...)
We also consulted Angelika Kratzer's papers from 1977, 1981, and 1991, where all these ideas about modality originally come from:
The 1977 paper: semantics.uchic...
The 1981 paper: semantics.uchic...
The 1991 paper: udrive.oit.uma...
For background -- historical and otherwise -- we consulted Basic Concepts in Modal Logic (mally.stanford...) and William Starr's lecture notes: (williamstarr.ne....
Finally, we drew some inspiration from Seth Cable's recent (and wonderfully lucid) Formal Semantics notes: people.umass.ed...
Looking forward to next time!

[@ananyadey7402]

absolute brilliance, thanks for making modals so easy :)

[@thelingspace]

Thanks for watching! Glad to be able to help. ^_^

[@12tone]

This is fun 'cause "modality" means something completely different in my world. Very cool!

[@thelingspace]

Yeah, that's true! These words do find a way of getting reused. Glad you liked it! ^_^

[@chris_outh]

The Ling Space wow, two of my Favourite channels in one comments section!

[@pbgum8093]

This video was so helpful! I was really struggling with modals on my semantics homework, but this video was excellent and made it easier to understand :)

[@sugarfrosted2005]

Modal quantifiers as quantifying over universes is neat. Are there any modals dealing with probability. You'd have to add on some scope limitations on universes to make them rigorous.

[@thelingspace]

Yeah, it's cool stuff! And there's a lot more to do with it that we haven't talked about yet, including dealing with probability and relative likelihoods of different things. So that's definitely a topic we intend to come back to more in the future. ^_^

[@Mssmn]

Thank you so much for this lesson.

[@tubeleverage]

Hey! I'm enjoying your videos as they are extremely compact with basic linguistic theories while not going off into the abyss regarding each and every word. Thanks for that! I have a question. Im currently an English teacher in Korea and have been studying grammar and linguistic theory on my own and have come up with a similar approach to modal auxilliary verbs. Given the assumption (which many might not share due to the fact that grammar is not taught extensively in the states) that when we refer to something in the past, the possibility of the statement being true is also lowered, would it be in the correct direction of approach to also approach modal present - past pairs in each manner? Examples being May and might Will and would Shall (obsolete) and should Can and could Must (shall's replacement) So if modals have to do with the statement being true in other worlds, do past tense modals take the direct truth value and dillute it? This is my current understanding. Any thoughts?

[@jcwriter]

Amazing video!

[@alexolas1246]

Huh. I'd actually been thinking before about how modality answers the question of "What (kind of) universe is X true in?". Fascinating to see my own thoughts being repeated by another person...

[@thelingspace]

Yeah, it's really a cool way of looking at it! Glad you hit on it, too. Thanks for the feedback. ^_^

[@alexolas1246]

E-EH!? F-Feedback!?? Y-y-you mean I'm actually helping!!?

[@thelingspace]

Yep, of course! We like hearing what people are thinking about and how they respond to our videos - it helps us figure out how best to approach stuff for the future. ^_^

[@alexolas1246]

O_O (explodes out of happiness)

[@KJYKJY1985]

All right, _Fringe_ references. I like it when I get the reference.

[@thelingspace]

Awesome! Yeah, we like it when people get them, too. ^_^

[@robertvaliullin8837]

Thank you very much!

[@thelingspace]

Thanks so much for watching! ^_^

[@pq6689]

Which papers cover the 9:40-10:00 material on the identity of must/all and may/some and the possible nature of human thought?

[@pq6689]

Great video btw

[@ehza]

Nice

[@frankharr9466]

Huh. That's pretty awesome.

[@thelingspace]

Thanks! It's a really fascinating topic, we think. ^_^

[@verdakorako4599]

world = set of possibilities for what the truth (reality) is?

[@thelingspace]

No, world in this sense = a given set of states for the way the world is. The set of possible worlds is more the set of possibilities for what the truth really is. Hope that helps! ^_^

[@Deibi078]

Omg