Future , judges and normalcy conditions Alda

Both early and recent work on modal expressions has been focused on the way their root and non-root interpretations correlate with the properties of the predicates with which they combine (see eg Bertinetto, 1979; Condoravdi, 2001; Werner, 2006). Likewise, the temporal and the modal interpretations of the future have also been studied in correlation with the eventive versus stative distinction. This paper focuses on these distinctions in Italian (see in particular Bertinetto, ibid.; Berretta, 1997). The ‘modal’ use of the future and the non-root interpretation of potere and dovere are illustrated in (1b) and (2b). In this case, the property is (i) stative and (ii) its description is located at the utterance time. The ‘temporal’ reading for the future and the root interpretation of the modal potere and dovere are illustrated in (1a) and (2a) respectively. What these cases have in common, is that (i) the property is eventive and (ii) the event description is forward-shifted.