Publication ｜Sophia Linguistica
Daigo Akiba
Some recent studies show, on the basis of the typologically observed facts, epistemic modals are interpreted in the CP domain and root modals are interpreted in the vP domain, which leads to the hypothesis that modals are interpreted in the domain of “phases” in the minimalist approach. Considering the hypothesis that noun phrases are also counted as a phase, there seems to be a possibility that noun phrases are also the domain where modal interpretations are received. In this paper, based on the hypothesis that noun phrases have a single-layered phase structure headed by n (Fukui & Zushi 2008), I propose that the modal interpretations received in noun phrases are root interpretations, which express the relation between a predicate and its external argument. A noun phrase can receive an epistemic interpretation when it forms a complex NP structure where a modal noun takes a CP as its complement. As a result, I conclude that a modal interpretation in each phase domain is determined by the nature of the phase: Epistemic modals are interpreted in the phase covering whole proposition and root modals are interpreted in the phase forming the predicate-argment structure.
