The Modality of the Future: A Default-Semantics Account K.M. Jaszczolt * Abstract I discuss three types of use of English will: regular future, dispositional necessity, and epistemic necessity, and demonstrate that they can be accounted for by one semantic representation which I call a compositionality-intentionality merger. For this purpose, I propose to introduce into DRT an acceptability operator ACC∆n p (‘it is acceptable to a degree n of the mode of presentation ∆ that p’) where the scalar value n determines the type of use of will. I demonstrate that an analogous scalar analysis applies to various ways of expressing futurity such as regular future, futurative progressive and tenseless future. The principles of Default Semantics correctly predict the existence of a default interpretation among the possible uses of will on the one hand, and possible expressions of futurity on the other. 1 The modality of will and the modality of the ‘future’: An overview This paper contributes to the ongoing debate concerning the status of the English will as a marker of (i) tense, (ii) modality, or (iii) ambiguous between the two (see e.g. Fleischman [2]; Enç [1]; Werth [20]; Hornstein [5]; Ludlow [11]). In particular, I concentrate on clearly modal uses of will as in (1) and (2) (epistemic and dispositional necessity respectively), as opposed to (3) where will is primarily a marker of future tense reference: (1) Mary will be in the opera now. (2) Mary will sometimes go to the opera in her tracksuit. (3) Mary will go to the opera tomorrow night. I demonstrate that when we adopt an approach to temporality based on event semantics (e.g. Parsons [15]; Kamp and Reyle [10]; Pratt and Francez [16]), the classification of will as modal turns out to be the most satisfactory solution. For this purpose I combine the analysis in Discourse Representation Theory (henceforth: DRT, Kamp and Reyle [10]) with the theory of default interpretations (e.g. Jaszczolt [6], [7], [8], [9]) and use the properties of (i) the intentionality of mental states and (ii) its pragmatic equivalent of communicative, informative and referential intentions in communication in order to show that the degrees of intentions involved result in different interpretations of will. The strongest referential intention directed at the eventuality (state, event or process) results in the strongest commitment to the communicated eventuality and by the same token to the ‘weakest degree of modality’. The discussion of the properties of will is supplemented with a discussion of the semantic category of futurity. Sentence (3) is juxtaposed with expressions of futurity that use futurative progressive and tenseless future as in (4) and (5) respectively: (4) Mary is going to the opera tomorrow night. (5) Mary goes to the opera tomorrow night. It is demonstrated that since the three readings differ as to the degree of modality, they can be given one overarching semantic representation. Since future will is best accounted for with reference to possible worlds (see e.g. Parsons [13], [14]), it is not qualitatively different from modal will. Independently of using world-time units, the purely future will in (3) turns out as modal since it exhibits affinities with (1) and (2) on one hand, and (4) and (5) on the other, that are best explained by a scale of epistemic modality. The gradation of intentions strongly suggests that will is modal. Instead of the ambiguity/temporality/modality trilemma, there is a gradation of the strength of intending the eventuality that results in various degrees of modal meaning communicated by will. I corroborate this argument by placing will in the framework proposed in Grice [4]. According to Grice’s Equivocality Thesis, alethic and deontic modalities are univocal, derived from one conceptual core of acceptability. I propose that Grice’s acceptability can be introduced as a modal operator (ACC) to Discourse Representation Theory, replacing the current unsatisfactory treatment of will that relies on a linear structure of the future and on representing firstly tenses and only derivatively temporality. 2 Futurity in Default Semantics * Department of Linguistics, University of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DA, United Kingdom, e-mail: kmj21@cam.ac.uk 1