Page 149 - Costellazioni 6

GÜNTER RADDEN, Meaningful Grammar

The modal expressions listed under (7) already provide the
speaker with a wealth of choices to frame their assessment either sub-
jectively or objectively. There are also virtually unlimited possibilities
of forming complex epistemic expressions. Halliday (1994) lists some
such epistemic expressions, all of which mean ‘I believe’:

(10a) Everyone admits that…; All authorities on the subject
are agreed that…; No one person would pretend that
(10b) It stands to reason that…; Commonsense determines
that…; It would be foolish to deny that…

The expressions under (10a) are generalizations. An assessment is, of
course, made and communicated by an individual person. Since the
speaker who makes the assessment is also included in the overall set,
the generalized expressions make perfect sense. These expressions can
be seen as instances of the conceptual metonymy GENERAL FOR SPECIFIC,
which accounts for the use of everyone for ‘I’
The expressions under (10b) refer to reasoning. Their use also
makes sense because epistemic assessments are based on conclusions
arrived at by one’s reasoning. The usages are based on the metonymy
REASON FOR CONCLUSION, which accounts for it stands to reason for ‘I con-
clude’. All these expressions give an objective view of an assessment
and are, therefore, mainly found in formal and academic discourse.

3.2 Non-epistemic modalities
Non-epistemic modality is often referred to as root modality be-
cause it is historically and conceptually more basic than epistemic
modality. Root modality is difficult to define, mainly due to its dis-
parate subtypes. The following three subtypes of root modality can
be distinguished.

(11a) Deontic modality
Permission: You can go home now.
Obligation: You must go home now.
(11b) Intrinsic modality
Intrinsic possibility: You can be charming.
Intrinsic necessity: You must be careful.

147