The question of whether epistemic modals contribute to the truth conditions of the sentences they appear in is a matter of active debate in the literature. Fueling this debate is the lack of consensus about the extent to which epistemics can appear in the scope of other operators. This corpus study investigates the distribution of epistemics in naturalistic data. Our results indicate that they do embed, supporting the view that they contribute semantic content. However, their distribution is limited, compared to that of other modals. This limited distribution seems to call for a nuanced account: while epistemics are semantically contentful, they may require special licensing conditions.

Additional material: Expanded Karttunen classification of question-embedding attitudes

V. Hacquard and A. Wellwood. (2012). Embedding epistemic modals in English: a corpus-based study. Semantics and Pragmatics, 5(4).

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Von Fintel and Iatridou (2003) observed a striking pattern of scopal noninteraction between phrases headed by strong quantifiers like every and epistemically interpreted modal auxiliaries. Tancredi (2007) and Huitink (2008) observed that von Fintel and Iatridou's proposed constraint, the Epistemic Containment Principle (ECP), does not apply uniformly: it does not apply to strong quantifiers headed by each. We consider the ECP effect in light of the differential behavior of each and every in the environment of wh-, negative, and generic operators as described by Beghelli and Stowell (1997). Assuming that epistemic and root modals merge at two different syntactic heights (e.g. Cinque 1999) and that modals may act as unselective binders (Heim 1982), we extend Beghelli and Stowell's topological approach to quantifier scope interactions in order to formulate a novel syntactic account of the ECP.

Gagnon, M. and A. Wellwood. (2011). Distributivity and modality: where each may go, every can't follow. Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 21.

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Gagnon, M. and A. Wellwood. (2010). The typology of distributivity and epistemic containment phenomena. Proceedings of the Canadian Linguistics Association annual meeting.

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