We offer an analysis of the Greek and Italian future morphemes as epistemic modal operators. The main empirical motivation comes from the fact that future morphemes have systematic purely epistemic readings-not only in Greek and Italian, but also in Dutch, German, and English will. The existence of epistemic readings suggests that the future expressions quantify over epistemic, not metaphysical alternatives. We provide a unified analysis for epistemic and predictive readings as epistemic necessity, and the shift between the two is determined compositionally by the lower tense. Our account thus acknowledges a systematic interaction between modality and tense-but the future itself is a pure modal, not a mixed temporal/modal operator. We show that the modal base of the future is nonveridical, i.e. it includes p and ¬p worlds, parallel to epistemic modals such as must, and present arguments that future morphemes have much in common with epistemic modals and predicates of personal taste. We identify, finally, a subclass of epistemic futures which are ratificational, and argue that will is a member of this class.
Italian is a well-known exception to the cross-linguistic generalization according to which belief predicates are indicative selectors across languages. We newly propose that languages that select the subjunctive with non-factive epistemic predicates allow us to see a systematic polysemy between what we call an expressive-'belief' (featuring only a doxastic dimension) and an inquisitive-'belief' (featuring both a doxastic and an epistemic dimension conveying doxastic certainty (in the assertion) and epistemic uncertainty (in the presupposition)). We offer several previously unseen contrasts proving this distinction and answer open questions about mood choice cross-linguistically. We argue that this distinction is not an idiosyncrasy of non-factive epistemics. We provide novel data, showing that fictional predicates (dream, imagine) license the subjunctive. We explain the indicative/subjunctive alternation by again disentangling expressive from inquisitive-fictional meanings. Fine-tuning the descriptions for a variety of predicates we pave the way for a new typology of attitudes relying on this systematic polysemy.
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