MARIA-LUISA
REMARKS
ON OPERATORS
RIVERO
AND MODALITIES
0. INTRODUCTION*
This paper studies the notions of operators and modalities as applied to
linguistic analysis and the theoretical implications of adopting an analysis
which treatsmodalities and operators as objects of a different nature from
those which are constituents of the proposition or nucleus (the terms are
used here as synonyms).Our conclusions indicate that there is at present
strong evidence against the assumption that both modalities and operators
belong to a common constituent which is separated from the relational
elements (i.e. verbs and nouns) in a given Phrase-Marker. Elements which
have been considered by some linguists (notably Pieter Seuren, 1969) as new
kinds of units in transformational grammar can be analyzed sometimes as
clauses, sometimes as predicates, but they do not require the theoretical
apparatus and the transformationalmachinery which a modality-operator
node versus a proposition or nucleus-node implies.
If logicians need to distinguish between operators and predicates to avoid
thepossibility of having predicateson predicates and if their rulesof inference
and implication require that themodality be in someway distinguished from
the proposition, the linguist canmake these distinctions and solve problems
of scope through levels of embedding (or perhaps interpretation rules)
rather than by means of a treewith extra relations or components.
The outline of this paper is as follows. Section 1 presents the notions of
operator and modality as defined in this study. Section 2 discusses per
formatives, Section 3 modals and modal adverbials, Section 4 quantifiers,
Section 5 conditionals, Section 6 tenses, and Section 7 presuppositions.
1. OPERATORS
AND MODALITIES
IN LINGUISTICS
Philosophers have long been concernedwith the different kinds of meaning
between what a
they have made a distinction
sentence is about, that is, a 'state of affairs' or its subject matter, and that
for which the speaker uses the sentence, or its mood of entertainment:
involved
in a sentence
and
A proposition is a term capable of signifying a state of affairs. To define a proposition, as
* This work was
supported in part by the Canada Council through Grant S71-0533. I
wish to thankMeralin Meek for many stylistic improvements.
Foundations of Language 9 (1972) 209-241. All rights reserved.
MAR A-LUISA RIVERO
210
an expression which is true or false, is correct enough but inauspicious, because it easily
leads to identification of the proposition with the statement or assertion of it; whereas
the element of assertion in a statement is extraneous to the proposition asserted. The
proposition is something assertable: the content of the assertion, and this same content,
signifying the same state of affairs, can also be questioned, denied, or merely supposed,
and can be entertained in other moods as well (Lewis, 1946, p. 49).
That part which determineswhat the sentence is about is sometimes called
the proposition, while that aspect of the sentencewhich determines how it
is used is called the modality, although this terminology is by no means
universal
in the literature, as we shall later see.
This division between modality and proposition goes back toAristotle
(De Interpretatione,Ch. 12 and 13, and Prior Analytics, 1.3 and 13), who
according to Bochenski (1961), considered that modalities determine the
arguments (one or several)of a given sentence but not thewhole sentence...
that is,modalities do not apply to the whole proposition but only to the
arguments. Itwas Aristotle's discipleTheophrastuswho modified thismodal
logic and considered that themodality ormode affects thewhole proposition
or sentence and not its terms alone. This distinction is found among the
Scholastics in itsmore traditionalform: a (modal)proposition is one formed
by a dictum
and a modality,
and the modality
can affect only the arguments
(modality de re or divisa) or it can affect the whole proposition (modality
de dicto or composita).l
2
1 This problem which can be classified as one of scope has received some attention from
transformational linguists recently. That negation sometimes does not affect the sentence
as a whole but only a part of it has been generally explained by postulating an underlying
proposition for that part which is negated. Consequently, there is only sentence negation
in the theory of grammar, that is, negation de dicto or composita, and constituent negation
has been avoided in deep structure. It has been proposed by Baker, with a different ter
minology and with no comparisons to the traditional modalities, that an element com
parable to a traditional modality can have both a composite sense and a divided sense.
In his recent article on questions, he (1970) introduces an operator Q which can either
affect thewhole proposition as in I ask if he came or which can affect only the arguments:
I ask who came. That is,Q can have a reading de re or a reading de dicto. For a discussion
of this proposal see our section on performatives.
2 Some of the texts of the Scholastics are purely grammatical and the properties of their
examples are discussed from a linguistic point of view. If we compare the following text
which was written by Paul of Venice with current discussions of the scope of quantifiers
in relation to their relative position in surface structure, the similarity of the ideas is
striking:
Some say that always when themode simply precedes or follows the expression with the
infinitive, then the sense is definitely called 'composite' in every case, e.g. 'It is possible
that Socrates runs', 'that Socrates runs (Socratem currere) is possible'. But when themode
occupies a place in themiddle the sense is called 'divided', e.g. 'for Socrates it is possible
to run'. Others on the other hand say that when the mode simply precedes, the sense
is composite, as previously, but when it occupies a middle place or comes at the end, then
the sense is divided, e.g. 'ofA I know that it is true' 'thatA is true is known by me' ... So
I say otherwise, taking a position intermediate between them: when the mode simply
precedes a categorial or hypothetical dictum it effects the composite sense; and when it
REMARKS ON OPERATORS
AND MODALITIES
211
Although the classicalmodalities were four in number, that is, possibile,
impossibile,contingens,necessarium, it has frequently been noticed that the
notion of modality could be expanded to include other modal functors.
The Stoics Ammonius and Philoponus admit an indeterminatenumber of
modalities which are 'expressionsof the conscience.' They are the subjective
modi (Bochenski, 1937,p. 683).
These subjectivemodi are studied by Pseudo-Scot who, besides the four
classicalmodalities, considered dubium 'doubted', scitum 'known', opinatum
'opined', apparens 'apparent', volitum 'willed', and dilectum 'preferred',
among others.There aremodern versions of thisextendednotion of modality.
In his book An Essay inModal Logic, Von Wright (1951) distinguishes
between alethic modalities, that is, the four classical modal functors,
epistemic modalities (verified, undecided, falsified), deontic modalities
(obligatory, permitted, indifferent,forbidden), and existential modalities,
which include the quantifiers.He also mentions another tentative type of
modality, dynamic modalities, which would include can and has the ability
to... whose meaning is always de re and never de dicto. According to the
linguistic point of view which formalizesmodalities as originating in an
independentnode, the consequence of this extended notion of modality is
that embeddingmay disappear from the grammar if the parallelism between
verbs which allow embedding, and modal functors is formalized in a con
sistentway. This consequence has been noticed by Ch. Fillmore as shown
by his introduction of the notion of modality as independent from the
proposition in his theory of grammar:
In the basic structures of sentences, then, we find what might be called the 'proposition',
a tenseless set of relationships involving verbs and nouns (and embedded sentences,
if thereare any), separated fromwhat might be called the 'modality' constituent. [emphasis
mine, M.R.] (Fillmore, 1968, p. 23)
The interest in modalities disappeared in the Renaissance and did not
reappearuntil the time of Husserl who speaks of states of affairswhich are
meant by propositions and modifications, but there are discussions in the
XIX centurywhich can readilybe translated into Scholastic terms. It seems
tome that it is implicit in the first quotation below that tense is considered
as a modality de re although the similarities between the problems on the
scope of tense and the discussions on divided and composed senses of the
Schoolmen
was not seen at the time:
occurs between the verb and the first extreme it is taken in the divided sense; but when it
follows at the end, it can be taken in the composite or the divided sense.
Paul of Venice, Logica Magna 1 21, 76 va, as cited by Bochenski (1961) Bochenski (1937)
dismisses syntactic texts of this nature as of no interest to the logician, but they are of
the utmost interest to the linguist.
MARIA-LUISA
212
RIVERO
... Thus the propositions ... he came yesterday: John will arrive, if reduced to their logical
form as Judgments, must be thus expressed ... he is theperson who came yesterday; John
is he who will arrive. Francis Bowen, A treatise on Logic, 1870, as cited in Prior (1957,
p. 107-108).
The above paragraph exemplifies the more common view in the XIX
century towhich Mill objects in his System of Logic:
A remark of a similar nature may be applied tomost of those distinctions among proposi
tions which are said to have reference to their modality; as difference of time or tense;
the sun did rise, the sun is rising, the sun willrise. The differences, like that between affirma
tion and negation, might be glossed over by considering the incident of time as a mere
modification of the predicate: thus, The sun is an object having risen .... But the simplifica
tion would be merely verbal. Past, present, and future do not constitute so many different
kinds of rising; they are designations belonging to the event asserted, to the sun's rising
today. They affect, not the predicate, but the applicability of the predicate to the particular
subject. That which we affirm to be past, present or future, is not what the subject signifies,
nor what the predicate signifies, but specifically what the predication signifies; what is
expressed by the proposition as such, and not by either or both of the terms. J. S. Mill,
System of Logic, I, iv, 2 as cited in Prior (1957, p. 106-107).3
As pointed out in the Kneales' The Development of Logic, (Kneale and
Kneale, 1966), Frege in his Begriffsschrift dismissed modal distinctions as
irrelevant to his purpose. Modern interest inmodal logic begins with the
work
of C. I. Lewis.
The philosophical parallel to the linguistic assumption that there is a
modality which must be separated from theproposition itself is found in the
writings of a variety of modern logicians. Lewis (1946) proposes symbolic
devices indicating the various moods of entertainment to disengage the
proposition from itsmood: + -p for assertion of p, H for its postulation,
etc. This
is essentially
equivalent
to O P which
he had already proposed
in
his 1918 Survey of Symbolic Logic. In 1949, Hare proposed to distinguish
in an imperative sentence: the dictor and the descriptor. The
as its name indicates has a descriptive function while the dictor
two elements
descriptor,
reflects themood:
The distinction which we have made between descriptors and dictors enables us to state
concisely what is the relation of an imperative sentence to the corresponding indicative
sentence. The two sentences have the same descriptor, but different dictors; in other words,
what one states to be the case, the other commands to be the case. (Hare, 1949, p. 29.)
and its entertain
By 1952 Hare expands his distinction between a proposition
ment to cover other types of sentences besides imperatives. In his book he
both a 'phrastic' and a 'neustic'. The
considers
sentences as containing
phrastic refers to what the sentence is about or to its subject matter while
the neustic indicates that which is said about the reference of the phrastic.
This distinction is sub-sentential. The same conception is found in Erik
3 For a discussion of tense as amodality see section 6.
REMARKS ON OPERATORS AND MODALITIES
213
Stenius' article 'Mood and Language-Game' (1967), who distinguishes
between a sentence radical that specifies a state of affairs and a mood that
determines whether a speaker is declaring that the state of affairs holds,
whether he is questioning it, etc....
The notion of modality as distinct from the propositional content of a
sentence does not have as long a tradition in linguistics as it does in logic.
In 1964Katz and Postal propose that interrogativeand imperativesentences
be analyzed into a nucleus and a Q morpheme for questions (with the reading
'I request that you answer...') or an I morpheme for imperatives (with the
reading 'the speaker requests that...'). This I morpheme is also found in
Thorne (1966). The status of Q and I is not discussed in Katz and Postal
(1964) although theQ morpheme is used in the transformationsjust like any
of the other constituentswhich are dominated by the nucleus node.
There is an obvious parallelism betweenHare's (1949)dictor andKatz and
Postal's I morpheme, although the nature of I is not clear in Katz and
Postal's presentation, as we have already pointed out.
In his article JohnLyons (1966)makes amore definite proposal inwhich the
parallelism between thephilosophical viewswhich we have brieflymentioned
andmodalities in linguistic analysis is evident.He states that grammatical
categories (aspect, mood, tense, number, and definiteness) are not to be
regarded as constituents of sentences in the same sense as themajor lexical
categories (nouns and verbs). Not only should the two categories be dis
tinguished in deep structure,but the kinds of ruleswhich introduce them
into the grammar should be distinguished as well. Lyons makes explicit one
of the possible interpretationsof the system first proposed by Katz and
Postal: there are two sets of elements, (categorial and non-categorial or
'grammatical')in a sentence, and they are generated by two distinct sets of
rules. Phrase-structure rules generate the categorial component, that is, the
proposition, while a different type of rule, undefined as yet, generates the
'grammatical elements' or modalities. Lyons notices that the number of
candidates for his non-categorial or modality component can become quite
extensive. This statement corresponds with Fillmore's observation that
embedding may not be present in a grammar which proposes a modal
component.We will discuss this problem inmore detail lateron.
In Fillmore (1966 and 1968)we find a proposal which is similar to Lyons'.
Sentences have a basic structure composed of a 'proposition', a tenseless
relationship involving verbs and nouns, and of a 'modality' constituent,
separated from the first, and including negation, tense,mood, and aspect,
as well as some sentence
Sentence---
adverbials:
Modality + Proposition
214
MAR fA-LUISA RIVERO
The formal status and the ruleswhich relate themodality to the proposition
are not discussed in these articles.
The notion of modality has sometimes been expanded in logic to include
quantification.We have alreadymentioned thatVon Wright (1951) speaks
of existential modalities, that is, quantifiers. In linguistics this parallelism in
formalization is first suggestedby Bach (1968):
It is natural to think about adapting a system of operators (quantifiers) like those used in
logical systems and allowing these operators to function with the variables in the deep
structures of sentences .... Among the operators will be a generic operator, an all operator,
a some, a focus or definiteness operator, a question operator, and the like. (p. 106)
The important aspect, as far as our discussion is concerned, is that
quantifiersof various kinds and the element questionare considered on a par.
In footnote
9 of the same page Bach mentions
that Lakoff
and Ross,
in a
subsequentdiscussion,made the claim thatmany of the operators Bach lists
should be considered as the verbs or predicatives of underlying sentences.
But for Bach thewhole class of operators cannot be reduced to a subclass of
predicates.
The lengthiest discussion of the notion of modalities and operators as a
separate entity in transformationalgrammar is to be found inOperators and
Nucleus by Pieter A. M. Seuren (1969)who proposes, in a similar fashion to
Fillmore, that there is an operator-component, that is, an extended
modality node, and a nucleus component to be distinguished in sentencesof
natural language:
In themodel of the base proposed here twomain constituents are distinguished for every
deep structure representation of a sentence, viz. the operators and the nucleus. The latter
is presented as a predicative construction consisting of a main verb and nominal items in
the position of subject, direct, indirect, or prepositional object. The operators delimit the
truth value of the predication expressed in the nucleus; they include an existential and a
universal quantifier, tense, modalities, negation, and performatives. (jacket of the book)
Within the class of elements which should be considered as operators or
modal functors Seuren includes the following: assertion, question, im
perative, suggestion, which are considered as sentence qualifiers, that is,
elementswhich cannotmodify embedded clauses, tenses,modals, quantifiers,
and negation, among others.4
4Within a
very different theoretical framework, in a recent article Halliday (1970)
proposes thatmodalities (in the restricted sense of modal verbs and related lexical items)
are not part of the thesis (proposition) and are outside of the scope of negation, tenses,
and question elements.
Modality, ..., is the speaker's assessment of probability and predictability. It is external
to the content, being a part of the attitude taken up by the speaker: his attitude, in this
case, towards his own speech role as 'declarer'. (p. 349) [emphasismine M.R.]
This corresponds with the proposals we are discussing within generative grammar.
REMARKS ON OPERATORS AND MODALITIES
215
Seuren departs from two hypotheses: (a) the base is semantic, that is,
there is no intermediate level of deep structure and (b) transformationsdo
not affectmeaning. We accept these assumptions as the basis for our dis
cussion, and inwhat follows we have omitted all reference to works which
depart from the notion that transformationsmay change themeaning of a
given structure.By showing the superiorityof a theorywithout this specific
notion of modality, it becomes unnecessary to compare themerits of the
modality hypothesis with those of a proposal taking as basic a level of deep
structure and the meaning-changing power of transformations. In other
words, themerits of the generativist approach or the interpretiveapproach
can be discussedwith no reference to themodality proposal, given that this
last is weaker than the generative semantics proposal which departs from
equivalent hypotheses.
The notion of modality discussed in this paper is both syntactic and
semantic and differs from that advanced by Jackendoff (1971)who speaks
of a modality component in a semantic representationwhich is to be dis
tinguished from syntax.We will not discuss this lastproposal.
This paper discusses the notion of extendedmodality as developed in the
studies of Lyons (1966),Fillmore (1966, 1968), and Seuren (1969).Therefore,
we define a modality or (modal) operator as an elementwhich is generated
in a PM separated from verbs and nouns and other relational items, if any.
It is of a different character from those relational elementswhich are dom
inated by the nucleus or proposition node (nucleus and proposition being
taken as synonymous at this point without prejudice to any particular
theory). The question to which this study is addressed is the following: Is
the distinction between a (modal) operator component and propositions or
nuclei needed in the analysis of natural language?We can anticipate that
our
conclusions
will
be
that
the distinction
between
a modality
and
a
proposition is unwarranted in sytactic analysis, and that not only is thereno
evidence in the literatureto favor thisdivision but that a number of published
arguments can be interpretedas counterexamples to the claim thatmodalities
should be distinguished formally from other elements in a sentence. The
following sections of this article discuss some of the evidence against the
modality-proposition distinction, and by implication, against the differentia
tion operator-predicate in natural language.
Some of the elementswhich Lyons, Fillmore, and Seuren propose to treat
as operators
or modalities
can best
be analyzed
as clauses with
all the
properties of sentences in the nucleus or proposition component; other
modal elements have the same properties as predicatives or verbs. It follows
that no qualitative distinction
and the modality
component
can be made
between
the nucleus
on the one hand, and operators
component
and predicates
216
MARIA-LUISA
RIVERO
on the other, and thatmany aspects of scope need no additional apparatus
for their description but can be reflected through degrees of embedding. In
other words, the assumption that there is a modality component and a
propositional component implies that the representationof the syntactico
semantic structureof a sentence cannot be achieved by a treebut needs extra
relations of one kind or another (an 'annotated tree' to adoptMcCawley's
(1970) expression in a somewhat different context).We feel that there is
strong evidence against such extra relations to incorporate the properties of
the units which Seuren specifically considers as operators, but which under
less definite proposals have been separated from the propositional content
by other linguists.
2. PERFORMATIVES
We will first consider declarative sentences, that is, statements or assertions.
In his article Ross (1970), incorporated into linguistics the term of per
formative which was first proposed by Austin (1962). Every simple de
clarative sentence has for Ross an underlying structure inwhich the super
ficially independent sentence is embedded in a matrix whose main verb is a
'dicendi' verb with a first person subject and a second person object. In
other words, Ross presents evidence in favor of the assumption that a sen
tence of the type of (la) has the same underlying structureas a sentence of
the type of (lb) and that all the common properties of both (la) and (lb)
can be explained through the postulation of this higher verb, implicit for
(la), explicit for (Ib), plus its subject and its object:
(la)
(lb)
I bought a car.
I say to you that I bought a car.
To account for declarative sentences, Seuren (1969) proposes a modal
operator for assertion which is generated in themodality component. That
is, example (la) should be representedas (PM1) according toRoss' proposal,
and as (PM2) according to Seuren's proposal (we are concentrating on the
notion of 'statement' of 'assertion' and omitting all other aspects). The
differencebetween (la) and (Ib) is explained by Ross through thepostulation
of the rule of PerformativeDeletion in (la): thematrix sentence disappears
in a transformational process. Although Seuren does not give a definite
answer to the problem of the relationshipof (la) and (lb) he proposes, as a
possible solution, that sentences with overt performatives of the type of
(lb) be treated as transformationalvariants of sentences of the type of (la).
In other words, both (la) and (lb) are assigned the same underlying struc
ture, (PM2), and there is some sort of copying transformation which
rewrites themodality as an overt verb.
REMARKS ON OPERATORS AND MODALITIES
217
SO
NP
VP
V
I
NP
NP
A
ILI
S
say
to you
(PM1)
I bought a car
S
Mod
Nucleus
ASS
I bought a car
(PM2)
Ross gives three arguments to show that there is an abstract performative
of the type say in sentences like (la), but since Seuren recognizes as well the
presence
of an abstract
element
of assertion which
can also be rewritten
as
say, these types of arguments do not lead to the rejection of one proposal
over another.
make
It is the arguments in favor of the presence of I and you which
us choose between the two proposals and advance Ross' analysis as
more adequate than Seuren's. To show this we will simply reproduce one
of the arguments presented by George Lakoff (1970b) in his article, pointing
out at the same
time that similar
conclusions
follow
from
the arguments
dealingwith reflexivesadvanced originally by Ross.
There are constructions of type (2) (the example isLakoff's), which require
either a first or a second person pronoun when they appear unembedded:
(2)
Itwould be wise to wash {Yourself (*h
(myself j
f *themselves)
But when sentences like (2) are embedded, the construction must have a
pronoun which agrees in person, number, and genderwith either the subject
or the indirectobject of the next highest sentence.
(3)
John
told Sue that it would
be wise
to wash
herself
[himself j
(*yourself, *myself).
the performative
analysis, the constraint stated for (3) is identical to
the constraint needed for (2), but under the proposal which treats assertions
as formed by a modal functor plus a nucleus we would need two unrelated
Under
MAR A-LUISA RIVERO
218
principles, one for (2) and a second one for (3). But these two unrelated
principles, uneconomic as theymay be, do not save themodality-proposition
hypothesis. Consider an examplewith an overt performative:
(4)
I say to you that it would
be wise
to wash
yourself
(*himself, *themselves)
Is the constraint for this example the same as the one needed for (3), that
is, in termsof matrix sentence and embedded sentence, or is it the constraint
needed for (2)? If (4) is a transformational rewritingof the same structure
which underlies (2), then the constraint for (2) and (4) should be the same
constraint. But this conclusion implies that modalities must be assigned
syntactic structuresof the 'relationalkind', and that theymust be assigned
first and second persons. In other words, the operator component must
reduplicate the structureof the nucleus, but thenwe have lost all reason to
differentiate formally between nucleus and operators. If the constraint is
stated in a parallel fashion for (3) and (4), once the copying of themodal
operator has taken place, we would still need an independentconstraint to
account for (2).This argumentation could be expanded to cover other exam
ples dealingwith Iand you inRoss' paper (1970) and Lakoff's paper (1970b).
We must thereforeconclude that declarative sentencescannot be explained
in termsof amodal operator and a nucleus unless the notion of an operator
component ismodified in such a way as to become indistinguishablefrom
the nucleus itself.
Let us turnnow to thework on subjunctivesdone by Robin Lakoff(1968).
In Latin there are a number of independent subjunctives with diverse
meanings: imperative (ambiguous in itself), optative, jussive, concessive,
etc.... Lakoff accounts for the properties of these constructions with un
embedded subjunctivesby postulating verbswhich are present in the under
lying structurebut absent in the surface structure.These abstract verbs have
the same syntactic properties as overt verbs belonging to the samemeaning
class. Roughly speaking, this proposal is similar to that advanced by Ross
for English declaratives and would be formalized along the lines of (PM1).
To account for the various meanings of these independent subjunctives,
we would have to postulate, under themodality-proposition hypothesis, sev
eralmodal operators parallel to the assertion functor represented in (PM2).
To see which
proposal
is best able to account
for the facts of Latin,
let us
discuss some of thematerial presented by R. Lakoff (1968) and reinterpret
it for the purposes of thispaper.
To account for independent subjunctives with an optative reading,
R. Lakoff postulates an abstract verb VEL whose subjectmay be identical
AND
REMARKS
ONOPERATORS
MODALITIES 219
to the subject of the lower sentence, which is always a first person. This
correlateswith the fact that real verbs of wishing in Latin (i.e. volo, cupio,
opto) can have a subjectwhich is identical to that of the lower complement.
Independent subjunctivesmay also be interpretedas commands; R. Lakoff
accounts for this by postulating an abstract verb IMPER. The subjectof this
abstract verb can never be identical to that of the lower complement. This
correlateswith the fact that real verbs of command (i.e. impero)can never
have identical subjects to that of their complement sentences.Therefore an
example such as the following (taken from R. Lakoff's) can never be inter
preted
(5)
as a command,
only as a wish:
Homo hic ebrius est, ut opinor. Utinam ita essem!
(PI.Amph. 575) 'Thisman is drunk, I think. Iwish Iwere!'
Under the proposal which treats independent subjunctives interpretedas
commands as complements of an abstract verb of command, the constraint
for these independent sentences and for the subjunctivecomplements of true
verbs of command is the same and can be stated in simple terms. The
hypothesis which proposes that performatives of the command type be
formalized as operators and which treats command verbswhich are not used
performatively as the only trueverbs in the nucleus,would need two different
sets of principles. If the relationship between overt performatives of the
command type and commands with no matrix verb is to be preserved, the
operator would have to be assigned the same syntactic relationswhich are
found in the nucleus. In summary, the same arguments against the postula
tion of a functor of assertion argue against the postulation of a functor of
command or a functor of wishing.5
5
Questions are a problematic area of linguistic analysis at the present moment. The
assumption that there is an implicit or explicit sentence with a performative verb of the
type ask which dominates all questions, direct or indirect, can explain some universal
properties of questions (Bach, 1971). This could be considered as indirect evidence in
favor of an abstract performative verb dominating direct questions, and parallel, (with all
the theoretical differences discussed in this paper), to Seuren's QU operator, which cannot
modify an embedded sentence. But theremust be some other element or elements with no
performative reading which have both the property of binding a variable (Seuren, 1969;
Baker, 1970) and that of relative scope (Baker, 1970) ifwe are to account for wh-questions.
Seuren proposes two different operators: QU and 1(x) to describe embedded wh
questions. Qu is basically the equivalent of theQU operator, but it ranges over embedded
structures.We seriously question the need for a distinction between Qu and QU on two
independent grounds.
First, ifwe admit that there is an element in question (an operator or an abstract verb)
which is used performatively because it need not dominate immediately the sentence it
questions, especially when that S is superficially embedded, (this possibility is pointed out
by Bach, 1970) there is no need to differentiate between QU and Qu as non-embedded/
embedded. If QU is considered as the abstract counterpart of verbs of the type of ask
MAR IA-LUISA RIVERO
220
In this section we have presented evidence in favor of the following con
clusion: the assumption that 'propositionalattitudes' (Russell, 1962)6 should
be formalized as higher sentences with similar properties to other overt
sentences is able to explain phenomenawhich thehypothesiswhich separates
them from the relational elements cannot explain.
We thereforeconclude thata performativeanalysis is superior to amodality
proposition analysis.
3. MODALS
It has been noticed repeatedly that English modals should not, at a deeper
level, be considered as constituents of the sentence theymodify in surface
structure. In his paper Ross (1969) argues in favor of an analysis inwhich
modals
(and auxiliaries
in general)
are treated as main
verbs of a matrix
in
which the sentence theymodify is embedded.A similarproposal is found in
Huddleston (1969). To these two papers we may add the proposal in a
recent study by Peter A. Schreiber that modal adverbials of the type of
possibly and probably should be derived from higher predicates which im
mediately dominate the sentence to which the adverb is prefixed in surface
structure (Schreiber, 1971).
Roughly speaking, under this 'main-verb'proposal, sentences of the type
and wonder, there is no need to differentiate between QU and Qu in the same way as de
claratives with overt performatives are considered parallel to assertions both by the per
formative proposals and themodality proposal.
Second, that two operators, Qu and ?(x) lead to the wrong solution in embedded wh
questions can be seen if we consider the following examples in light of the modality
proposal. As noticed by Baker (1970) whose examples we are using, a sentence is ungram
matical if it has a wh-word and an if or whether at the same time:
(i)
*We're not sure whether who Bill saw.
This is captured by Baker by postulating a unique questioning element with no perform
ative reading, Q, (an equivalent of Seuren's Qu and ?(x)) which is rewritten as if or whether
unless it is replaced by the wh-questioned word when moved to the front of the sentence.
But under Seuren's proposal whether and if are transformational variants of Qu and the
wh-element is a transformational variant of the operator 1(x). The prediction following
this proposal, that they could both coexist within the same embedded sentence, is false.
After this discussion on questions, it is obvious that the problem of the nature of Baker's
Q morpheme or Seuren's (x) operator remains.What is that element in questions which
does not have a performative reading and has scope? Can an element such as Baker's Q,
range over the whole proposition, such as in an if-question (that is, have a sense de dicto)
or apply simply to the terms (that is, sense de re)?
6We don't attach importance to the distinction propositional attitude/modality at this
point. In philosophy, a propositional attitude is a higher sentence with a personal subject,
while a modality is one which takes a sentential subject. This distinction is partially lost
when the notion of underlying structure is distinguished from that of surface structure
(e.g. verbs which undergo Psych-movement or Flip are underlying propositional attitudes,
but surface extended modalities).
REMARKS ON OPERATORS AND MODALITIES
221
(6a)-(6b) should all be derived from an underlying structure of the type
(PM3). Tenses are ignored in (PM3) and (PM4).
It is possible that John loves fish.
Possibly, John loves fish.
Johnmay love fish.
(6a)
(6b)
(6c)
A very different approach but with the parallel effect of removing the
auxiliary from the deep structureof the sentence itmodifies is presented by
Seuren (1969):modals should be considered as operators which cannot be
used performatively andwhich should be generated in amodality component
which is separate from the nucleus.Modal adverbials are transformational
variations of modal auxiliaries and originate as operators as well. Sentences
(6a)-(c) would be representedas (PM4) under this proposal.
S
NP
V
S
possible
(PM3)
John loves fish
S
Nucleus
Modality
POSS
John loves fish
(PM4)
As was the case in theprevious section,we find two very different solutions
for the same set of phenomena: Ross', Huddleston's, and Schreiber's
proposal implies that phenomena connected with modals and modal ad
verbials can be captured by the relationships established in a tree while
Seuren's
proposal
modifies
the tree and adds
to it extra relations
of a new
kind.
As pointed out by Ross (1969), there are sentenceswhich provide evidence
in surface
that the string which follows a modal
in favor of the assumption
be a constituent which is dominated by S. So is an element
structure must
which
pronominalizes
follows an auxiliary:
sentences,
and
it can also
replace
the string which
222
RIVERO
MARfA-LUISA
I hope thatwe will win inVietnam, but no saneman hopes so.
They said thatTom may be here and so he may.
(7a)
(7b)
The parallelism between (7a) and (7b) leadsRoss to the conclusion that
what follows anAuxiliary isa Sentence.But notice that this typeof argument
points towards a common solution of the two proposals we are discussing:
themodal must be removed from themost immediateS-nodewhich dominates
it in surface structure,but it does not argue in favor of one proposal over
another.However, thereare argumentswhich lead to themain-verb proposal
over the operator-proposal.
We will consider first an argument presented by Ross. By assuming that
basic order inGerman is SVO7, and that there is a rulewhich obligatorily
moves verbs independent clauses to the end of theirVP, Ross isable to explain
the order of themodals in (8)with relation to the other found in (9), (10),
and (11).
Gwendolyn muss von Kasimir gesehenworden sein
'Gwendolynmust have been seen by Casimir'.
Kasimir siehtGwendolyn 'CasimirseesGwendolyn'.
weil Kasimir Gwendolyn sieht 'becauseCasimir seesGwendolyn'.
Gwendolyn wurde von Kasimir gesehen 'Gwendolynwas seen by
Casimir'.
weil Gwendolyn vonKasimir gesehenwurde 'becauseGwendolyn
was seen by Casimir'.
Gwendolyn ist von Kasimir gesehen worden 'Gwendolyn has
been seen by Casimir'.
weil Gwendolyn von Kasimir gesehen worden ist 'because
Gwendolyn has been seen by Casimir'.
(8)
(9a)
(9b)
(lOa)
(lOb)
(1la)
(lb)
If there is a rule which
that this transformation
moves
verbs
treats not only
to the end of their VP, we can see
sehen in (9b) as a true verb, but
werden in (lOb) and sein in (1 b) as true verbs as well. The underlying order
of themodals in (8)must be the one represented in (PM5). First, gesehen
moves to the end of itsVP (vonKasimir gesehen), thenwordenmoves to the
end of VP3
(von Kasimir
gesehen worden)
finally,
sein moves
to the end of
VP2 (vonKasimir gesehen worden sein).Muss is not moved because it does
not appear in a dependent clause. The importantaspect of this argument is
to explain
has to be made
that in order
difference
no
in German
the syntactic behavior of modals
between a true verb such as sehen and an auxiliary.
7 Bach had originally proposed that basic order in German was SOV, but he himself
finds counterexamples to his proposal and agrees with Ross' hypothesis. See Bach (1971).
REMARKS ON OPERATORS AND MODALITIES
223
S
NP
VP1
Gwendolyn
VI
S
muss
(PM5)
VP2
V2
S
sein
VP3
V3
S
worden
VP4
V4
NP
gesehen
von Kasimir
This argument indicates that the analysis which treatsmodals as main
verbs is to be preferred over an analysis which treats them as operators
originating in an independentmodality component.
For a second argument in favor of the 'verb-proposal'and against the
'operator-proposal'for modals we will consider some of thematerial dis
cussed by R. Lakoff (1968) in connection with abstract verbswhich are not
used performatively.
Embedded Latin sentenceswith ut and a subjunctivemay be negated by
a non or by a ne, although no semantic distinction has been found for this
selection. R. Lakoff proposes that the distinction is merely syntactic: ne
occurs when ut introduces an object complement, nonwhen ut introduces a
subject complement. There is a real verb fieri potest 'It is possible', which
takes a subject complementwhose negation can only be a non:
(12)
Nec fieripossit, ut non statim alienatio facienda sit (Cic,Lael. 21,
76) 'Nor would it be possible that a separation should not be
made immediately'
[emphasismine, M.R.]
There are independent subjunctiveswith this same potential meaning and
with a non as negation (in the following example the potential meaning of
the subjunctive is translatedby the English modal could):
224
(13)
MARfA-LUISA
RIVERO
Ego ipse cum Platone non invitus erraverim (Cic. Tusc. 1, 40)
'Imyself could err not unwillinglywith Plato'.
R. Lakoff accounts for the meaning of these sentences with independent
subjunctives,and for the presence of the non by postulating an abstract verb
POSS which takes subject complements.
Under themodality proposal it is likely that sentences of type (13)would
be analyzed as being composed of a nucleus plus a modal operator of
potentiality, and it is also logical to conclude that (12) would be a trans
formational variation of a sentence composed of a nucleus plus a modality
component with an operator of potentiality. The presence of a non in (12)
could be explained in the following way: the operator of potentiality is
transformationally rewritten as a higher clause whose subject is the under
lying nucleus and then, and only then, is the negation rewrittenas non. But
this explanation can never apply to sentences of the type of (13). Since the
operator is never rewrittenunder any overt form,we would have to state in
an arbitrary fashion that any sentence with the operator POSS must be
negated by non, ignoring the parallelism between this phenomenon and the
behavior of subject complements in general; or, as a second possibility, we
would have to assign to the operator underlying structureswhich allow them
to take nuclei as subjects.That is,we would be assigning to operators proper
ties belonging to the elementswhich are constituents of the nucleus.
We will consider now some of the data discussed by Schreiber (1971)
dealing with modal adverbials. As noticed by Schreiber, a modal adverb
cannot appear in the complement of a verb of ordering:
(14)
*I command you probably to leave.
If probably (togetherwith suchmodal adverbs as allegedly, apparently, cer
tainly, clearly, conceivably, evidently, obviously, possibly, presumably, un
doubtedly,unquestionably,etc.) is analyzed as a predicatewhich takes a sen
tential complement, the constraint which is violated in (14) is quite simple.
The complement of a matrix sentencemust have a subjectwhich is identical
to the object NP
but since the subject of a modal
of the matrix,
adverb
is
always a sentence, the resulting string is ungrammaticalwith no exception.
To capture thisphenomenon under themodality proposal, we would have to
assign the relationship of subject and predicate to elementswhich must be
generated
as operators
(I command you, a transformational
variant
of the
operator IMP, andpossibly, a transformationalvariant of theoperatorPOSS)
or give a list of all operators which
cannot
coccur
in the modality
component
with IMP, losing, therefore,all parallelism between thedeviance of sentences
of the type of (14) and examples
such as *Icommandyoufor
him to leave. Noti
REMARKS ON OPERATORS AND MODALITIES
225
ce that these sentences violate the same constraint when imperatives are
treated as performative sentences and modal adverbials as verbs of higher
sentences, but different constraints under themodality proposal.
An independentargument to treatmodal and auxiliaries as true verbs can
be found inHuddleston (1969).He shows that separate tense selections are
associated with modal and aspectual auxiliaries. Consider the following
example:
(15)
John could speak ten languages.
Huddleston associates a past tensewith themodal could and a nonpast with
the lexicalverb speak. It is thisproperty of auxiliaries to bemodified by tense
which makes them resemble true verbs and which allows us to account for
the two time-adverbials found in sentences of the following type:
(16)
Now we will have no money at the end of themonth.
The importantpoint here, is that it is shown again that true verbs of the type
of speak and have in (15) and (16) are parallel in theirbehavior to traditional
auxiliaries such as can and will. This correlation betweenmodals and verbs
which do not take sentential complements, is very interesting to the present
discussion. It could be argued, in some far-fetchedway, given our arguments
againstmodalities up to the presentmoment, that the parallelisms between
elements which have been considered as operators and verbs which take
sentential
complements
are due to the fact that such verbs should
really be
considered as operators and removed from the nucleus. That is to say, there
is no embedding in the nucleus, embedding is a surface representation of
operator-nucleus relationships. But as our present discussion on modals
indicates, ifwe follow this conclusion to its logical limitwe would have to
remove from thenucleus verbswhich do not take sententialcomplements and
assign them to the operator component.Notice that this is basically our con
clusion throughout the paper, namely, that there are not two components
but only one, where all the relationships dealing with scope and related
problems are treated through degrees of embedding.
We
types of phenomena which can be treated
that modals and modal adverbs are
the
way by
hypothesis
have discussed
in a satisfactory
four different
predicates of higher sentences, but for which themodality approach must
impose ad hoc classifications or reduplicate the relationships found in the
are: the surface order of modal verbs in subordi
nucleus. These phenomena
nate and main clauses inGerman, the form of the negation in the complement
of modal predicates (both abstract and overt) in Latin, the constraints be
tween commands andmodal adverbials inEnglish, and tense selectionswhich
MARIA-LUISA
226
RIVERO
are associatedwith the auxiliaries.Our conclusion, based on these different
arguments, is thatmodals are better analyzed asmain verbs than as operators
of an independentcomponent.
4. QUANTIFIERS
In theAristotelian traditionquantifiers in logic are not conceived as separate
from the quantified function and its copula. It is only sinceFrege that the
quantifier is considered as separate and is so symbolized.
In a parallel fashion, quantifiers in natural language have until recently
been considered as constituents of the same underlying clause as the quanti
fied NP
and the main
verb to which
they come
to be connected
in surface
structure.The proposal that quantifiers originate outside of the clause in
which they appear as constituents dates back to G. Lakoff's thesis (1965).
Lakoff proposed thatquantifiersbe treatedas predicatesof higher sentences.8
The proposal that quantifiersnot be introducedas constituents of thenoun
phrase they quantify is based on the following observation: a theory based
on the assumption that transformationsdo not affectmeaning must separate
the quantifier from its noun phrase in order to explain the behavior of quan
tifierswith respect to transformations. This very same observation leads
Pieter Seuren (Seuren, 1969) to a somewhat different proposal from that of
Lakoff. Under his modality-proposition hypothesis, quantifiers should be
treated as operators,
that is they should be separated
from the NP
they quan
tify, and from the nucleus component. Quantifiers aremodalities in an ex
tended sense.That quantifiers should be considered as parallel to othermodal
operators has been proposed by VonWright (1951),aswe have alreadypoint
ed out. This proposal for logical analysis can only be interpretedby linguists
as a statement
about
the formal parallelism
of modalities
and quantifiers.
It
cannot possibly indicate preference for one analysis over another unless
linguisticarguments are presented. Therefore, we have two proposals which
are equivalent
in that they separate
the quantifier
from the function
it quan
tifies.Much of the evidencewhich has been presented in supportof quantifiers
as higher predicates indicates that the quantifiermust be separated from its
NP, that it is not dominated
tion of the more traditional
by an NP. That is to say, it constitutes a refuta
analysis which treats quantifiers as some type of
predeterminers.This is clearly seen inCarden (1968).
But the kind of evidence which merely
indicates
that the quantifier
is not a
constituent of an NP cannot help us to decide which of the two proposals,
8We will limit the present discussion to Pre-Determiner quantifiers and omit Post
Determiner quantifiers as in themany boys. For ample discussions of these quantifiers see
Lakoff (1970a), Partee (1970), and Carden (1970b).
REMARKS ON OPERATORS AND MODALITIES
227
the one which considers quantifiers as higher verbs, or the one which con
siders them as separatemodalities or operators, is the one to be preferred.9
As an argumentwhich leads us to the selection of the proposal of quanti
fiers as higher verbs over the assumptionwhich treats them as operators of
a separate component from the nucleus, Iwill briefly present a discussion of
the effect of quantifiers on the rule of Neg-transportation. I first presented
this conclusion in Rivero (1970) although themodality alternativewas not
considered there.
In Spanish there is a rule of Neg-transportation which moves a negation
semantically connected with an embedded sentence to thematrix sentence.
A verb allowing Neg-transportation to apply when it appears in thematrix
is querer 'towant'. An example such as (17a)may share its underlying struc
ture (PM6)with example (17b), ormay have originated in a structurewhose
negationwas over thematrix sentence.That is, (17a) isan ambiguous sentence.
(17a)
(17b)
No quiero queMaria cante 'Idon't want Mary to sing'.
Quiero queMaria no cante 'Iwant Mary not to sing'.
S
NP
Yo
VP
V
NP
S
quiero
\
(PM6)
NEG
Marfa
cante
There are elementswhich, inorder to be grammatical,must appear innegative
clauses in underlying structuresuch aspalabra de... '(not) a word of...', and
which are not acceptable in a surface clause which is negative if that clause
was not negative in underlying structure as well.10
As a consequence of this, example (18a) is no longerambiguous; its only
possible interpretation is that of (18b).The grammaticality of palabra de...
in (18a) indicates that the negation could only come from the embedded
structure and that it should never be attributed to thematrix:
(18a)
No quiero queMaria hable palabra de ingles
'I don't want Mary to speak a word of English'.
9We will accept as a general conclusion that there are aspects of quantifiers which require
their analysis as separate from theNP, and other aspects which must be explained through
the use of late constraints in the derivation. For a bibliography on this last aspect, which
we will ignore here, see Carden (1970a, p. 287, ft. 13).
10Motivation for this statement can be found inRivero
(1971).
MARIA-LUISA
228
(18b)
RIVERO
Quiero queMaria no hable palabra de ingl6s
'Iwant Mary not to speak a word of English'.
Consider now the following set of examples.The (b) sentenceshave a quanti
fier in the embedded string:
(19a)
(19b)
(20a)
(20b)
Quiero que los ninios no hablen palabra de ingles
'Iwant the children not to speak a word of English'.
Quiero que muchos ninos no hablen palabra de ingl6s
'Iwant many children not to speak a word of English'.
No quiero que los ninos hablen palabra de ingles
'I don't want the children to speak a word of English'.
*No quiero quemuchos ninos hablen palabra de ingles.
When we compare (20a)with (20b)we must conclude that it is the presence
of the quantifierwhich is responsible for the deviance of (20b).Under the
hypothesis which treats quantifiers as predicates of higher sentences, (20b)
can be explained
if we assume
are verbs which,
that quantifiers
as most
S
NP
VP
Yo
V
NP
quiero
S
NEG los ninos hablen palabra de inglfs
(PM7)
S
NP
VP
Yo
V
NP
quiero
S
NP
ninos
(PM8)
VP
S
muchos
NEG niios hablen palabra de singles
of the
REMARKS ON OPERATORS AND MODALITIES
229
other verbs in Spanish, are not favorable environments for Neg-transporta
tion. Compare the underlying structure of (19a) and (20a), that is (PM7),
with that of (19b), that is (PM8).
In (PM7)Neg-transportation can apply because the verb of the sentence
which dominates theNEG element is a favorable environment for the rule,
but in (PM8) between querer 'towant' and the elementNEG there is an
interveningclause whose predicate ismuchos and the structuraldescription
of Neg-transportation is not met. That a quantifier such asmuchos does not
allowNeg-transportation to apply can be seen in sentences of the following
type:
(21a)
(21b)
Muchos nifos no hablan palabra de frances
'Many children do not speak a word of French'.
*No muchos niios hablan palabra de frances
The ungrammaticalityof (21b) can be explained in two differentways: first,
the negation in (21b) applies to the clause inwhich the quantifier is a predi
cate, inwhich case theconstraint thatpalabra de be a constituent of a negative
clause in underlying structure is violated because the negation is not in the
lower clause. Second, Neg-transporation has applied to transport the nega
tion in the lower clause to the quantifier clause. Given thatmuchos is not
marked for Neg-transportation, it has produced an ungrammatical string.
Both solutions require that the quantifier be treated as a higher predicate.
If quantifiers are treated as operatorswhich belong to amodality compo
nent, there isno reasonwhy (20b) should not be grammatical. If thequantifier
is not a constituent of the nucleus there is no reasonwhy it should block the
movement of the negation in the samemanner asmost verbs. The important
aspect of the analysis of quantifiers as higher verbs is that it predicts that
quantifierswill behave asmost verbal formswith respect toNeg-transporta
tion. This transformationapplies only to a small list of verbs in the language
and our expectation is that if quantifiersareverbsNeg-transportation should
not apply to themajority of them.Our assumption treats the deviance of
(20b) in the sameway as the deviance of (22a), a string inwhich Neg-trans
portation
has applied
all the way
to the matrix
although
there is an inter
mediate predicate, contar,which blocks the rule:
(22a)
*No quiero que cuentes que los niinos hablan palabra de frances
(22b)
Quiero que cuentes que los niiios no hablan palabra de frances
'1don't want you to tell that the children speak aword of French'
'Iwant you to tell that the children don't
speak a word of French'
1 The
English gloss has a grammatical reading with a word being interpreted as just one
word, but thatmeaning is impossible in Spanish. That is, (21a) is always deviant in Spanish.
230
MARfA-LUISA
RIVERO
This parallelism cannot be capturedby the theorywhich treatsquantifiers
as operators.We therefore conclude that those aspects of the behavior of
quantifierswhich require thepostulation of structures inwhich the quantifier
must be distinguished and separated in underlying structure from theNP it
quantifies, are better explained by the proposal which treats quantifiers as
higher verbs. There is no need for the creation of a separatecomponent of a
different nature than the nucleus, for the analysis and description of quanti
fiers in natural language.
5. CONDITIONALS
In (Lewis, 1946)we find the proposal that an operator 'Hp' be used for the
postulation of a proposition, which in the context of thiswork implies that
there is some sort of element in conditionalswhich should be separated from
the proposition itself.
Von Wright (1957) proposes that the conditional be considered as a mode
of asserting:
Conditionals have usually been studied as a kind of proposition, demanding analysis.
Here I propose to deal with the conditional as a mode of asserting (p. 127).
I shall distinguish two modes of asserting: the categorial and the conditional.When we
assert the proposition q conditionally, we consider it conditional on or 'relative to' some
other proposition p (p. 130).
Since
to assert
is to perform
an act, conditionals
are therefore
connected
with actions, that is,with performatives.
These philosophical approaches to the problem of conditionals could be
interpretedsyntactically in two differentways, depending on the value assign
ed to elements
of the type of 'Hp' in Lewis
or to the notion
of assertion
in
Von Wright.
First, we would like to point out that there is a reason, at a more abstract
level of representation, not to consider the conditional particle as a constituent
a conditional
of the clause it precedes in surface structure. When
clause is
pronominalized, the semantic content of the particle if is never included in
the referenceof the pronominalization. Consider the following example:
(23)
We
If Peter had failed the test, I would have understood it.
are only concerned with
the reading
in which what
I understand
is Peter's
failing the test, not something else totally unrelated to the elements which
are present
first clause
it in the consequent
in the chain. The pronoun
refers back to the
in the chain, but with no conditional meaning
attached. If we
that the if particle is external to the clause which follows it, that is,
that there is a more abstract level of representation
from which if is excluded
assume
as a constituent
of the antecent
clause of the conditional
construction,
we can
REMARKS ON OPERATORS AND MODALITIES
231
explain the reading assigned to the it in (23):what is pronominalized is the
sentencePeter failing the test. It seems to be true in general that a pronoun
whose antecedent is a clause preceded by a conditional particle never includes
conditionality in its reference. This leads us to the syntactic conclusion,
parallel to the suggestionmade by Lewis andWright, that in a conditional
structure there are propositions and something else which corresponds in
natural languagewith the particle if.
Once the conditional particle has been separated from the clause it pre
cedes, two possibilities seem to be open:
(a) The conditional particle is the surface realizationof an elementwhose
relational properties are similar to those of verbs, nouns etc., and it can be
incorporated into a PM whose constituents are all relational.
(b) The conditional particle is the surface realizationof an operatorwhich
is outside of the component which dominates all relational elements (that is,
the node which is named nucleus or proposition).
Notice that these two possibilities can reflect the observation that the con
ditional particle is outside the clause it precedes in surface structureequally
as well, and that both capture the observationmade by Von Wright to the
effect that the conditional should be considered as a mode of asserting. If
asserting is formalized through the use of an operator then the conditional
particle is the reflection of an operator, if, on the other hand, assertion is
formalized through an abstract performative verb, then the conditional
particle is related to an underlying performative verb.
In my paper (Rivero, 1972) I studied the properties of the conditional
particle, and I argued in favor of the hypothesis that it should be treated as
a predicatebelonging to theclass of world-creating verbs of the typeof imagine
and suppose.If is a predicate of a higher sentencewhich immediatelydomi
nates the clause it precedes in surface structure.There are arguments of
various natures supporting this assumption. For instance, clefting of con
NP
ditional clauses parallels clefting of V- | structures, the if particle being
S
treatedas aV plus complementizer sequencewhile the sentencewhich follows
NP
the if is treated as an
as the following examples indicate:
I complement,
S
(24a)
(24b)
(25a)
If John fails his test...
If it is that John fails his test...
Suppose that John fails his test...
(25b)
Suppose
that it is that John fails his test...
MARIA-LUISA
232
RIVERO
Notice that this type of clefting cannot be applied to temporal particles of
the type of when or to causal particles such as because.The parallelism be
tween the examples in (24) and those of (25) can be easily captured of the
conditional particle is assigned an underlying structurewhere it dominates
the clausewhich follows it in surface structure, as in (PM9).
S
NP
V
(PM9)1
(PM9)
/
\
John fails his test
Bruce Fraser (1969) has pointed out that when even precedes if, it neu
tralizes the hypothetical force of a conditional. Even if you came is to be
interpretedas as well if you came as if you didn't. But this neutralization is
found under more general conditions as well. When even precedes a world
creating verb it neutralizes the force of this verb to refer only to one world.
That is, the combination even/world-creatingverbhas the reading under all
imaginableconditionsor in all possible worlds. Even supposing thatyou came
is to be interpretedas Supposing thatyou came and supposingthatyou did not
of if by even produces the same seman
come. In other words, the modification
tic effect as the modification
of world-creating
verbs by even. If, in view of
our previous argumentwhich assigned a structureof the type of (PM9) to
the conditional particle,we assume that if is a verb, this argument indicates
that it is a verb of the same semantic category as supposeand imagine.
As a third argument which was originally presented in (Rivero, 1972) we will
turn to some material
in Classical Greek. There are two types of negation in
Classical Greek: ,rj and oiic). Within the conditional structure the if-clause
is always
(26)
negated with
a
tu while
the consequent
is negated with
an OVKo:
Tatra OUKdiv 6uvavTo iotstv, ei Ail 8taitrl ETxpitq
eXp&vto
'They would
not be able to do this if they did not lead an abste
mious life'X.C., 1, 2, 16
It is interesting to notice that expressions denoting possibility, verbs of
wishing, hoping, promising and expecting, that is, world-creating verbs
as the negation of theircomplement sentence.Notice that under
requirea #U?)
the analysis we have proposed so far for the conditional particle if, this is but
one phenomenon.
The conditional particle is an underlying element of the
AND MODALITIES
REMARKSON OPERATORS
233
semanticclass 'world-creatingverbs',which immediatelydominates the clause
which it comes to precede in surface structure, that is, its underlying comple
ment. If world-creating verbs require that their complements be negated by
a #i/, an antecedent sentence in a conditional construction should be negated
by a #j/ as well.12
In connection with the section of performatives we take the parallelism
between the conditional particle and certain verbs to indicate that this
particle should be classified among verbs and that these verbs are not opera
tors in the sense discussed in this paper. In conclusion, the special category
of operators is not needed for performatives,modals (includingmodal ad
verbials) and quantifiers, and it is not needed for conditionals either.
6. TENSE
Tense is a categorywhich has been considered as not belonging to thepropo
sition proper by a number of philosophers. Although it is implicit in some
12That the
consequent of a conditional construction is not directly dependent, or a
complement of the conditional particle-verb is seen by the fact that it is negated by ooK
rather than by /. Another argument which points towards the same conclusion comes
from Spanish. When a conditional structure is embedded in a sentence wth a verb which
requires a subjunctive complement, such as dudar 'to doubt', the apodosis can only be in
the subjunctive, as it can be observed in (i):
(ia)
(ib)
*Dudo que los otros, si lo supieran (Subj.), actuarian (Ind.) de manera tan
honrada.
Dudo que los otros, si lo supieran (Subj.), actuaran (Subj.) de manera tan
honrada. 'I doubt that the others, if they knew it (Subj.), would act (Subj.)
in such an honest way.'
The mood of the if-clause is not affected by the nature of the highest verb in the tree in
(ib), while the consequent clause must exhibit themood which is required by the same
higher verb. In other words, the if-clause is independent of the verb dudar while the con
sequent behaves as a complement of the same verb. If the antecedent and the consequent of
a conditional structure are analyzed as two coordinated sentences with the configuration
diagrammed in (PMi) these facts about classical Greek and Spanish can be accounted for.
(PMi) implies that the conditional particle is not to be considered as a two-place predicate,
but rather as a one-place predicate within a coordinate structure.
SO
S2
51
V
NP
I
S3
(PMi)
S
if
MARfA-LUISA
234
RIVERO
Scholastic writings that tensemay be a modality, itwas not specificallydis
cussed among traditionalmodalities. Tense distinctions were not seriously
studied after the Renaissance (i.e. Port-Royal Logic). As I have already
pointed out, in theXIX century any time indicationwas assigned to the
terms,with the exception of J. S.Mill who felt that it should be assigned to
thewhole proposition (Prior, 1957,p. 105ff.). I find that this implies that tense
was considered essentially aswhat a Scholasticwould have called amodality
de re.
Among more recent studies, J.N. Findlay has proposed that tenses should
be includedamong modal logics (1941, p. 52, ft. 1).
Prior proposes that tense be treated as a dyadic operator whose first
argument is a name (time) and whose second argument is a statement.That
is, tense should be considered as a two-placepredicate of the form: 'It is the
case on...
that...'.
These brief statements simply show that philosophers have felt the need
to separate the tense from the proposition itself, in the sameway that tradi
tionalmodalities and quantifiers have been separated.
In transformational grammar, tense has been discussed in a number of
studies such asKiparsky (1968),Huddleston (1969),McCawley (1969), and
R. Lakoff(1970).
We
only need
to read the last article and consider
the vagueness
of the
different proposals to reach the conclusion that no satisfactory account of
tenses exists today in transformationalgrammar.Nevertheless we feel that
there is some evidence, tentative as the solutions are, indicating that tense
should not be considered
as an operator
belonging
to a separate component
from thatwhere true verbs in the language are generated.
Huddleston's proposal that English auxiliaries are main verbs and have
their own tense has already been discussed in connection with modals.
Kiparsky analyzes tensesas adverbs andMcCawley treats themas originating
as higher predicates. Both these proposals have in common their treatment
of tense as a constituent
(or constituents)
which
appears
as a member
of a
'regular'or 'standard'P-Markerwhich is relational in nature (Kiparsky did
not write his paper under themodality optic, but as we will show later on,
his arguments imply the conclusionwe are stating here). Furthermore, ifwe
notice that some adverbs originate as higher predicates as well, Kiparsky's
proposal andMcCawley's hypothesis are equivalent in that aspect which is
relevant to this paper: tense as a category which, though separated in some
way from the clause including it in surface structure, is a predicate no different
from other overt verbs.
Although
no detailed
studies on tenses have appeared
under the modality
proposition hypothesis, Lyons (1966), Fillmore (1968), and Seuren (1969)
REMARKS ON OPERATORS AND MODALITIES
235
have all indicated that tense should be considered as an operator belonging
to themodality component and not as an element to be found in the propo
sition or nucleus.
We will now consider some of the evidence presented in the articles we
mentioned above which indicates that if tenseswere differentiated from true
verbs or from elements in the nucleus constituent, some phenomena which
are easily explained under the proposal which treats tenses as predicates
would require ad hoc and independent explanations.
First, by assuming that tense is a constituent and that it undergoes a pro
cess of deletion which is similar in someways to thatwhich trueverbs undergo
Kiparsky is able to explain the conjunction of truepasts with present (with
pastmeaning) which isoften found in such languagesasOld IrishandGreek.13
The sequence Past-Past is reduced to Past-Zero, which ismorphologically
realized as Past-Present, given that the Present is the unmarked form.
The process of deletion which explains the sequencePast-Presentwith the
reading Past-Past is then no different from the process of deletion which
accounts for the readingof stringsof the form I sing and he does it too.Tense
is subject to an optional rulewhich deletes recurrent instances of identical
constituents, and the rule is the same one which affects trueverbs.Under the
modality-proposition hypothesis we would need two unrelated principles to
account for the fact that verbs can be deleted under identity conditions and
that tenses can be deleted under similarconditions aswell. Verbs such as sing
would appear in the nucleus; tenses would be assigned to the modality
component which functions under different principles from those applying
to elements in the nucelus.
Second, inhis paper on tense,McCawley (1969) shows that the antecedent/
pro-form relationship exists between a time adverbial considered as an
antecedent and the tense ending as the anaphoric device which pronomina
lizes it.That is, a pronounmust be commanded or preceded by its antecedent,
and a past tensemust be commanded or preceded by the time adverbial (the
examples areMcCawley's):
(27a)
(27b)
(27c)
(27d)
Although Max was tired last night, he couldn't sleep.
Although Max was tired, he couldn't sleep last night.
Max couldn't sleep last night, although he was tired.
*Max couldn't sleep, although he was tired last night.
In (27d) the time adverbial lastnight does not precede nor command couldn't
sleep. If time adverbs and tense markers
are regarded as members
of the same
13 Since Kiparsky's article is rich in examples and sources of additional examples I will
simply present themain lines of the argument.
MARfA-LUISA
236
RIVERO
category, and the tense ending as a pronominalization of a time adverbiall4
this can be easily reflected.But what is important to our discussion is that the
antecedent-noun/pronoun relationship and the antecedent-verb/pro-verb
relationship is reduplicated by the antecedent-adverb/tense-as-a-pro-form
relationship.This implies that ifwe assign nouns and verbs to thenucleus and
tenses and adverbs to themodality component, we would be ignoring this
parallelism.Under an analysiswhich treats tensesas elementswhich originate
as verbal forms, the fact that they enter into pronominalization relationships
parallel to those of true verbs is totally predictable.
Thirdly, I will consider some of the semantic effects of the Future tense.
My examples are inSpanishwhose Future is inflectionalandmorphologically
on a par with
the Past
tenses, and unrelated
to the Spanish modals.
In my
paper on conditionals (Rivero, 1972) I have pointed out thatwhen a factive
verb is embedded in a world-creating verb, it loses its factivity.15
Consider the following examples:
(28a)
Me doy cuenta de que lluevemucho aqui, *si es que llueve.
'I realize
(28b)
that it rains a lot here, *if it is that it rains'.
Imagina que me doy cuenta de que Iluevemucho aqui, si es que
llueve.
'Imagine that I realize that it rains a lot here, if it is that it rains'.
Dare
cuenta 'to realize' is one of those factive verbs whose
ized when
embedded
in a world-creating
verb, or when
factivity is neutral
in the if-clause of a
conditional construction.'6
(28a) is an anomalous
sentence
because
the clause
that it rains a lot here is
presupposed to be true in the firstpart of the string (given that it is embedded
in a matrix with a factive verb), and not presupposed
to be true in the second
part because of the presence of the conditional. That the presupposition has
been neutralized by the presence of a world-creating verb, imaginar,in (28b)
can be seen by the logical coherence of this last example.
The inflectionalendingwhich inSpanish is called theFuture (wewill ignore
14As far as I can
see,McCawley's proposal blends two philosophical traditions, the one
represented by A. N. Prior who considers that the theory of tenses belongs among modal
logics, that is that tense is some sort of operator or predicate, and that of Strawson (1952)
who places the study of tenseswithin the theory of reference along with the study of words
like 'he' and 'I'. That there are aspects of the study of tenses which parallel the study of
reference and pronominalization has also been proposed in linguistics by Allen (1966).
15This statement is too general. As Lauri Karttunen has pointed out, there are some
factives which retain their factivity under all conditions (Karttunen, 1970). But my argu
ment remains valid for a more reduced class of factives, which is enough for the purposes
of this paper.
16Notice that under the analysis presented in Section 5 for conditionals this is one and the
same phenomenon.
REMARKS ON OPERATORS AND MODALITIES
237
here whether it is the surface representation of one or several underlying
structures)has the property of neutralizing factivity in the samemanner as
world-creating verbs:
(29)
Me dare cuenta de que Iluevemucho aqui, si es que llueve
'Iwill
realize that it rains a lot here,
if it is that it rains'.
In the above example the truth of the complement de que luevemucho aqui
'that it rains a lot here' is no longer presupposed. This phenomenon is
directly attributable to the presence of the world-creating verb or of the
Future tense, and is totally independentof the tense of the clause which is
embedded in the factive verb:
(30a)
Me doy cuenta de que lloviomucho aqui anoche, *si es que llovi6
'I realize that it rained a lot here last night, *if it is that it rained'.
(30b)
Me dare cuenta de que llovi6mucho aqui anoche, si es que llovi6
'I will
realize
that it rained a lot here
last night,
if it is that it
rained'.
If based on the conclusions reached by Kiparsky we assume that tense
must be an underlying constituent of the same formal nature as time adver
bials, that is, derived from a higher predicate,we can conclude that (28b) and
(29) reflect a similar situation: there is a verb classified as world-creating,
imaginarin (28b) and the future tense in (29),which block the factivity of the
lower verb, darse cuenta 'to realize',both in (28b) and (29). In other words
we are assuming
that the Future
is a world-creating
verb.17
In conclusion, tenses in Indo-European underwent the same process of
deletion as trueverbs, the antecedent/pro-form relationship found between a
trueverb and a pro-verb isparalleled by the adverb/tense relationshipand the
Future tense shares some semantic properties with world-creating verbs.
These facts seem to indicate that the hypothesis that tenses are verbs and
therefore are in someway independent from the propositional content, is to
be preferred over the proposal which considers them as operators belonging
to amodality component, separate from theproposition intowhich they are
incorporated in surfacestructurebut different ina formalway from trueverbs.
7. PRESUPPOSITIONS,
THE SPEAKER'S
POINT OF VIEW
The representation of presuppositions in underlying structure remains a
difficult problem in linguistic analysis today, and this paper will not try to
17This idea can be correlated with Peirce's notion that collections of future individuals
are like collections of possible individuals or of imaginary individuals (Peirce, 1961).
238
MARiA-LUISA
RIVERO
provide any answers to the question.We will justmake some short and ten
tative observations.
There is evidencewhich indicates thatpresuppositionsmust be connected
with the underlying structureof sentences and represented formally at that
level (Rivero, 1971).How the representation is to be effected remains very
much of an open question. Several possibilities have been hinted at in the
literature,accepting the assumption that presuppositions are not a question
of surfacegrammar:
(a) Presuppositions should not appear in the syntactic representationof a
sentencebut should be given asmeaning postulates or inferencerulesopera
ting on underlying representations.This position has explicitlybeen takenby
Karttunen (1971) and by Bellert (1970, 1971).
(b) That they should be represented in the underlying structure of a
sentence through the use of the same formal devices as regular assertions.
This isbasicallyMcCawley's proposal when he discusses distinctions between
NPs being used referentially and non-referentially, as in French relative
clauses in the Indicative (referentialsense)or in the Subjunctive (non-referen
tial interpretation)(McCawley, 1970). It is also the solution proposed inmy
paper on presuppositions (Rivero, 1971).
A thirdproposal which has not been discussed in the literatureandwhich
can be considered as a variation of (b) is the following one. Presuppositions
should be treated as modal operators belonging to a separate component.
That is, each proposition in the nucleus would be assigned an operator or
several, giving it a truth value (e.g. true for factive complements, false for
counterfactual conditionals). There are interesting possibilities to explore
under this thirdassumption.For instance,I showed inmy paper (Rivero, 1971)
NP
that complement sentences of the type | can have a referentialsense (verb
S
in the indicative)and a non-referential sense (verb in the subjunctive)just like
any other typeof NP, and that the referential interpretationmust be derived
from a different
source from the non-referential
interpretation.
How
is this
referentialuse of NP-complements to be formalized?The distinction must
be reflectedinunderlying structurebecause ithas syntacticconsequences (e.g.
the referential interpretationblocks a number of transformations).Suppose
NP
we tried to capture this kind of parallelism between | structuresand oth
S
ersNP's by postulating a 'presuppositionaloperator' for the referentialuse
which ranges over thewhole proposition or only over a given term.Notice
that this 'presuppositionaloperator'would be similar to Baker's Q operator
REMARKS ON OPERATORS AND MODALITIES
239
which can range over the whole clause (e.g. if-question) or bind a variable
(wh-question).This operatorwould allow us to reflect the fact that although
the 'referential'NP-complement is attributed to the speaker, it does not con
stitute an assertion.The question which will remainunanswered in this study
iswhether this 'presuppositionaloperator' is not a regularpredicate or some
sort of 'existence-truth'quantifier. Inotherwords we are asking the following:
if there are aspects of presuppositions which need to be syntactically incor
porated into the representationof a sentence18,do we need amodality com
ponent to reflect them or can we do it through the standardPM's?
8. CONCLUSIONS
This paper has examined the philosophical notions of modality and propo
sitional attitude and their application to the analysis of natural language.
The conclusions indicate that such operators as performatives, modal
verbs and modal adverbials, quantifiers, the conditional if, and tenses are
best considered as relational elements in a Phrase-Marker.The assumption
that there is a separate component, the operator or modality node, which
subsumes these constituents in underlying structure, runs into numerous
counterexamples and must be rejected.
Department of Linguistics, University of Ottawa
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