Modality in underdescribed languages: Methods and insights

Past research on modality from a diverse set of languages have made significant contributions towards developing a cross-linguistic typology of modal expressions.  Within this typology, one front is on identifying and accounting for expressions of modal force. In addition to the expression of possibility and necessity, empirical insights from St’át’imcets (Rullmann et al. 2008; Davis et al. 2009), Gitksan (Peterson 2010), Nez Perce (Deal 2011), and Washo (Bochnak 2015), among other languages, have shown that modal markers can also have variable force—albeit analyzed as due to different semantic or pragmatic mechanisms. A related front is on identifying and accounting for the expressions of modal strength (e.g., weak necessity or strong possibility). Data from various languages have shown that languages tend to have grammaticalized expression(s) for weak necessity modality, such as a lexicalized expression, the use of counterfactual morphology, or unique dedicated morphology (see, e.g., von Fintel and Iatridou 2008, Rubinstein 2014, or Vander Klok and Hohaus 2020), but it is less clear what may be the cross-linguistic typology for other expressions of modal strength. Another front within this typology is on modal flavour, such as epistemic, as based on one’s knowledge, or  deontic, as based on rules or regulations. Despite the many different labels within this front, research on diverse languages have shown languages tend to grammaticalize specific types (e.g. Narrog 2012, Gluckman and Bowler 2020), as well as that evidentiality can be connected to epistemic modality  (e.g., Faller 2002; Matthewson et al. 2007).

         Other work on diverse languages has also advanced our cross-linguistic understanding of the interaction of modality expressions in other areas of research, such as with temporality (e.g., Chen et al. 2017; Rullmann and Matthewson 2018), with mood (e.g., Rech et al. 2018), on semantic and pragmatic pathways of change (e.g., Bybee et al. 1994; Narrog 2012), and on the syntax-semantics of epistemic vs. root modality (e.g., Nauze 2008, Hacquard 2010).

This past scholarship on modality has shown that strictly translation-based studies is not sufficient, and that we have many resources to approach the study of modality in a more principled manner. In this workshop, we want to bring together and investigate the methods used in approaching the study of modality and its interaction, and especially from the perspective of working on underdescribed languages.

Methodological approaches. The workshop contributors each present a particular method for studying modality, but ultimately, we argue that methodological pluralism is key for describing and accounting for expressions of modality in a given language.  We invite further papers that introduce a particular method beyond those discussed in the contributions, and we also invite papers that address the use of methodological pluralism:

-       What are the necessary or important combinations in methodological pluralism for studying (aspects of) modality? 

-       How are challenges or potential pitfalls avoided in using multiple methods?

Empirical insights from case studies.  The workshop contributors present results from diverse languages providing empirical results of the modal expressions within an understudied language and (i) relating it to the current typological picture, (ii) identifying and comparing the contributions of different methods or of various diagnostics, or (iii) identifying specific discourse contexts for studying an aspect of modality. We invite further papers on these topics.  Some questions that may be addressed within this broader topic are:

-    What are the empirical insights of modal expressions within an understudied language and how do these results inform the current typological picture?

-   What are the empirical insights of a specific type of modal expression (e.g., weak necessity, or root modality) across different languages, and how do these results inform the current typological picture?

-     What are crucial diagnostics needed to tease apart theoretical accounts of similar descriptive data?

-     What are the ingredients of a discourse context to study an aspect of modality?