Modality

We examine different flavors of modality that can be expressed by the verb need in two languages, Tagalog and English. We observe that differences in the syntactic structure in these languages play a role in determining the kind of necessity that this verb can express. Given this, we argue against accounts in which modality flavor is always contextually derived. We propose a single lexical entry and denotation for need and account for the different flavors it can have taking into consideration differences in the syntactic context.