The set of English modal verbs is widely recognized to communicate two broad clusters of meanings: epistemic and root modal meanings. A number of researchers have claimed that root meanings are acquired earlier than epistemic ones; this claim has subsequently been employed in the linguistics literature as an argument for the position that English modal verbs are polysemous (Sweetser, 1990). In this paper I offer an alternative explanation for the later emergence of epistemic interpretations by linking them to the development of the child's theory of mind (Wellman, 1990); if correct, this hypothesis might have important implications for the shape of the semantics of modal verbs.

In this paper I will present and defend an analysis of (a sample of) the English modal auxiliary verbs using a relevance-theoretic semantic and pragmatic framework. I will start by discussing previous analyses of modality in English with an eye to explaining how a cluster of related meanings- epistemic, root, and other- is expressed by the same set of lexical items. I will then go on to develop a unitary semantic approach to the English toodais, treating them as (mostly) incomplete propositional operators. After defending the details of my semantic account, I will show how the proposed semantics can give rise to the range of root interpretations modal verbs can receive in context. Epistemic interpretations require some further theoretical machinery, which will make crucial use of the notion of metarepresentation. Finally, I will sketch the differences between natural-language interpretations of modal operators and their alethic/logical uses.

The set of English modal verbs is widely recognised to communicate two broad clusters of meanings: epistemic and root modal meanings. A number of researchers have claimed that root meanings are acquired earlier than epistemic ones; this claim has subsequently been employed in the linguistics literature as an argument for the position that English modal verbs are polysemous (Sweetser 1990). In this paper I offer an alternative explanation for the later emergence of epistemic interpretations by liniking them to the development of the child's theory of mind (Wellman 1990). If correct, this hypothesis might have important implications for the shape of the semantics of modal verbs.