Angelika Kratzer writes:
Ana Arregui from the University of Ottawa will talk in my seminar on modality on March 30 at 2:30 in Hasbrouck Lab Addition 106. The title of the talk is: Spanish 'poder': when abilities meet the facts.
Everyone is welcome.
Here is an abstract:
This presentation will focus on Spanish poder, a modal verb standardly understood as an existential modal. Spanish poder can target three types of ‘modal flavors’: epistemic, counterfactual, and ability. My objective in this presentation will be to explore a unified account of the three types, focusing on the case of ability readings. Bhatt (1999, 2006) notes that aspectual morphology affects the range of interpretations associated with modals. This has been taken up more recently by Hacquard (2006, 2010), who discusses in detail the case of French pouvoir. The key observation is that perfective aspect can give rise to ‘actuality entailments’ in ability readings. In my discussion of Spanish, I will note differences between Spanish and French and then proceed to provide an account of the Spanish case in terms of a modal framework that appeals to Kratzer-style situations (Kratzer 1989, 2009, etc.). Tense and aspect will play a crucial role in the proposal, anchoring the modal claim to facts in the actual world.
