Covert Emotive Modality Is a Monster

It has been argued that attitude verbs shift reference of indexicals in the embedded clauses in some languages (Schlenker 1999, 2003; Anand and Nevins 2004). I argue that not only overt attitude predicates but implicit emotive modality is a context shifting operator which changes context parameters. I base my argument on the following three mono-clausal constructions: i) fake past; ii) fake present, and, iii) discourse initial sentence focus also/even/too. Surprise licenses non-past interpretation of the past tense (Teramura 1984) with negative presupposition. Alternation between past and present directs readers to re-experience narratives (Soga 1983). Speaker’s emotion or sentiments license wide-scope also/too without explicit antecedents. Covert modal functions as a determiner taking negative presupposition in the restrictor and overt predicate in the nuclear scope (Kratzer 1991; Berman 1991; von Fintel 1994; Ippolito 2003). 1 1 Shifted Context in Unembedded Sentences I discuss the following three types of mono-clausal constructions: Fake Past (1) Oh, it was here (all along). (2) A, koko-ni {at-ta/#a-ru}. (Japanese) Oh here-LOC be-PAST/be-PRES ‘Oh, it was here’ 1 I thank Norihiro Ogata, Richard K. Larson, Kai von Fintel, Maria Bittner, Edith Aldridge, Heejeong Ko and the audience at Stony Brook University for useful suggestions at different stages while this paper was under development.