Infallibilism is the claim that knowledge requires that one satisfies some infallibility condition. I spell out three distinct such conditions: epistemic, evidential and modal infallibility. Epistemic infallibility turns out to be simply a consequence of epistemic closure, and is not infallibilist in any relevant sense. Evidential infallibilism i s unwarranted but it is not an satisfactory char...

This two-part article critically reviews eight recent works in the field of mood and modality. Part I explores three different theoretical approaches – generative, cognitive–pragmatic, and typological – with the main focus on languages other than English. Within the framework of generative grammar, research issues include: the epistemic-root interpretations of modal verbs; transitive–intransiti...

Japanese does not exhibit deontic-epistemic polysemy which is recognized among typologically different languages. Hence, in Japanese linguistics, it has been debated which of the two types of modality is more prototypical. This study brings Chinese learner’s acquisition data of Japanese modality to bear on the question of which of the two types of modality is more prototypical, using the Compet...

Epistemic modality serves to indicate how confident language users are about the truth of the ideational material they convey; it is often subdivided into two types of markers, hedges and boosters. Hedges are linguistic devices like perhaps, I guess, and to a certain extent that speakers employ to reduce the degree of liability or responsibility they might face in expressing the ideational mate...