Modal expressions are used to convey information about uncertaintly, ability, permissibility, desirability, and other concepts related to non-actual, hypothetical circumstances. Many of these expressions are ‘gradable predicates’, meaning that they take degree modification, degree specification, and can be used in the comparative:
(1) a. It is quite likely that it’s raining.
b. There’s a 60\% probability that she’ll be late.
c. It’s more probable that it will rain than that it will snow.
Gradable modal expressions (or GMEs) are widely used in scientific, economic, medical and technical contexts and their meaning has been investigated sporadically by researches outside linguistics. In this advanced seminar we will discuss the the phenomenon of gradable modality, reviewing the contemporary literature, and providing a new scale-based semantics for graded modal expressions in the context of the highly articulated view of gradable predicates proposed by Kennedy & McNally.
