Modal Adjectives - English Deontic and Evaluative Constructions in Diachrony and Synchrony

The book revisits the notion of deontic modality from the perspective of an understudied category in the modal domain, viz. adjectives. It analyses extraposition constructions with English adjectives like essential and appropriate, and uses this to refine traditional definitions of deontic modality. Together with dynamic and evaluative meanings, this category is integrated into a conceptual map, for which diachronic and synchronic evidence is adduced.

An Van linden, University of Leuven, Belgium.