Modality as Distance: From Aspect to Modality

This chapter introduces to theoretical concepts of modality: von Wright’s modal logic and its modifications in terms of what languages provide to give expression to modality. It is shown that modality is a future oriented notion, something that is wished, feared, forbidden, and allowed to happen in the future. Interestingly, modal verbs are highly aspect sensitive such that certain connections with lexical verbs are impossible or shifting between root modality and epistemic modality. perfective-imperfective embedding choice of modal verbs.