Mood without Modality: An outline of an 'amodal' approach to the Italian subjunctive

Abstract

This paper aims to propose a novel approach to the Italian subjunctive that surpasses traditional modal interpretations. Rather than conveying a given type of modality (such as irrealis), this paper argues that the subjunctive is better understood as designating two semantic types: a so-called 'State-of-Affairs' or a 'proposition'. By shifting the focus from modality to semantic types, this approach can account for a wider range of the subjunctive's usages, including complements of implicatives, such as fare 'make' and capitare 'happen', that modal approaches have failed to fully account for.