French modal verbs

This file records the core modal expressions of French. Pouvoir 'can, may' is a possibility modal that expresses an ability or another circumstantial possibility, a permission, or an epistemic possibility, and devoir 'must, have to' expresses the corresponding necessities, with the context of use settling the reading. Falloir 'be necessary' is an impersonal necessity verb, and il est possible de 'it is possible to' an impersonal possibility construction with an infinitive. In the conditional, devoir expresses weak necessity, tu devrais partir 'you should leave' beside tu dois partir 'you must leave'. Italian potere and dovere show the same range as pouvoir and devoir.

References

• [Hac06]
• [Hac10]
• [ROK17]
• [AJ22]

def French.pouvoir : Modality.ModalItem

pouvoir 'can, may' is a possibility modal with epistemic, deontic and circumstantial readings, the last including ability.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def French.devoir : Modality.ModalItem

devoir 'must, have to' is a necessity modal with epistemic, deontic and circumstantial readings, the last including goal-oriented necessity.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def French.devoirConditional : Modality.ModalItem

devoir in the conditional, as in tu devrais partir, expresses weak necessity in each flavor of devoir.

Equations

• French.devoirConditional = { form := "devrait", meaning := Finset.image (fun (ff : Modality.ForceFlavor) => (Modality.ModalForce.weakNecessity, ff.flavor)) French.devoir.meaning }

def French.falloir : Modality.ModalItem

falloir 'be necessary' is an impersonal necessity verb with deontic and circumstantial readings.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def French.ilEstPossibleDe : Modality.ModalItem

il est possible de 'it is possible to' is an impersonal possibility construction with an infinitive, with deontic and circumstantial readings.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def French.modals : List Modality.ModalItem

The modal expressions of the fragment.

Equations

• French.modals = [French.pouvoir, French.devoir, French.devoirConditional, French.falloir, French.ilEstPossibleDe]