Locutions auxiliaires modales à base substantivale : obligation, nécessité et probabilité.

Abstract : On this seminar, we examine nominal modal auxiliary phrases (NMAPs) in French. More specifically, we study NMAPs where the nominal base consists of the nouns obligation (‘obligation’), nécessité (‘necessity’) and probabilité (‘probability’). At first glance, these appear to correspond to the deontic interpretation of “obligation”, the alethic interpretation of “necessity”, and the epistemic interpretation of “high probability” associated with the modal verb devoir. We demonstrate that, from a syntactic perspective, these NMAPs can be introduced by the verbs avoir (‘to have’), être (‘to be’), se trouver (‘to find oneself’), se voir (‘to see oneself/be’), and /se/ mettre (‘to put/set /oneself/’), with the exception of probability constructions with the noun probabilité, which can only be introduced by the verb avoir. From a semantic perspective, we show that the noun in “deontic” NMAPs is not exclusively obligation, but often nécessité as well. Similarly, while the noun in “alethic” NMAPs is most frequently nécessité, the noun obligation is not entirely excluded. Regarding NMAPs involving probabilité, the modal interpretation is almost always “alethic possibility” and not the “epistemic” interpretation of “high probability.”