Ambiguity in the 'Non-root Modal +PERF' Construction Revisited
Zhiguo Xie · 2011
The interaction of modality and other phenomena has received much discussion in recent syntax and semantics literature. This paper adds to the effort by dealing with one particular case of the interaction. It has been observed that certain ‘non-root modal + PERF(ect) ’ combinations are ambiguous between epistemic and metaphysical readings (Mondadori, 1978; Condoravdi, 2002), as exemplified in (1):