forthcoming. Diagnosing modality in predictive expressions

This short paper argues that predictive expressions (will, gonna) are modals. In section 1 I provide three empirical arguments for a treatment of predictive expressions as modals: i) they behave like modals in that they can occur in overt and covert conditionals in a way that non-modal operators cannot; ii) they have morphologi-cal variants which show displacement behaviors, i.e., nonveridicality; iii) like modals, they obviate the personal experience requirement on predicates of personal taste. In section 2 I specifically rebut arguments by Kissine (2008) that will is not a modal. In section 3 I conclude. In this paper I argue that what I call predictive expressions (PEs) in English, words like will and gonna, are modal operators rather than simple temporal operators. (1) a. Ryan will leave for California tomorrow. b. Ryan is gonna leave for California tomorrow. The distinction between temporal and modal corresponds to a question about what the nature of the future is, or at least, how language treats the nature of the future: as a linear continuation of time, no different from the past (what can be called the Linear Future Hypothesis, sometimes called Ockhamist), or as a range of possible paths, a potentially infinite set of open possibilities (what can be called the Open Future Hypothesis, sometimes called Peircian); see, e.g., Kaufmann et al. (2006). On the former view, there is a single actual world, even if we can never have the knowledge needed to distinguish it from other worlds. This view is compatible with a temporal analysis of the future, since we can simply refer to the future of said actual This is a pre-publication draft, to appear in Journal of Semantics. Thanks to four anony