'It is necessary to X' in Italian and Polish: Managing reasons for action

In Italian and Polish (and probably many other languages), one way of enlisting the help of others in everyday informal interaction is through the use of an impersonal modal declarative construction. Turns like bisogna X in Italian and trzeba X in Polish (“one has to X”, “it’s necessary to X”) are used by speakers to state that an action is objectively necessary, in recognition of which a recipient can volunteer to perform the action. Crucially, the successfulness of this strategy hinges on the recipient’s acceptance of the claim that a certain action is required. In this study, we explore how Italian and Polish speakers manage deontic rights of proclaiming objectively necessary actions. In particular, we compare cases where speakers treat the necessity as situationally accessible with cases where extended turns are used to support the deontic claim