Now there will be trouble

International audienceWe consider sentences in which " now " occurs in initial position and show that the meaning they convey differs from the meaning of sentences that are otherwise identical except for " now " occurring in final position. We argue that the occurrence of " now " in initial position triggers a particular kind of modal reading for the sentence to which the adverb is prefixed. A general notion of modal forcing is proposed to provide a uniform account of this kind of reading. Armed with this account, we offer a solution to two tense-modal puzzles, which have to do with fatalism and the possibility of a changing past