Modality in mind

As explained at the outset of this book by its author, Jan Nuytswithout doubt one of the leading experts in the field of modalitythe title Modality in Mind is "deliberately ambiguous" (p. 1).It may be taken to encompass both the concern with the linguistic notion of modality, on the one hand, and, on the other, the analysis of modality on a cognitive (and functional) basis.In the latter regard, the book launches a Functional Procedural Grammar (FPG) model (an elaboration of Nuyts 2001), which focuses on "the global outline of the cognitive systems involved in language use, including the level of conceptual representation" (p.22), thereby emphasizing the interrelationship between cognitive, conceptual and linguistic structure.In this way, the title also succinctly reflects the (ambitious) goals of the book (also nicely encapsulated by the illustration on its cover).The whole book is divided into 6 main chapters, plus two very brief introductory and concluding chapters, namely Chapter 0 (a rarity these days!) and Chapter 8. Of these, Chapters 1 The Cognitive-Functional Approach and Chapter 7 Back to the Cognitive-Functional Approach, address the broader questions of cognition and conceptualization.Chapter 1 introduces cognitive and functional approaches to linguistic analysis in general and FPG in particular, while Chapter 7 returns to these themes culminating in a theoretical debate in regard to other prominent cognitive and functionally oriented frameworks, chiefly the currently in-vogue Construction Grammar.Here, Nuyts argues for an alternative, processoriented rather than constructionist view of grammar and cognition.The remaining chapters, Chapter 2 Qualifying States of Affairs, Chapter 3 Modality Revisited, Chapter 4 Attitudes, Chapter 5 Beyond the Qualificational Hierarchy and Chapter 6 (Inter)subjectivity, and More, constitute the main body of the book and deal with the deconstruction and reconstruction of modality and related concepts and categories.In one fundamental sense, the book's title is misleading (albeit deliberately so), since one of Nuyts' mainand perhaps most significantaims in the book is to dispense with the linguistic category of modality altogether.He undertakes a profound reconsideration of the notion, reclassifying its subcategories, removing