On Covert Modality in German Root Infinitives

In the following, I will focus on the inference-based theory by Reis (Section 2) and the illocutionary one by Truckenbrodt (Section 3). Section 2 spells out a version of the inference approach in terms of von Stechow's framework of "transparent logical form." It will be shown (i) how covert modality can then be captured in terms of existential closure for BRIs and (ii) how this mechanism fails to account for the covert modality of wh-infinitves. Section 3 briefly sketches (i) how Truckenbrodt analyzes the covert modality of BRIs by means of a volitional attitude operator and (ii) how this runs into similar difficulties with wh-infinitives. By way of theory comparison, Section 4 reflects on the distinction between direct and indirect approaches to covert modality and checks the overall adequacy of theories wrt performativity, non-embeddability, modal force, and modal flavor. Section 5 provides a short summary.