Predicates of personal taste (
fun, tasty) and epistemic modals (
might, must) share a similar analytical difficulty in determining whose taste or knowledge is being expressed. Accordingly, they have
parallel behavior in attitude reports and in a certain kind of disagreement. On the other hand, they differ in how freely
they can be linked to a contextually salient individual, with epistemic modals being much more restricted in this respect.
I propose an account of both classes using Lasersohn’s (Linguistics and Philosophy 28: 643–686, 2005) “judge” parameter, at
the same time arguing for crucial changes to Lasersohn’s view in order to allow the extension to epistemic modals and address
empirical problems faced by his account.
Keywords Epistemic modals - Predicates of personal taste - Context dependency - Relativism - Attitude reports