ABSTRACT
I have described inferrable modality as the modal shadow of all propositional content. This implies that every reading must construct propositional meanings against the backdrop of the parallel construction of a speech stance and an utterance motivation. Yet the concept of inferrable modality implies more. It says also that my reading does not innocently start with the word on the page but sets in motion at the same time my own set of literary and non-literary typifications, discursive as well as non-discursive formations, and linguistic as well as non-linguistic orders of semiosis as a massive background into which my acts of meaning making are embedded. In turn this thematized background knowledge acts upon my reading as an all-pervasive modal force.
