modality

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun a classification of propositions on the basis of whether they claim necessity or possibility or impossibility
noun verb inflections that express how the action or state is conceived by the speaker
noun a particular sense

From French modalité.

Ineluctable modality of the visible. — Ulysses, James Joyce
The principles of modality therefore predicate of a conception nothing more than the procedure of the faculty of cognition which generated it. — The Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant
We cannot reason indefinitely on the notions of heat, color, or weight: in order to know the modalities of weight or of heat, we must have recourse to experience. — Creative Evolution, Bergson, Henri

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