Alethic modality is a linguistic modality which indicates logical necessity, possibility or impossibility.[1]
Alethic modality is often associated with epistemic modality in research. However, it has been questioned whether this modality should be considered distinct from epistemic modality which denotes the speaker's evaluation or judgment of the truth. The criticism states that there is no real difference between "the truth in the world" (alethic) and "the truth in an individual's mind" (epistemic).[2] An investigation has not found a single language in which alethic and epistemic modalities are formally distinguished, as by the means of a grammatical mood.[3] In such a language, "A circle can't be square", "can't be" would be expressed by an alethic mood, whereas for "He can't be that wealthy", "can't be" would not be expressed by an alethic mood. As we can see, this is not a distinction drawn in English grammar.
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