Originating from papers presented at an international colloquium, the 18 articles in this volume reflect the different aspects of modality: general, lexical, temporal and modal. There is no one single definition or methodological approach to the study of modality. This is borne out by the range of these articles, with perspectives extending from different manifestation forms of modality to its different implications or values (alethic, deontic, epistemic, radical, etc.) and from modality in specific genres to contrastive and historical perspectives on the phenomenon.