Conceiving modality as the expression of the attitude of the speakers or of some referent (agent, subject), as proposed by Bally (1965) and Bybee (1985), is a valid linguistic premise for this phenomenon. In order to resolve various problems concerning the distinction between speaker and referent, as well as between subjective and objective modality (Lyons 1977), the present article describes a system of semantic notions based on three principles:(1) the assumption of illocutionary meaning as a semantic counterpart of illocutionary force,(2) the conception of subjectivity as a gradable semantic feature, and (3) the notion of linguistic polyphony introduced by Ducrot (1984). The presented approach restricts the notion of modality in that it excludes illocution (seen as an immediate speaker implementation), and extends it insofar as it does not limit modality to certain types of expressions (like grammatical morphemes).