This introductory chapter has two goals. On the one hand, it aims at providing a critical overview of the literature on modality and related issues, by discussing the different approaches and their problems and results. On the other hand, it gives some suggestions for a new approach to modality, which is syntactic and distributional in a broad sense, as it focuses on the different types of modal markers and, particularly, on their combinatory values. A presentation of the contributions of the volume is also provided.