The development of the conditional use of modal verbs in West-Germanic

De ontwikkeling van het conditioneel gebruik van modale werkwoorden in het West-Germaans
Start - End 
2012 - 2015 (completed)
Department(s) 
Department of Linguistics
Research Focus 

Tabgroup

Abstract

The project traced the historical development of the ‘conditional’ use of modal verbs in the West Germanic (WG) languages, seen in 'If there should be a problem/Should there be a problem, don’t hesitate to call.'

While the rise of ‘postmodal’ uses of modal verbs is usually viewed as semantic change, the current project tested the hypothesis that the development of their ‘conditional’ use can be analysed as a syntactic change, as different structural positions can be shown to correlate with the different modal meanings on the assumed  grammaticalisation cline. The research hypothesis was that the modal verb in question undergo an ‘upward’ reanalysis through the clausal hierarchy under Roberts/Roussou’s (2003) generative approach to grammaticalisation, which by linking grammaticalisation clines to hierarchical functional clause structure makes precise predictions about what are possible changes. Empirical evidence are the kinds of co-occurrence and ordering restrictions that the modal verb display w.r.t. other, in particular lower, modal expressions at different diachronic stages. 

 

People

Supervisor(s)

Researcher(s)

Publications