The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German
-
Jakob Maché
Abstract
As Abraham (1990, 1991, 2005) has pointed out, aspect plays a crucial role, when epistemic modals (em) emerge out of root modals (rm). The present paper shows that the different aspectual preferences of those items are reflected by the differences in the configuration of the modal’s event structure: whereas rm turn out to be event modifiers, em are propositional modifiers. In technical detail, rm select infinitival complements involving an event argument and assign to them a interval posterior to utterance time. em, on the other hand, can combine with any non-finite complement that constitutes a licit proposition. This paper will discuss some data from German that shows that rm are indeed event modifiers since they (1) fail to embed predicates that lack event arguments and (2) are bound to complements with future orientation. The grammaticalisation of em then can be considered as a decline of the modal’s ability to modify events. This major change in its event structure causes the modal to extend its scope from events over propositions. This assumption is confirmed throughout by the fact that early em contained by the corpus exploited here only combine with predicates lacking event arguments, whereas rm never do. Finally, the theory offered here provides an interesting link between formal accounts and functional ones: Considering rm as event modifier, it explains why they are always “action oriented”, as commonly assumed by most functionalist approaches.
Abstract
As Abraham (1990, 1991, 2005) has pointed out, aspect plays a crucial role, when epistemic modals (em) emerge out of root modals (rm). The present paper shows that the different aspectual preferences of those items are reflected by the differences in the configuration of the modal’s event structure: whereas rm turn out to be event modifiers, em are propositional modifiers. In technical detail, rm select infinitival complements involving an event argument and assign to them a interval posterior to utterance time. em, on the other hand, can combine with any non-finite complement that constitutes a licit proposition. This paper will discuss some data from German that shows that rm are indeed event modifiers since they (1) fail to embed predicates that lack event arguments and (2) are bound to complements with future orientation. The grammaticalisation of em then can be considered as a decline of the modal’s ability to modify events. This major change in its event structure causes the modal to extend its scope from events over propositions. This assumption is confirmed throughout by the fact that early em contained by the corpus exploited here only combine with predicates lacking event arguments, whereas rm never do. Finally, the theory offered here provides an interesting link between formal accounts and functional ones: Considering rm as event modifier, it explains why they are always “action oriented”, as commonly assumed by most functionalist approaches.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Preface ix
- Introduction: Aspect-modality interfaces and interchanges across languages xi
-
General
- On the logic of generalizations about cross-linguistic aspect-modality links 3
- The silent and aspect-driven patterns of deonticity and epistemicity: A chapter in diachronic typology 15
- Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English 43
- Towards an understanding of the progressive form in English: The Imperative as a heuristic tool 81
- Epistemic modality and aspect contingency in Armenian, Russian, and German 97
-
Slavic
- Indefiniteness and imperfectivity as micro-grammatical contexts of epistemicity in German-Slovene translations 119
- The connections between modality, aspectuality, and temporality in Modern Russian 147
- Aspectual coercion in Bulgarian negative imperatives 175
- Russian modals možet 'can' and dolžen 'must' selecting the imperfective in negative contexts 197
-
African
- Tense, mood, and aspect in Gungbe (Kwa) 215
- The modal system of the Igbo language 241
-
Asian
- The aspect-modality link in the Japanese verbal complex and beyond 279
- The aspect-modality link in Japanese: The case of the evaluating sentence 309
-
Amerindian
- The Lakota aspect/modality markers - kinica and tkhá 331
-
Creole
- A note on modality and aspect in Saramaccan 359
-
Diachronic
- Aspects of a reconstruction of form and function of modal verbs in Germanic and other languages 371
- The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German 385
- Index of authors 417
- Index of subjects 419
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Preface ix
- Introduction: Aspect-modality interfaces and interchanges across languages xi
-
General
- On the logic of generalizations about cross-linguistic aspect-modality links 3
- The silent and aspect-driven patterns of deonticity and epistemicity: A chapter in diachronic typology 15
- Propositional aspect and the development of modal inferences in English 43
- Towards an understanding of the progressive form in English: The Imperative as a heuristic tool 81
- Epistemic modality and aspect contingency in Armenian, Russian, and German 97
-
Slavic
- Indefiniteness and imperfectivity as micro-grammatical contexts of epistemicity in German-Slovene translations 119
- The connections between modality, aspectuality, and temporality in Modern Russian 147
- Aspectual coercion in Bulgarian negative imperatives 175
- Russian modals možet 'can' and dolžen 'must' selecting the imperfective in negative contexts 197
-
African
- Tense, mood, and aspect in Gungbe (Kwa) 215
- The modal system of the Igbo language 241
-
Asian
- The aspect-modality link in the Japanese verbal complex and beyond 279
- The aspect-modality link in Japanese: The case of the evaluating sentence 309
-
Amerindian
- The Lakota aspect/modality markers - kinica and tkhá 331
-
Creole
- A note on modality and aspect in Saramaccan 359
-
Diachronic
- Aspects of a reconstruction of form and function of modal verbs in Germanic and other languages 371
- The autopsy of a modal – insights from the historical development of German 385
- Index of authors 417
- Index of subjects 419
