All you need is another ‘Need’
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Łukasz Jędrzejowski
Abstract
In this chapter, I will examine the verbal NPI cycle in the history of German including three NPIs: dürfen, bedürfen and brauchen. In doing so, I will illustrate that dürfen used to function as an NPI in older stages and that it lost its NPI status due to a semantic change. The received wisdom has it that dürfen was then replaced by brauchen (cf. Bech 1951; Kolb 1964; Lenz 1996; Paul 1897). I will challenge this view and provide evidence illustrating that dürfen was first replaced by bedürfen, while bedürfen has being replaced by brauchen in the last three centuries. In my view, bedürfen builds a bridge between dürfen and brauchen.Remarkably, as there is no need to preserve both predicates in Modern German, bedürfen as NPI is about to disappear giving way to brauchen. In what follows, I argue that dürfen, bedürfen and brauchen constitute a linguistic cycle in the sense claimed by van Gelderen (2009, 2011, this volume) and illustrate, both synchronically and diachronically, that although these three predicates have a lot in common, they differ in several respects. Their differences, however, do not weaken the cycle analysis. Quite the opposite, they provide direct evidence for typical hallmarks of a linguistic cycle, whereby “toward the end of the cycle, similar events start again, but they are (slightly) different and happen at a difference pace” (van Gelderen 2011: 3). As it will turn out, these properties hold for the NPI cycle in German as well.
Abstract
In this chapter, I will examine the verbal NPI cycle in the history of German including three NPIs: dürfen, bedürfen and brauchen. In doing so, I will illustrate that dürfen used to function as an NPI in older stages and that it lost its NPI status due to a semantic change. The received wisdom has it that dürfen was then replaced by brauchen (cf. Bech 1951; Kolb 1964; Lenz 1996; Paul 1897). I will challenge this view and provide evidence illustrating that dürfen was first replaced by bedürfen, while bedürfen has being replaced by brauchen in the last three centuries. In my view, bedürfen builds a bridge between dürfen and brauchen.Remarkably, as there is no need to preserve both predicates in Modern German, bedürfen as NPI is about to disappear giving way to brauchen. In what follows, I argue that dürfen, bedürfen and brauchen constitute a linguistic cycle in the sense claimed by van Gelderen (2009, 2011, this volume) and illustrate, both synchronically and diachronically, that although these three predicates have a lot in common, they differ in several respects. Their differences, however, do not weaken the cycle analysis. Quite the opposite, they provide direct evidence for typical hallmarks of a linguistic cycle, whereby “toward the end of the cycle, similar events start again, but they are (slightly) different and happen at a difference pace” (van Gelderen 2011: 3). As it will turn out, these properties hold for the NPI cycle in German as well.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
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Part I Characteristics of Cycles
- Cyclical change continued 3
- What cycles when and why 19
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Part II Macro-cycles
- Is radical analyticity normal 49
- An analytic-synthetic spiral in the history of English 93
- The interaction between the French subject and object cycles 113
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Part III The Negative Micro-Cycles
- The negative existential cycle viewed through the lens of comparative data 139
- Jespersen cycles in the Mayan, Quechuan and Maipurean languages* 189
- Mayan negation cycles 219
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Part IV Pronominal, Quantifier, and Modal Micro-cycles
- The diachrony of pronominal agreement 251
- The degree cycle 287
- Modality and gradation 319
- All you need is another ‘Need’ 351
- The grammaticalization of 要 Yao and the future cycle from Archaic Chinese to Modern Mandarin* 395
- Author Index 419
- Subject and Language Index 425
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
-
Part I Characteristics of Cycles
- Cyclical change continued 3
- What cycles when and why 19
-
Part II Macro-cycles
- Is radical analyticity normal 49
- An analytic-synthetic spiral in the history of English 93
- The interaction between the French subject and object cycles 113
-
Part III The Negative Micro-Cycles
- The negative existential cycle viewed through the lens of comparative data 139
- Jespersen cycles in the Mayan, Quechuan and Maipurean languages* 189
- Mayan negation cycles 219
-
Part IV Pronominal, Quantifier, and Modal Micro-cycles
- The diachrony of pronominal agreement 251
- The degree cycle 287
- Modality and gradation 319
- All you need is another ‘Need’ 351
- The grammaticalization of 要 Yao and the future cycle from Archaic Chinese to Modern Mandarin* 395
- Author Index 419
- Subject and Language Index 425
