Modal verbs in long verb clusters
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Griet Coupé
Abstract
This contribution explores the historical development of modal verbs in Dutch. As opposed to their English counterparts, modals in present-day Dutch may be non-finite, and may appear under other auxiliaries in long verb clusters. This was not the case in Old Germanic languages. The first Dutch attestations of modal infinitives are in the complement of zullen, a verb which was undergoing a semanticchange from modality to futurity/irrealis. This [zullen + modal infinitive + main verb] construction was probably a Middle Dutch innovation, which most likely had its origin in southern Dutch dialects. From there, it gradually spread to other dialects in the course of the Early Modern Dutch period. The paper discusses the possible relationship between this syntactic innovation and the semantic changes that Dutch modal verbs underwent in the same period.
Abstract
This contribution explores the historical development of modal verbs in Dutch. As opposed to their English counterparts, modals in present-day Dutch may be non-finite, and may appear under other auxiliaries in long verb clusters. This was not the case in Old Germanic languages. The first Dutch attestations of modal infinitives are in the complement of zullen, a verb which was undergoing a semanticchange from modality to futurity/irrealis. This [zullen + modal infinitive + main verb] construction was probably a Middle Dutch innovation, which most likely had its origin in southern Dutch dialects. From there, it gradually spread to other dialects in the course of the Early Modern Dutch period. The paper discusses the possible relationship between this syntactic innovation and the semantic changes that Dutch modal verbs underwent in the same period.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- Clefts in Cypriot Greek 13
- Lexical change, discourse practices and the French press 27
- Arbitrary subjects of infinitival clauses in European and Brazilian Portuguese 47
- Modal verbs in long verb clusters 59
- Changing pronominal gender in Dutch 71
- Meaning variation and change in Greek morphology 81
- Syntactic variation in German-English code-mixing 91
- Sources of phonological variation in a large database for Dutch dialects 103
- Broad vs. localistic dialectology, standard vs. dialect 119
- Intonational variation in Swiss German 135
- Morphological reduction in Aromanian 145
- Greek dialect variation 157
- Using electronic corpora to study language variation 169
- Language attitudes and folk perceptions towards linguistic variation 179
- Salience and resilience in a set of Tyneside English shibboleths 191
- New approaches to describing phonological change 205
- Variation and grammaticisation 215
- Towards establishing the matrix language in Russian-Estonian code-switching 225
- Index 241
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- Clefts in Cypriot Greek 13
- Lexical change, discourse practices and the French press 27
- Arbitrary subjects of infinitival clauses in European and Brazilian Portuguese 47
- Modal verbs in long verb clusters 59
- Changing pronominal gender in Dutch 71
- Meaning variation and change in Greek morphology 81
- Syntactic variation in German-English code-mixing 91
- Sources of phonological variation in a large database for Dutch dialects 103
- Broad vs. localistic dialectology, standard vs. dialect 119
- Intonational variation in Swiss German 135
- Morphological reduction in Aromanian 145
- Greek dialect variation 157
- Using electronic corpora to study language variation 169
- Language attitudes and folk perceptions towards linguistic variation 179
- Salience and resilience in a set of Tyneside English shibboleths 191
- New approaches to describing phonological change 205
- Variation and grammaticisation 215
- Towards establishing the matrix language in Russian-Estonian code-switching 225
- Index 241
