This paper presents the results of a corpus-based diachronic investigation into the semantic evolution of the Dutch modalskunnen“can”,mogen“may” andmoeten“must”, revealing an interaction between processes of (inter)subjectification and of semantic competition (‘no synonymy’).Mogenandkunnendo, butmoetendoes not, show an evolution in terms of (inter)subjectification. But developments inmogenandkunnenalso show an effect of the fact that historically they have been competing for the same semantic ground. There is no comparable competition for semantic ground inmoeten. This strongly suggests an interaction between the ‘no synonymy’ principle and (inter)subjectification, whereby the former may actually trigger the latter.
This contribution investigates the meanings and uses of the English and Dutch adverbs certainly and zeker. In the range of adverbial expressions of epistemic modality, the 'strong' adverbs (expressing 'certainty') clearly tend to be used in a much more 'flexible' way than the (relatively) weaker ones, and this contribution is an attempt to get a better view of what this flexibility actually involves, on the basis of a careful analysis of corpus data. The comparative approach allows us to distinguish between features which are whims of a single language, and hence have little meaning beyond the grammar of that language, and features which reflect more profound issues in the analysis of the meanings at stake, and which therefore may reflect fundamental conceptual issues.
This article presents a corpus-based analysis of the semantic developments of the three most "prototypical" Dutch modals, kunnen 'can', mogen 'may', and moeten 'must'. It focuses on the implications for current concepts of (inter) subjectification. The three modals turn out not to behave in a uniform way and to show different diachronic profiles: kunnen and mogen do but moeten does not show clear processes of (inter)subjectification, while kunnen is a much "younger" modal than mogen and moeten. In terms of paths of semantic change, the investigation shows that evolutions toward more (inter)subjective meanings are often not linear. Even if they predominantly emerge from one other meaning, new meanings can have secondary sources. Furthermore, evolutions often happen in parallel, with one specific meaning serving as the source for several others (e.g., deontic, epistemic/evidential, and directive meanings typically all evolve in parallel from a dynamic modal meaning).
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