Double Modals in Scots: A Speaker’s Choice Hypothesis

Abstract

This paper provides a summary of the sparse literature on the synchrony and diachrony of double modals in dialects of British English, especially varieties of Borders Scots. Double modals are understudied syntactic constructions because they are rare, difficult to describe, and socially restricted. Using the results of recent fieldwork-based acceptability judgment tasks carried out in Hawick, Scotland, this paper examines whether the theoretical literature available on the structure of double modals in dialects of American English can be applied to British English and Scots. I then propose a Speaker's Choice hypothesis whereby double modals can be flexibly analysed as a true modal in first or second position and a recategorized idiosyncratic adverb in the remaining slot of the construction.

A social turn for Construction Grammar: double modals on British Twitter

“…DMs have been attested in limited regions of the British Isles, most commonly in the Scottish Borders (Brown 1991;Bour 2014;Morin 2021aMorin , 2021b, and to a lesser extent in the Central Belt of Scotland including Glasgow and in areas of Dumfries and Galloway in the southwest (Smith et al 2019). They are attested even less frequently in the northeastern English counties of Tyneside and Northumberland (Beal 2004;Beal & Corrigan 2000), as well as in Ulster Scots-speaking counties of northeastern Ireland (Montgomery & Nagle 1993).…”