On the link between grammaticalization and subjectification

Abstract

This article argues that the widespread view that the diachronic processes of grammaticalization and of subjectification go hand in hand, and that highly subjectivized meanings typically correlate with highly grammaticalized forms, should be revised. The point is made on the basis of the case of the diachrony of the Dutch modal verbs. Corpus data show that four of these verbs recently got involved in a process of collective re-autonomization, while the two other modals in the language do not. This correlates with differences in the semantic development of the verbs: the four re-autonomizing verbs do, but the two outliers do not show a regular process of (inter)subjectification. The paper unravels through which mechanisms the grammatical and the semantic developments may correlate, hence why highly subjectivized meanings do not necessarily like a grammatical status.