Early English modals

PhD dissertation on the historical development of the English modals

In my PhD dissertation (University of Amsterdam, 2020), supervised by Olga Fischer, I investigated a number of semantic and grammatical changes in the history of the English modal verbs, most of them in the Middle English period (1100–1500 CE). Some of these changes have received only little attention in the literature, but are highly relevant for our understanding of the history of English as well as the diachronic pathways of modal expressions.

In addition to corpus data from Old, Middle and Early Modern English, I used material from other Germanic languages to look for similarities and differences between historically related modal systems. Some of the main findings of my PhD work were:

The (apparent) morphological regularisation of some Middle English modals, most importantly shall, was most likely due to analogical influence from the ‘anomalous’ verb will. The innovative forms show an areal distribution, being more prevalent in the dialect area where shall and will had the same stem vowel. This investigation appeared as an article in English Language & Linguistics.
There is no evidence of either grammaticalisation or degrammaticalisation of dare from Old English to the present day. Rather, dare has been characterised by functional stability and a number of formal changes which were all analogical in nature. The syntactic and semantic characteristics of dare were explored in this article, while a proposal about the transitive use of dare (as in I dare you!) was made in a short paper in the philological journal Notes & Queries.
The epistemic use of may did not develop out of the permission sense (i.e. deontic modality), as has been repeatedly claimed in the literature. Rather, the source of the epistemic meaning was ‘wide-scope’ possibility contexts. Close parallels to this development have been observed in Dutch and German, possibly pointing to an areal tendency in Western Europe (cf. also this chapter in the World Atlas of Language Structures).
The change of must from a possibility to a necessity modal happened in so-called participant-imposed dynamic contexts, where an open possibility was reinterpreted as the only possible course of action. This Early Middle English development was found to have an apparent parallel in Late Middle Danish, where the modal mughe also changed from possibility to necessity (Modern Danish måtte), as shown in this paper. A less technical overview of the history of måtte appeared in the Danish journal Mål & Mæle.

In addition, with my colleague Wim Caers (University of Antwerp), I carried out a small investigation of what we termed “independent” modals (e.g. West Frisian dat kin ‘that is possible’). We showed that this construction is found across several dialects of Dutch, Low German, and Frisian, i.e. the “coastal” West Germanic languages, and suggested that its distribution is likely due to historical contact between these languages.

During my time as a PhD candidate I also published a number of book reviews and review articles on topics relating to the history of English, modality, and historical linguistics more generally.

My dissertation can be downloaded from the University of Amsterdam or the Dutch graduate school LOT. If you would like a paper copy, please do not hesitate to send me an email.

Presentations

Title	Event	Date	Downloads
Historical variation in verbal constructions: Two case studies from West Germanic	ACLC Seminar, University of Amsterdam	15/11/19	slides handout
Wat mutt, dat mutt: ‘Independent’ modals in West Germanic vernaculars (with Wim Caers)	TABU-dag, University of Groningen	20/06/19	handout
How ‘can’ becomes ‘have to’: Middle Danish mughe and its West Germanic parallels	SØF 4, University of Cologne	12/06/19	handout
How ‘can’ becomes ‘have to’: Middle Danish mughe and its West Germanic parallels	Oudgermanistendag, University of Amsterdam	07/06/19	handout
Wat mutt, dat mutt: ‘Independent’ modals in West Germanic vernaculars	Language Description and Typology research group, University of Amsterdam	08/03/19
The meaning(s) of must in Middle English	ICOME XI, University of Florence	07/02/19	handout
The meaning(s) of must in Middle English	SLE 51, University of Tallinn	01/09/18	handout
Directionals and (de)grammaticalization in the Dutch modals (with Wim Caers, Olga Fischer, and Jan Nuyts)	SLE 51, University of Tallinn	29/08/18
The development of must from Old to Middle English – a progress report	Language Description and Typology research group, University of Amsterdam	25/05/18	handout
Dare and the ‘degrammaticalization’ debate – reappraising the evidence	SLE 50, University of Zurich	12/09/17	slides
Middle English impersonals in cross-linguistic perspective	English Research Seminar, University of Bamberg	29/06/17	slides
Germanic ‘courage’ modals: Form, function, and history	Linguistische Werkstatt, University of Bamberg	28/06/17	slides
Middle English impersonals in cross-linguistic perspective	Grammar and Cognition research group, University of Amsterdam	23/06/17
Impersonal modals in Middle English	SHES 15, University of Amsterdam	06/05/17	slides manuscript
Impersonal modals in Middle English	TWIST 11, University of Leiden	21/04/17	slides
Dare and the ‘degrammaticalization’ debate – reappraising the evidence	Grammatical Variation and Change in English, KU Leuven	04/04/17	slides
To dare larks: Analogy and interference in the English modals	SOEMEHL 38, University of Leiden	16/12/16	slides
To dare larks: Analogy and interference in the English modals	NAP-dag, University of Amsterdam	25/11/16	slides

Related publications

2023

Regularized modal verbs in Middle English dialects

Sune Gregersen

English Language and Linguistics, 2023

Abs Bib URL PDF

The article investigates an overlooked development in the history of the English modals, namely the regularization of their plural inflection in Middle English (e.g. PRS.IND.PL shulleþ for expected shullen). Using the LAEME and eLALME atlases and a number of electronic corpora, I document the frequency and dialectal distribution of such regularized modal verbs. It is shown that regularized SHALL was fairly common in Late Middle English, regularized CAN less so, and regularized MAY only very sporadically attested. The distribution of these forms shows a clear areal pattern, being most numerous in manuscripts from the southwest Midlands. I suggest that the most likely explanation for the observed patterns is interparadigmatic analogy with the ‘anomalous’ verb WILL, which in some dialects had developed the same stem vowel as plural SHALL.
@article{gregersen2023regmod, title = {Regularized modal verbs in Middle English dialects}, author = {Gregersen, Sune}, journal = {English Language and Linguistics}, volume = {27}, number = {1}, pages = {23--43}, year = {2023}, doi = {10.1017/S1360674322000053} }

2022

The meanings of Middle Danish mughe ‘can, may, must’

Sune Gregersen

In Three crowns and eleven Tears: East Norse philology from Cologne, 2022

Abs Bib PDF

This paper investigates the meaning of the modal verb mughe in four Late Middle Danish texts from the early 16th century. It is argued that the necessity meaning of mughe, which is still found in Modern Danish måtte, developed in ambiguous contexts where both possibility and necessity were possible readings. In addition, it is suggested that Late Middle Danish mughe is also attested with the meaning “prediction”, which may have played a role in the development of the necessity meaning.
@incollection{gregersen2022sof, title = {The meanings of Middle Danish mughe ‘can, may, must’}, author = {Gregersen, Sune}, booktitle = {Three crowns and eleven Tears: East Norse philology from Cologne}, editor = {Blode, Anja Ute and Brandenburg, Elena}, series = {Selskab for Østnordisk Filologi}, number = {4}, pages = {109--125}, year = {2022}, publisher = {Syddansk Universitetsforlag}, address = {Odense} }

2020

Early English modals: Form, function, and analogy

Sune Gregersen

2020

PhD dissertation, University of Amsterdam

Abs Bib URL PDF

This book concerns the early history of the English modals, in particular their morphosyntactic and semantic development in the Old English (c. AD 800–1100) and Middle English (c. AD 1100–1500) periods. The English modals have played an important role in both synchronic and diachronic linguistic work in the last decades, but a number of contested issues concerning their development remain unresolved. This dissertation attempts to answer some of the open questions through careful analysis of the extant Old and Middle English sources and comparison with other Germanic languages, such as Old Norse, Middle Danish, and Middle Dutch. The first part of the book provides a theoretical and methodological introduction to the study of the early English modals, the semantics of modality, and the historical corpora and other textual sources used for the investigation. The second part presents the investigation itself, which consists of four interconnected studies on the development of the modals, focussing on various morphological and syntactic developments in Middle English, the numerous changes to the ‘marginal’ modal DARE, and the semantic development of the ‘core’ modals CAN, MAY, and MUST. I pay particular attention to a number of changes which do not follow the predictions made in the grammaticalization literature, but which can be readily explained with reference to analogy.
@phdthesis{gregersen2020dissertation, title = {Early English modals: Form, function, and analogy}, author = {Gregersen, Sune}, series = {LOT Dissertation Series}, number = {579}, year = {2020}, institution = {University of Amsterdam}, address = {Amsterdam} }
Language death, modality, and functional explanations

Sune Gregersen

Acta Linguistica Hafniensia, 2020

Abs Bib URL PDF

The article is an in-depth review of Petar Kehayov’s monograph The Fate of Mood and Modality in Language Death: Evidence from Minor Finnic (De Gruyter Mouton, 2017). The book investigates the development of mood and modality in four moribund Finnic languages spoken in the Russian Federation: Votic, Ingrian, Central Lude, and Eastern Seto. After a detailed summary of the book, I discuss a number of issues relating to (a) the semantic map used to analyze the modal meanings; (b) the difference between language death-related changes and “regular” language change; and (c) the explanation of the observed patterns in terms of conceptual complexity. On the last point, I suggest that usage frequency may provide a better explanation for some of the observed changes.
@article{gregersen2020lgdeath, title = {Language death, modality, and functional explanations}, author = {Gregersen, Sune}, journal = {Acta Linguistica Hafniensia}, volume = {52}, number = {1}, pages = {117--143}, year = {2020}, doi = {10.1080/03740463.2020.1743582} }

Review of Elly van Gelderen, Analyzing syntax through texts (2018)

Sune Gregersen

Journal of Historical Syntax, 2020

Bib URL PDF

@article{gregersen2020review-evg,
  title = {Review of Elly van Gelderen, Analyzing syntax through texts (2018)},
  author = {Gregersen, Sune},
  journal = {Journal of Historical Syntax},
  volume = {4},
  number = {3},
  pages = {1--17},
  year = {2020},
  doi = {10.18148/hs/2020.v4i2.68},
}

2019

From ‘may’ to ‘must’ in late medieval Danish

Sune Gregersen

Linguistics in Amsterdam, 2019

Abs Bib URL PDF

The paper investigates the meanings of the modal verb MA/MÅ in late Middle Danish, specifically the language at the time of the Reformation in the early 16th century. The goal is to identify the patterns of polysemy between different modal meanings (dynamic, permission, optative, etc.) and to identify the contexts where the change from dynamic possibility (‘can, may’) to dynamic necessity (‘must, have to’) happened. It is argued that this change occurred in contexts where open possibility was reinterpreted as inevitability, possibly through an intermediate stage of ‘prediction’. The development of MA/MÅ is compared to the history of English must and its West Germanic cognates.
@article{gregersen2019maatte, title = {From ‘may’ to ‘must’ in late medieval Danish}, author = {Gregersen, Sune}, journal = {Linguistics in Amsterdam}, volume = {12}, numer = {1}, pages = {1--28}, year = {2019}, }
Wat mutt, dat mutt: ‘Independent’ modals in West Germanic vernaculars

Wim Caers, and Sune Gregersen

Nederlandse Taalkunde, 2019

Abs Bib URL PDF

The squib investigates the dialectal distribution of the Dutch construction type HET kan/mag/moet, lit. ‘it can/may/must’, where a modal verb occurs ‘independently’ with an eventive subject and no infinitival complement. The construction is shown to be widely attested not only in traditional dialects of Dutch, but also in Frisian, Low German, and Afrikaans. We suggest that the construction, which does not occur in standard German or English, is an areal feature shared by the West Germanic vernaculars of northwestern Germany and the Low Countries, including the South African ‘side branch’ Afrikaans.
@article{caers&gregersen2019modals, title = {Wat mutt, dat mutt: ‘Independent’ modals in West Germanic vernaculars}, author = {Caers, Wim and Gregersen, Sune}, journal = {Nederlandse Taalkunde}, volume = {24}, numer = {3}, pages = {399--417}, year = {2019}, doi = {10.5117/NEDTAA2019.3.005.CAER} }

Review of Anna Wojtyś, The non-surviving preterite-present verbs in English (2017)

Sune Gregersen

Anglia, 2019

Bib URL PDF

@article{gregersen2019review-wojtys,
  title = {Review of Anna Wojtyś, The non-surviving preterite-present verbs in English (2017)},
  author = {Gregersen, Sune},
  journal = {Anglia},
  volume = {137},
  number = {1},
  pages = {163--167},
  year = {2019},
  doi = {10.1515/ang-2019-0012},
}

2018

Some (critical) questions for diachronic construction grammar

Sune Gregersen

Folia Linguistica Historica, 2018

Abs Bib URL PDF

The paper critically reviews a recent volume on Diachronic Construction Grammar. It is argued that a more convincing case for the diachronic construction grammar approach could have been made by more explicitly comparing it to other approaches to historical linguistics, and that a number of central notions, such as “constructionalization”, are not applied consistently throughout the volume. In addition, an analysis of the constructionalization of English BE going to presented in the volume is examined and shown not to be supported by the Early Modern English data.
@article{gregersen2018dcxg, title = {Some (critical) questions for diachronic construction grammar}, author = {Gregersen, Sune}, journal = {Folia Linguistica Historica}, volume = {39}, number = {2}, pages = {341--360}, year = {2018}, doi = {10.1515/flih-2018-0012} }

2017

‘To dare larks’ in Early Modern English

Sune Gregersen

Notes and Queries, 2017

Bib URL PDF

@article{gregersen2017larks,
  title = {‘To dare larks’ in Early Modern English},
  author = {Gregersen, Sune},
  journal = {Notes and Queries},
  volume = {64},
  number = {4},
  pages = {537--540},
  year = {2017},
}

The status of Old English dare revisited

Sune Gregersen

Studia Anglica Posnaniensia, 2017

Abs Bib URL PDF

The development of dare in the history of English has played an important role in the literature on grammatical change and (de)grammaticalization. This paper aims to clarify two issues regarding the syntax and semantics of dare in earlier English: when it is first attested with to-infinitives, and to what extent it can be said to have been semantically ‘bleached’ in a number of Old English attestations. The conclusions are, firstly, that dare is not attested with to-infinitives in Old English (pace Tomaszewska 2014), and that a number of Middle English attestations that have been suggested in the literature are not convincing (pace Visser 1963–73; Beths 1999; Molencki 2005). Secondly, it is argued that the co-occurrence of dare and verbs like gedyrstlæcan ‘venture, be bold, presume’ in Old English is not an indication of semantic ‘bleaching’ of dare, and that the verb was not more ‘auxiliarized’ in Old English than it is today.
@article{gregersen2017oedare, title = {The status of Old English dare revisited}, author = {Gregersen, Sune}, journal = {Studia Anglica Posnaniensia}, volume = {52}, number = {3}, pages = {325--343}, year = {2017}, doi = {10.1515/stap-2017-0012} }

2016

Middle English willen and the perfect infinitive

Sune Gregersen

In From variation to iconicity: Festschrift for Olga Fischer on the occasion of her 65th birthday, 2016

Bib PDF

@incollection{gregersen2016will,
  title = {Middle English willen and the perfect infinitive},
  author = {Gregersen, Sune},
  booktitle = {From variation to iconicity: Festschrift for Olga Fischer on the occasion of her 65th birthday},
  editor = {Bannink, Anne and Honselaar, Wim},
  pages = {129--139},
  year = {2016},
  publisher = {Pegasus},
  address = {Amsterdam}
}