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Antwerp Papers in Linguistics ANTWERP PAPERS IN LINGUISTICS 113 The diachrony of Dutch mogen Pieter Byloo and Jan Nuyts Center for Grammar, Cognition and Typology University of Antwerp 2011 ISSN 0776-3859 © Copyright 2011 – Pieter Byloo and Jan Nuyts No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microprint, or any other means, without written permission from the author. Uit deze uitgave mag niets worden gereproduceerd d.m.v. boekdruk, foto-offset, microfilm, of welk ander medium dan ook zonder schriftelijke toestemming van de auteur. Acknowledgements This research was supported by an IAP VI project on ‘Grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification’ (IAP P6/44, Department for Science Policy, Belgian Federal Government), and by an FWO-Flanders project on ‘The diachrony of Dutch modal expressions’ (G.0443.07). Thanks are due to Liesbeth Bex and Ewa Fiuk for their help in the semantic and grammatical analyses of the of the data for mogen used in this study. Table of contents 0 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 7 1 Preliminaries ......................................................................................................................... 9 1.0 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 9 1.1 Grammaticalization ............................................................................................................. 9 1.2 (Inter)subjectification ........................................................................................................ 11 1.3 The definition of the semantic categories ......................................................................... 13 2 Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 25 2.0 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 25 2.1 Corpus design ................................................................................................................... 25 2.2 Analytical categories ......................................................................................................... 31 2.3 Statistical methods ............................................................................................................ 37 3 Results and discussion ........................................................................................................ 39 3.0 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 39 3.1 Morphological en morphosyntactic changes .................................................................... 39 3.1.1 Changes in the word form and the flectional categories ................................................... 39 3.1.2 Changes in the morphosyntactic status ............................................................................. 42 3.1.3 Conclusions with respect to the morphological and morphosyntactic changes ................ 45 3.2 Semantic and semantic-syntactic developments ............................................................... 46 3.2.1 The general meaning development (question 1) ............................................................... 46 3.2.2 The role of the subject/first argument in the meaning development (questions 3/4) ........ 62 3.2.2.1 The frequency of mogen in passive clauses .................................................................. 62 3.2.2.2 The subject in active clauses ......................................................................................... 64 3.2.2.2.1 Person and number .................................................................................................... 64 3.2.2.2.2 Animacy .................................................................................................................... 67 3.2.2.2.3 Semantic function ..................................................................................................... 70 3.2.2.3 The subject and first argument in passive clauses ........................................................ 73 3.2.2.3.1 Person and number of the passive subject ................................................................ 73 3.2.2.3.2 Animacy of the passive subject ................................................................................. 76 3.2.2.3.3 Semantic function of the passive subject and first argument .................................... 76 3.2.3 The role of the type of state of affairs (question 5) ........................................................... 78 3.2.4 The role of the clause type (question 6) ............................................................................ 80 3.2.4.1 Main clause or subordinate clause ................................................................................ 80 3.2.4.2 Mood of the main clause ............................................................................................... 81 3.2.5 The role of negation (question 7) ...................................................................................... 83 3.2.6 Tense and time reference (question 8) .............................................................................. 85 3.2.6.1 The tense of mogen ....................................................................................................... 85 3.2.6.2 The presence of a perfective auxiliary .......................................................................... 89 3.2.6.3 The presence of a future auxiliary ................................................................................ 90 3.2.6.4 Time reference of the state of affairs ............................................................................ 91 3.2.7 Conclusions with respect to the semantic and semantic-syntactic developments ............. 93 4 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 95 References ........................................................................................................................................ 97 Appendix ........................................................................................................................................ 101 0 Introduction This monograph presents an empirical, corpus-based, analysis of the diachronic evolution of the Dutch modal auxiliary mogen ‘may’. It is actually one part of an elaborate investigation into the diachronic evolution – with major focus on the semantic developments – in a representative part of the system of modal expressions in Dutch, covering the full range of major expressive devices in that language, i.e. not only auxiliaries, but also adverbs, adjectives, and full verbs. The aim of this wider project is, on one hand, to reflect on current thinking about the processes of grammaticalization (Hopper and Traugott 2003) and, especially, (inter)subjectification (Traugott and Dasher 2002), this time not from the perspective of a single form (as is usually the case in the literature) but from the perspective of a full semantic system in a language. On the other hand, the goal is to see what new light insights into the diachronic relations between the different modal (and other) meanings can throw on the analysis of the semantics of modality (cf. Nuyts 2005, 2006). Since these theoretical aims mainly depend on the analysis of the full range of modal forms, however, the present study will predominantly focus on the presentation of the empirical facts regarding the development of mogen, and only to a lesser extent on the theoretical implications. An earlier study which is part of the same wider project is the diachronic analysis of the auxiliary kunnen ‘can’, initially reported in Van Ostaeyen and Nuyts (2004), and in a revised and adapted form in Nuyts (2007). For the sake of comparability, the presentation of the data and the analyses in the present study follows roughly the same pattern as in Van Ostaeyen and Nuyts (2004).1 Chapter 1 presents some crucial definitions and surveys the relevant literature. Chapter 2 explains the methodology. Chapter 3 then offers a detailed analysis and discussion of the data. Chapter 4, finally, draws some conclusions. 1 All individual forms involved in the wider project are of course investigated in a fully parallel fashion, using the same corpus outline and analytical categories, in order to ascertain mutual comparability. The presentation of kunnen in Van Ostaeyen and Nuyts (2004) and Nuyts (2007) did not include the facts for Old Dutch and for spoken Present Day Dutch yet, although the latter are part of the basic outline of the investigation of the different modal forms (see section 2.1 below), and will be included in our present analysis of mogen. (In the mean time these missing stages have been analyzed for kunnen as well and will be reported on another occasion.) 1 Preliminaries 1.0 Introduction In this chapter, we will first address briefly (our concept of) two notions that will be central in our analysis of the diachronic development of mogen ‘may’, viz., grammaticalization, as a process of structural change (section 1.1.), and (inter)subjectification, as a process of semantic change (section 1.2). Then we will define the various meanings and uses that will figure in our analysis of mogen (section
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