[Empirical Approaches to Language Typology [EALT]] Modals in the Languages of Europe (A Reference Work) || 16. Concluding chapter: modal constructions in the languages of Europe

16. Concluding chapter: modal constructions in the languages of Europe

Björn Hansen and Ferdinand de Haan

"Mögen hätt' ich schon wollen, aber dürfen hab ich mich nicht getraut."

(Karl Valentin) 1. ‘Modals’ as a cross-linguistic construction type As emerges from the individual chapters there are diverging traditions in the treatment of modals in the linguistic descriptions of the individual languages. The tradition can even diverge between closely related languages such as Slovak and Polish. The term ‘modal’ is well established in Germanic linguistics and one finds special chapters about ‘modals’ or ‘modal verbs’ in every handbook of English, Danish, Dutch or German grammar. The same holds for the Balto-Finnic languages. In the gramma-tical descriptions of e.g. Russian and Greek, however, modals usually do not show up as a class sui generis; they are not treated as grammatical markers and are, thus, assigned to the lexicon. Most authors of our book note that it is difficult to draw a sharp line between modals and non-modals. Kehayov and Torn-Leesik (this volume) characterise the situation in Fennistics by pointing out that ‘the number of verbs included in the class of modal verbs within one language varies in different descriptions.

The present volume contains a large amount of data, which makes it possible to draw some conclusions concerning the features of modals from a cross-linguistic perspective. The point of departure for our study was the working hypothesis that modals are polyfunctional word-like expressions of modality which are in a process of grammaticalisation (see introduction). We understand the notion ‘modality’ in a relatively narrow sense, including only necessity, obligation, possibility, permission, probability and volition and excluding discussion of such topics as evidentiality and (ir)realis. In the following we are going to develop the hypothesis that modals form a cross-linguistic category identifiable by its specific semantics and its typical morphosyntactic mode of expression. We will try to show that all European languages have constructions at their

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512 Björn Hansen and Ferdinand de Haan

disposal which can be captured by a cluster of gradable semantic, morphological and syntactic features. If all of these features are developed to a high degree (in one construction) we speak of a fully-fledged or central modal: A fully-fledged modal is a polyfunctional, syntactically autonomous

expression of modality which shows a certain degree of grammaticalisation. ‘Polyfunctional’ is understood as covering a domain within the semantic space of modality. A fully-fledged modal functions as an operator on the predicational and/or the propositional level of the clause.

Modals represent conventionalised multidimensional pairings of form and function and can therefore be treated as a construction type in the sense of Construction Grammar (e.g. Goldberg 2003). In the following we shall use the terms modal and modal construction (henceforth ModCxn) interchangeably. The category is based on prototypicality, i.e. it is not defined by means of a set of discrete necessary and sufficient properties, but by a cluster of gradable attributes. Such a category has fuzzy boundaries and can overlap with neighbouring categories. In a prototypically structured category not every member is equally representative; there are central or core and peripheral members. The data presented in this book clearly show that modals form categories with fuzzy boundaries. Our treatment of the category modals allows for a certain degree of structural heterogeneity, i.e. in the individual languages, the category can contain structurally different elements. The idea of modals as a graded category containing various subcategories is in line with the traditional treatment in English linguistics. Note, however, that the distinction we make between ‘fully-fledged’ (or ‘central’) and ‘peripheral modals’ is not identical to the contrast ‘central vs. marginal modal’ used in English linguistics to distinguish between must and ought to, for instance, must being the central modal, ought to the marginal one (e.g. Quirk et al. 1985: 137).1 The latter distinction is based on the presence or lack of the language-specific formal features associated with modals in English (so called NICE properties and others)2. In our definition both must and ought to would be ‘central modals’, since ought to shows clear signs of grammaticalisation: it is polyfunctional (deontic and epistemic meaning) and shows the morphosyntactic behaviour of an auxiliary, although it does not share all of the morphosyntactic features of the modals of the type must and can.

Whereas modality as a functional domain can safely be assumed to be a universal concept, modals as specific morphosyntactic means of expression


Modal constructions in the languages of Europe 513

of modal notions are to be treated as a typologically relevant, but not as a universal category. In our sample we found one language in which modals seem to have appeared only recently due to language contact (the Berber language Taqbaylit), and cases of languages lacking modals completely are reported in the linguistic literature. There are languages where modality is expressed by irrealis morphemes, and not by separate words. This happens in Haruai (Comrie 1991) and other Papua New Guinean languages and also to a high degree in Berber. On the other hand, modals are not a specific European category, as they are also found outside of Europe (see section 6 for details).

Modals share features with neighbouring categories, i.e. with lexical expressions on the one hand, and with modal affixes on the other hand. They differ from both lexical elements and affixes in their hybrid nature: they are morphologically more or less autonomous words and fulfil grammatical functions, a property usually associated with auxiliaries. The point of departure of our considerations is the observation that modals seem to vacillate between the status of lexical and grammatical elements. Heine (1993) and Anderson (2006) try to grasp this oscillating nature of auxiliaries by locating them on a grammaticalisation chain extending from lexical verbs to fully fledged inflectional markers. Heine defines auxiliaries as “linguistic items covering some range of uses along the Verb-to-T(ense)A(spect)M(odality) chain” (ibid. 70). An auxiliary “is no longer a fully lexical item, but not yet a grammatical inflection either, and it is likely to exhibit properties that are characteristic of the intermediate stages between fully lexical items and inflectional forms” (ibid, 86). According to this understanding, there are no necessary and sufficient features constituting a category of auxiliaries or modals as categories sui generis. In contrast to Heine’s and Anderson’s view, we postulate that modals constitute a sort of a focal point on a grammaticalisation chain which, however, does not go in the direction of the emergence of inflectional markers. Our data show that modals tend to become morphologically defective, but they usually do retain their word status. We found several instances of the transition into an uninflected element (e.g. Greek prepi, or Albanian mund); i.e. modals can acquire a particle-like form, but rarely agglutinate to the modified verb. There is no language in Europe with a class of modals comprising a closed set of elements. In all languages modals form classes with a small core and a ‘fuzzy’ periphery overlapping with neighbouring categories. This also holds for the Germanic languages, which are unique in that the majority of modals show a dedicated morphological and morphosyntactic marking. We find elements which



share only some, but not all features characteristic of that class; e.g. the borderline cases of the so called ‘emerging modals’ in English (Krug 2000) or Danish turde ‘to dare’ (see the chapter by Mortelmans, Boye, and van der Auwera). Both would be treated as peripheral modals in our framework. This fuzziness of the category also explains the heterogeneous treatment of modals e.g. in the descriptions of the Balto-Finnic languages (see above).

After having discussed the internal structure of the category, we can proceed to semantics. Semantic polyfunctionality is understood in relation to the universal semantic map of modality: an element is polyfunctional iff it covers more than one primitive function within the map (for the terms function and domain see de Haan 2005).3 Modals are expressions of modality which can be distinguished from purely lexical elements with modal meaning like English possibility or Hungarian szükségszer ‘necessary’ by their polyfunctionality which is the result of semantic shifts typical of a grammaticalisation process. One frequently distinguishes between three types of modality: dynamic, deontic and epistemic modality. In all European languages, it is possible to distinguish polyfunctional modals from lexical content words with modal meaning, i.e., words which are not subject to an auxiliarisation process and which have only one modal meaning; compare the Polish core modal móc ‘can’ and the modal content word potrafi ‘to be capable’ The former can express either ‘capacity’ (dynamic), ‘objective possibility’ (dynamic), ‘permission’ (deontic) or ‘perhaps’ (epistemic), while the latter is confined to ‘capacity’. Grammatical polyfunctionality may extend beyond modality, i.e. may reach into functions which following van der Auwera and Plungian (1998) can be called postmodal meanings like evidentiality or tense (e.g. Danish skal, English shall). Hence, polyfunctionality turns out to be a crucial feature distinguishing modals from lexical elements. This does not preclude modals from having additional lexical meanings; e.g. the Hungarian modal kell ‘must’ is a polyfunctional expression of modality which shows only few traces of grammaticalisation on the morphological and syntactic level and which at the same time is used in the lexical sense ‘to be needed’ (see the chapter by Körtvély). Kell still has many features of a lexical verb and should therefore be assigned to the first stages of the grammaticalisation chain which implies its status as a peripheral modal. In contrast to that, Greek bori ‘can’ is highly polyfunctional in the domain of modality and has no additional lexical meanings. These cases illustrate that modals vary in respect to their position on the content word > modal-chain. Greek bori covers later stages on the grammaticalisation chain.



Modals may share this polyfunctionality with modal affixes like the Hungarian potential –hAt or the Latvian debitive j -. What distinguishes them is the morphological form: whereas affixes are fixed to the verbal stem, modals retain a certain degree of independence in relation to the verb they modify. In this respect, they share morphological features with lexical elements (on the morphology of modals see sections 3.2 and 3.5).

For capturing the function of modals in the sentence, we adopt the notion of operators as proposed in functional syntactic models. In this sense, modals are characterised as operators on the predicational and/or on the propositional level of the clause. If the modal has a dynamic or deontic meaning it works on the level of the predication and helps to locate the state of affairs in a real or imaginary world. In the case of epistemic meanings the modal functions on the higher level of the proposition as one of the means through which the speaker specifies his attitude towards the truth of the proposition. It is important to note that we do not ascribe to the view that modals imply the subordination of a verbal complement encoded in a non-finite form. Neither do we assume that modals have to carry TAM-marking and agreement with the subject (cf. also Anderson 2006 passim). As a matter of fact, the syntactic homogeneity found in English is very rare and modals in the individual languages tend to be used in various syntactic surroundings. As Elšík and Matras show in their analysis of modals in Romani dialects, modals of one and the same language can form a bewildering variety of morphosyntactic constructions.4 This language- specific variation depends on the inventory of syntactic templates available in the individual languages. Almost all Modal Constructions show features associated with clause linkage; features typical of bi-clausal sentences are e.g. the use of non-finite forms of the lexical verb as in Germanic or the presence of a complementiser as in the languages of the Balkan area. Other modals, however, occur without complementisers and behave like serial verbs or particles. This leads us to the conclusion that modals cannot be identified by syntactic dependency relations. We shall deal with the question of syntactic and semantic scope relations in section 3.4.



2. Distribution of modals and modal affixes in Europe There are two main ways in which modality has been grammaticalised in the languages of Europe: either as modal verbs or as modal affixes. There are other ways, such as modal particles, but they fall outside the scope of the paper, as they are rarely polyfunctional. Grammatical mood has also been omitted (except in conjunction with modal elements), as this warrants a separate study. We have included modal adverbs/adjectives (or even nouns, as in Basque behar ‘need’), as they can be polyfunctional and together with auxiliary (sometimes called ‘light’) verbs form ModCxns. This section surveys the distribution of modals, ModCxns and modal affixes. We can see a strong areal distribution here. ModCxns can be found all over Europe. Modals are of course best known from the Germanic and Romance language families, but they are found in most language families discussed in this volume, the notable exceptions being the Berber and Turkic families, as well as Basque. That is not to say that modal verbs behave the same in all languages, for there are striking differences from language to language with respect to selectional criteria and degrees of grammaticalisation. We will come back to these differences in section 3 below. Some examples of modal verbs are: (1) English John must go to school. (2) French

On doit attendre. one/we must.PRS.3SG wait.INF ‘We must wait.’ (3) Maltese jista’ jkun ma niftakar=x can.IPFV3M.SG be.IPFV3M.SG NEG remember.IPFV1SG-NEG

‘I might forget’ (4) Finnish

Sinun täytyy nukkua. you.GEN must.3SG sleep.INF ‘You must sleep.’



ModCxns with adjectives or adverbs (or nouns) can be found in many language families as well, but they seem most prevalent (most grammaticalised) in Slavonic. They can be found in Celtic, Baltic, Basque and Albanian as well. (5) Albanian

Në rregull, mund të largohesh. in order can COMP leave:PRS.PASS.2SG ‘Okay, you can (may) leave.’

(6) Irish B’ éigean dom be-PST necessity for.me ‘I had to’

(7) Russian Ivan dolžen byl rabotat’. Ivan.NOM must.SG.M be-PST work-INF ‘Ivan had to work.’ Modal affixes are prevalent in the eastern part of Europe. It is not always easy to distinguish between modal affixes and mood, but we adopt de Haan’s (2006) heuristic that modal affixes are never obligatory, while mood generally is (see also section 3.3 on paradigmatic variability for a discussion on obligatoriness).

Among the languages analysed in the present study the following ones have modal affixes: a) Balto-Finnic language family: Finnish, Karelian, Votic, Ingrian, and possibly Livonian; b) Turkic language family: Turkish, Gagauz, Azeri, Uzbek, c) Hungarian and d) Latvian (see map 1). It seems that modal affixes are typical of agglutinating languages located in the Eastern part of the European linguistic area and less typical of the Indo-European languages. The only Indo-European language with a modal affix is Latvian which is known to have been under considerable influence from Balto-Finnic languages. However, note that the modal affix is prefixal rather than suffixal. (8) Finnish sano-ne-t say-POT-2SG ‘You can say.’



(9) Turkish ben yüz-e-me-m

I swim-CVB-NEG.POT-1SG ‘I can’t swim.’

(10) Hungarian Ebbe a házba akárki bejö-het. this.ILLAT the house.ILLAT anybody come.in-POT.3SG ‘Anybody is allowed to come into this house.’ (11) Latvian Tev mani j -pavada.

you.DAT me.ACC DEB.accompany ‘You must accompany me.’

Map 1. Areal distribution of modal affixes



3. The grammaticalisation of modals in the languages of Europe In this section we will discuss the ways in which modals and ModCxns have been grammaticalised in the languages of Europe. We do this by discussing the parameters established by Lehmann (2002, originally 1981). There are six parameters: three paradigmatic ones and three syntagmatic ones. As we shall see, not all of these parameters are equally important, but all of them do tell us something about the grammaticalisation of modals and the nature of grammaticalisation in general.

3.1. Integrity: semantic sources and erosion The integrity of a sign is “its possession of a certain substance which allows it to maintain its identity, its distinctness from other signs, and grants it a certain prominence in contrast to other signs in the syntagm.” (Lehmann 2002:112). There are two subtypes: phonological integrity and semantic integrity. Phonological integrity concerns the reduction of phonological words and a reduction of words into affixes. This does not seem to play a big role in the area of modals: in most of the languages of Europe, main verbs that take on modal meanings do not lose their word status, nor do they develop a different phonology in their modal meanings from their main verb meanings. The only exceptions seem to be English will > ‘ll, and will not > won’t, although that is mostly used as a future marker (note that modals such as must, can and may are not reduced, but any material that is attached to these modals reduces, viz. must have > musta). Also, Breu notes that Albanian modals like mund ‘can’ are reduced in the Geg dialects. The Hungarian modal affix –hAt, which comes from the full verb hat ‘to get further’, may fit in here as well (Körtvely, this volume), but even though a main verb is turned into an affix, there does not seem to be any phonological reduction of the stem. Morphological reduction does seem to play a role, and it will be discussed in the next two sections.

Apart from these cases, it seems that phonological reduction is not a factor in modals and hence that any theory that states that modal affixes are formed from modal verbs are not supported by the data from European languages.

Semantic integrity deals with ways in which the linguistic sign adds new, more grammaticalised (and hence more abstract) layers of meaning and sheds old ones. This process is usually referred to as bleaching or



desemanticisation. In the case of modals it means that a modal element adds the abstract meanings of possibility, ability and necessity (or, even more abstractly, the meanings of weak and strong deontic, dynamic and epistemic modality), and loses its original main verb meaning (referred to by van der Auwera and Plungian 1998 as the premodal meaning). This has happened with the core modals in Germanic, where, for instance, the original meaning of English may, ‘to be strong or able, to have power’, has long since been lost. However, in most of the languages surveyed, the modal meanings of possibility and necessity are added to the original, main verb meanings. This means that there is no bleaching of original meanings, but rather a layering of meaning. Such layering can be found in many European languages. One example from Balto-Finnic is the verb saada which has a premodal meaning of ‘to get’ and a variety of modal meanings. In Estonian there are five (Kehayov and Torn-Leesik, this volume, using the terminology of van der Auwera and Plungian 1998): (a) participant-internal, (b) participant-external non-deontic possibility, (c) deontic possibility, (d) epistemic possibility, (e) participant-external non-deontic necessity. Some of these are more common than others, but the example shows that it is possible for a modal to add meanings without shedding its premodal meaning. A striking case is the Hungarian affix –hAt, which comes from the (still extant) main verb hat ‘to get further’ > ‘to affect’. In a previous stage of Hungarian there was an auxiliary verb hat ‘to be able’ which is now lost and the affix can only express various types of possibility, but not, apparently, ability. This means that we are dealing with layering, but also with bleaching, although not of the premodal meaning, but of a dynamic meaning. This could be seen as a case in which an intermediate step is lost: from the grammaticalisation path “premodal > ability > possession” it is the intermediate step that is lost.

The fact that modals can layer without bleaching means that the Germanic and Romance cases, in which bleaching of modals has taken place, is atypical for the languages of Europe. Cases like Hungarian and Balto-Finnic show that bleaching is not a necessary component of grammaticalisation.5

There are many ways in which main verbs acquire modal meanings. We will now look at some paths that have been attested in more than one language family (for examples see the individual chapters).

‘want’ > ‘need’ > ‘must’. This path is attested in Hungarian, Balto-

Finnic, Arabic and Romance, among others.



‘possession’ > ‘must’. This can be seen in Slavonic, Germanic, Romance, Baltic, Arabic and Hungarian.

‘strength’ > ‘power’ > ‘possibility’. This is found in Baltic, Slavonic, Germanic and Albanian.

‘get’ > ‘possibility’. This is the category of ‘acquisitive’ modals (see van der Auwera, Kehayov, and Vittrant in print). It is attested in Irish, Balto-Finnic and Icelandic.6

‘know’ > ‘can’ > ‘possibility’. This is found in Hungarian and Arabic.

3.2. Paradigmaticity

The parameter of Paradigmaticity refers to “the formal and semantic integration both of a paradigm as a whole and of a single subcategory into the paradigm of its generic category”. Furthermore, “the members of the paradigm [must be] linked to each other by clear-cut paradigmatic relations, especially opposition and complementarity” (Lehmann 2002: 118). So, in order to ascertain whether modal elements form a paradigm, we need to look for formal criteria for paradigmaticity.

Such criteria may be of two types: morphological and (morpho)syntactic. They may be language-specific or language family- specific, and only if there are no formal criteria available should semantic criteria be used. That is, if we cannot find morphological or morpho-syntactic evidence for a distinct category of “modal” in a given language, we are left with defining the category on semantic grounds, which means that the category of modals in that language will be diverse morphologically or syntactically.

For morphological criteria we can identify three possible ways to set modals apart from other verbs: they have a unique morphology, they have a defective morphology, or they have impersonal morphology.

The unique morphology is attested in the Germanic languages. The core modals are derived from preterite-present verbs. Their verbal inflection is not defective in any way, but is due to historical developments in the verbal system. This has other implications as well, as the preterite-present verbs do not require an infinitive marker, unlike other auxiliaries, see below.

Defective morphology can be seen in those languages in which modals have lost their non-finite morphology. That is, modal verbs are no longer able to have infinite and participial forms. This is attested in a number of European languages, including English, of course, but also in Irish



(McQuillan, this volume). In Albanian, the strong modal duhet has two options: either it is inflected only for tense, in which case it governs the subjunctive or it is fully inflected, and it then governs the past participle. In Baltic (Holvoet, this volume) infinitival forms do occur, but are rare, a fact that may point to an ongoing development toward the loss of non-finite morphology.

The other way in which a modal may show defective morphology is by loss of morphological distinctions within a paradigm. This happens for instance in Dutch, where the second person present tense is either formed by adding a –t (as is normal for Dutch verbs), or it has a zero ending, like the other singular forms. This only happens with modal verbs, and only with the preterite-presents. This development could be seen as a kind of paradigm regularisation, or it could be linked to other factors, such as a differentiation between epistemic and deontic modality. This regularisation does not seem to happen in German or Danish.

Finally, a modal may become used only impersonally, that is, there is one dedicated verb form (e.g. the third person singular) that is used for all persons (and tenses). The verb may also still be used with personal forms but with different modal meanings. This is for instance the case with Estonian pidama ‘must’, which has personal endings for deontic modality while epistemic modality is limited to the third person Conditional and Imperfective. Also, Greek boro can be used both personally and impersonally, yielding different interpretations. Only the impersonal form can express epistemic modality, for instance. (12) Greek Bori/*Borun na ir an. can-3SG/can-3PL COMP came-3PL ‘They may have arrived.’ On the other hand, the personal forms are favoured for agent-oriented deontic modality: (13) Boris/?Bori na psifisis an ise 18. can-2SG/can-3SG COMP vote-2SG if be-2SG 18 ‘You can vote if you are 18.’ Finally, a modal may become fixed, at which point it is indistinguishable from a modal adverb (such as English maybe, from [it] may be [that] …) or the Finnish form lie- which is reanalysed as a member of a non-inflectional class.



The difference between personal and impersonal has implications for the syntagmatic criteria as well, see section 3.4 below.

As far as the (morpho)syntactic criteria for determining paradigmaticity are concerned, we are obviously dealing with language-specific criteria. Criteria that have been used to set modals apart from other (auxiliary) verbs include (for details the reader is referred to the individual chapters):

English: The NICE properties Germanic: The possibility of combining modal verbs with

an infinitive marker Cont. W. Germanic The Infinitivus Pro Participio construction (IPP) Romance: Cliticisation phenomena Greek: Constraint against co-occurrence of particles Balto-Finnic Atypical marking of the actor in impersonal

constructions General: Loss of subcategorisation frames (which goes

together with semantic bleaching see 3.1 above) In general, in paradigms, members tend to exclude each other. However, in most cases it seems to be possible for modals to co-occur if they express a different type of modality. Lehmann (2002:118) also mentions as evidence for paradigmaticity the “sheer size of the paradigm” (although it is a “superficial aspect”). In that respect we may not be looking at paradigmaticisation, given that in many cases we are not dealing with a particularly large “paradigm”. For instance, in many languages there are few grammaticalised modals (Modern Greek, Albanian and French, to name but few). In other languages the paradigm may be larger (i.e. there are many modal verbs or ModCxns, as is the case in Germanic and Balto-Finnic), but in those cases there is free variation, something which goes against the notion of a paradigm. Lehmann (2002:120) also points out that paradigmaticity is often invoked in traditional grammars by giving a name to a category. In the present case in many grammars of the languages under discussion it is possible to find a category of “modal verbs”, which would point to a degree of paradigmaticity. However, as discussed in many of the papers in the present volume, this category is usually defined on semantic rather than paradigmatic grounds. Finally, it is noted that paradigmaticity usually implies exclusion. That is, items belonging to the same paradigm cannot co-occur. However, with



very few exceptions (English modal verbs and the Greek particles), ModCxns can co-occur if they express a different type of modality. 3.3. Paradigmatic variability Paradigmatic variability “is the freedom with which the language user chooses a sign” (Lehmann 2002:123). In the context of ModCxns this means that the speaker faces a restriction of choice based on some criterion or another. If choice is fully restricted, we are dealing with obligatorification (Lehmann 2002:124). Paradigmatic variation does not seem to play a big role in the area of modals and ModCxns. In most cases, the choice of a ModCxn is not restricted in any way. It is normally up to the speaker which modal s/he chooses. However, there are a number of ways in which some level of restriction can be observed.

There are some modals that require that the subject of the modality is animate. We find this mainly in languages of Eastern Europe, e.g. Estonian and Slavonic. The Estonian verb tule ‘must’, is incompatible with inanimate subjects, and instead the verb pea must be used. (14) Estonian a. Müts pea-b peas olema. cap must(=hold)-3SG head-INE be.INF ‘A cap must be worn.’ b. *Mütsil tule-b peas olla. cap-ADE must(=come)-3SG head-INE be.INF ‘A cap must be worn.’ (Uuspõld 1989: 475) The same is true for Russian, where the modal adverb nado is only used with animate subjects. If the subject is inanimate, then dolžen must be used. (15) Russian a. Kniga dolžna byt’ perevedena. book-NOM.SG must-SG.F be-INF translate-PTCP-SG.F ‘The book should be translated.’

b.*Knige nado byt’ perevedenoj. book-DAT.SG must be-INF translate-PTCP-INS.SG.F ‘The book should be translated.’



This restriction can disappear over time, of course. In early Irish, the verbs féad and caith take only human (or animate) subjects, but in Modern Irish there is no restriction on the nature of the subject.

These are clearly cases of restriction of choice. There is, as can be seen, in these languages always a modal or ModCxn available to express the same level of modality if the subject is inanimate. Such restrictions do not lead to gaps in the paradigm.

Within Germanic, a number of factors can be determined that restrict choice, but these do not lead to gaps in the paradigm either. In Dutch, and German, and (to a maybe lesser degree) Danish and Icelandic non-finite forms of the modals are associated with deontic modality only. If one wishes to express epistemic modality, then a finite form must be chosen (deontic modals may be finite or non-finite).7

The only place in which we can see true obligatorification is in Greek, where the particles na, as and tha have become grammaticalised. That is, in Tsangalidis’ analysis (this volume), these particles covary according to tense-aspect and modality. The modal verbs prepi and boro / bori, however, are not restricted in any way, as they can co-occur. Based on these considerations we have to agree with our contributors that paradigmatic variability is not very important in the area of modals and ModCxns. There is always a way in which modality can be expressed with any possible syntactic or semantic criterion. 3.4. Syntactic scope – condensation The structural scope of a unit is the structural size of the construction which it helps to form (Lehmann 2002: 128). From a semanto-syntactic point of view, modals are characterised as operators on the predicational and/or on the propositional level of the clause. In the following we shall show how this semantic function finds its expression on the morphosyntactic level. Our point of departure will be the assumption that ModCxns are the result of a grammaticalisation process leading to the far reaching condensation of two clauses into a single one. Our understanding of the syntactic nature of ModCxns shares features with Anderson’s approach to the syntax of auxiliary verb constructions which he defines as ‘mono-clausal structure[s] minimally consisting of a lexical verb element that contributes lexical content to the construction and an auxiliary verb element that contributes some grammatical or functional content to the construction’ (Anderson 2006: 7). Our approach to ModCxns, however,



differs from Anderson’s view in two significant respects. First, we claim that ModCxns are located on a continuum between bi-clausal and mono-clausal structures and second, we do not assume that modals are necessarily derived from verbal elements and therefore we allow for adjectival and adverbial-like modals. In the following, we will describe the ‘structural size’ of the ModCxns in terms of the mechanisms of clause linkage. According to Lehmann (1988) tight clause linkage is based on the interlacing of elements shared by the two predicative elements which leads to the desententialisation of a clause, and the explicitness of the linking. The mechanism of interlacing is relevant if we have a look at the syntactic encoding of the subject argument within the ModCxn and at the question of which of the markers indicating agreement with the subject – i.e. number, gender etc. – are shared. The same holds for the sharing of the grammatical operators tense, aspect and mood. The second parameter concerns the overt marking of the linkage between the two predicative elements. This is usually done by connectors, in the case of ModCxns by complementisers.

The data show that modals can appear in different morphosyntactic sur-roundings depending on the language-specific inventory of constructions. Generalizing the morphosyntactic typologies of ModCxns developed on the basis of Romani and Slavonic (this volume), we propose that ModCxns in the languages of Europe vary with respect to the following features:

i) the syntactic encoding of the subject argument, ii) assignment of the subject agreement marking to the modal and/or the

main verb, iii) TAM marking on the modal and/or the main verb, iv) presence or absence of an auxiliary or light verb, v) presence or absence of a complementiser. 3.4.1. The syntactic encoding of the subject argument The encoding of the subject is a feature which depends on the inventory of subject constructions available in each language. As we cannot possibly offer even an approximate account of possible subject constructions in the languages of Europe we will restrict ourselves to some basic observations. In our understanding, ModCxns with a certain degree of grammaticalisa-tion usually contain only one subject. We do find modal elements which allow for complex sentences with different subjects, however. These modals display a low degree of condensation and are to be located at the



lexical end of the cline leading from elements forming fully complex sentences to mono-clausal constructions. In the following examples, each clause contains its own subject: (16) German Ich will, dass Ivan kommt. I want.1SG COMP Ivan come-3SG ‘I want Ivan to come here.’ (17) Russian Vam nado, toby tu reklamu pro italo you.DAT.PL necessary COMP this-ACC.SG ad-ACC.SG read-PST-N.SG maksimal’noe koli estvo ljudej. maximal-NOM.SG number-NOM.SG people-GEN.PL

‘What you need is that the ad should be read by a maximal number of people.’

Among the typical mono-subject constructions, we find ModCxns where the subject is coded either in the default case (Nominative), in an oblique case, or where it is deleted. In the latter two cases we are dealing with the downgrading of the subject. Compare the different instantiations of the first argument of the mono-valent verb rabotat’ ‘to work’ in Russian: (18) Russian Ivan možet rabotat’. Ivan.NOM can-3SG work-INF ‘Ivan can work.’ (19) Ivan-u možno rabotat’. Ivan-DAT possible work-INF ‘It is possible for Ivan to work.’ (20) Ø Možno rabotat’. possible work-INF ‘It is possible to work.’

Whereas languages like Russian, Lithuanian and Romani make use of all three strategies, Germanic modals do not appear in constructions with a subject marked by an oblique case.



(21) Dutch Ze moet oponthoud gehad hebben. she must.PRS delay have.PTCP have.INF ‘She must have been delayed.’ (22) German Hans kann arbeiten. Hans.NOM can.3SG work.INF ‘Hans can work.’ It is interesting to note that the German syntactic inventory does include constructions with experiencers encoded in oblique case, but these are restricted to lexical elements and do not apply to polyfunctional modal verbs; cf.: (23) German Es ziemt sich nicht für einen Sportler it behove-3SG self not for ART.ACC.SG sportsman überheblich gegenüber anderen zu sein. arrogant towards other-DAT.PL to be.INF

‘It is not proper for a sportsman to be arrogant towards other people.’ The languages which allow for the encoding of the subject argument in oblique case differ in the cases used. Slavonic exclusively makes use of the dative, Finnish mainly uses the genitive, and Turkish and Hungarian a nominal possessive marker:

(24) Finnish Sinun täytyy nukkua. you.GEN must.3SG sleep.INF ‘You must sleep.’

(25) Turkish Bil-me-m lâz m.

know-INF-POSS.1SG must ‘I must know.’



(26) Hungarian Holnap reggel korán kell kelnem. tomorrow morning early must get up.INF.POSS.1SG ‘I have to get up early tomorrow morning.’

Map 2. Languages lacking ModCxns downgrading the subject8 Whereas ModCxns with subjects in default cases are attested in all languages of our sample, ModCxns with downgraded subjects are found in most, but not all languages. As shown in map 2, the Germanic languages, Sorbian, Basque, Arabic and Kabyle are the only languages which seem to lack ModCxns downgrading the subject. Thus, it turns out that the Germanic languages are not very typical in their specialisation on personally constructing modals.



3.4.2. Assignment of subject agreement to the modal and/or the main verb As ModCxns show features characteristic of condensed bi-clausal structures it is interesting to look at the subject agreement patterns. A typical ModCxn contains only one subject, but has two predicative elements which may agree with the subject in relation to gender, number, person and other categories. Apart from that, there are so-called impersonal constructions whose predicate is marked with a default morpheme expressing non-agreement. Subject-predicate-agreement can be marked in three ways: only on the modal (27a), only on the main verb (27b), or on both the modal and the main verb (27c). The latter type involves a lower degree of syntactic condensation: the two clauses do not share any agreement operators. Particularly interesting in this respect is Serbian, as it allows all three agreement patterns: (27) Serbian a. Ivan i Slobodan mora-ju radi-ti Ivan and Slobodan must-3PL work-INF b. Ivan i Slobodan treba da rad-e Ivan and Slobodan should.3SG COMP work-3PL c. Ivan i Slobodan mora-ju da rad-e Ivan and Slobodan must-3PL COMP work-3PL

‘Ivan and Slobodan must/should work.’ There seems to be a correlation between certain agreement marking types and semantics; thus, the type ‘agreement marking only on the main verb’ is quite frequent in epistemic usages: e.g. in Serbian and Arabic we find epistemic modals marked for the 3rd person singular.

The fourth possibility already mentioned above is the complete lack of subject-predicate agreement. These are the so-called impersonal constructions: (28) Finnish Romani

M n mote lel tauva tram. I.ACC must take.SBJV.3SG[=INF] this medicine.NOM ‘I have to take this medicine.’



(29) Russian Ivanu možno rabotat’. Ivan-DAT possible work-INF ‘It is possible for Ivan to work.’ (30) Italian9 Bisogna chiamare un medico. must-IND.PRS.3SG call-INF a.M.SG doctor.M.SG ‘Someone has to call a doctor.’ 3.4.3. TAM marking on the modal and/or the main verb In the traditional understanding, auxiliaries are held to carry all TAM-markers whereas the lexical verb remains non-finite. As the data show, modals may, but need not carry the TAM-marking of the whole verbal phrase. It has to be pointed out that although TAM and subject-predicate agreement are often marked on the same element, in principle they are independent of each other; i.e. modals may carry TAM-markers without subject agreement and modalised verbs can carry subject agreement without TAM-markers, but not vice versa. This independence can again be illustrated by Serbian modals, which are characterised by a high degree of constructional variability. In example (31) the modal is in the conditional and carries the non-agreement marker of 3rd person singular neuter, whereas the lexical verb shows agreement with the first person singular subject, but has no conditional or tense marking: (31) Serbian

To biTM ja trebaloTM vas da pita-mAgr. That COND.3SG I should.3SG you.ACC.PL COMP ask.IND-3SG ‘I should have asked you that.’

This contrasts with the following sentences where both the modal and the modalised verb agree with the subject, whereas the TAM-marking is restricted to the modal: (32) Serbian Mora-m da id-em. vs Mora-o sam da id-em must-1SG COMP go-1SG must-PST.M.SG AUX.1SG COMP go-1SG

‘I have to go.’ vs ‘I had to go.’



Constructions which split the inflectional categories of TAM and agree-ment between the modal and the lexical verb will be called split construc-tions. Following Anderson (2006) we distinguish between split patterns where TAM and agreement categories are scattered across the modal and the lexical verb and split/doubled patterns where “some categories are marked on either the auxiliary verb and/or the lexical verb alone, while others are marked on both” (ibid. 183). Parallel to the agreement patterns, there are four different instantiations of the marking of tense, aspect and mood in ModCxns. First, TAM can be marked exclusively on the modal, as for example in the Germanic and Romance languages: (33) German

Ivan kann arbeiten. Ivan.NOM can.IND.PRS.3SG work-INF ‘Ivan can work.’ (34) Italian Bisogna chiamare un medico. must-IND.PRS.3SG call-INF a.M.SG doctor.M.SG ‘Someone has to call a doctor.’ Second, it can be marked only on the lexical verb, whereas the modal itself remains uninflected. This type can be illustrated by the following Albanian examples where the modal mund ‘can’ remains unchanged and tense is marked on the main verb by a combination of the verbal inflection with a specific complementiser (particle të vs ta): (35) Albanian Në shtëpinë e tij mund të in house:ACC.SG.DEF PTL:POSS.ACC.SG.DEF his can COMP.SBJV gjesh gjithfarë tabelash. find:SBJV.PRS.2SG all.kinds chart:ABL.PL.INDF ‘In his house you can find all kinds of charts.’ (36) Librin e botës mund book:ACC.SG.DET PTL:POSS.ACC.SG.DEF world:GEN.SG.DEF can ta shkruante vetëm ai. PCL:SBJV-it:ACC.SG write:IMPRF.3SG only he:NOM.SG ‘Only he could write the book of the world.’



Some languages have modals which syntactically behave like adverbs; i.e. they combine with fully inflected verbs without complementiser and inflect neither for TAM, nor for subject agreement;10 e.g. Slovene lahko which goes back to an adverb with the meaning ‘easily’: (37) Slovene Tu smo lahko sre ali […]. here AUX.1PL can find-PST-PL ‘Here we could find […].’ At this point, the question arises how modals are related to discourse particles. As a matter of fact, in many languages modals have split into two elements: the modal itself and an epistemic particle (=sentence adverb). It is interesting to note that the latter lose polyfunctionality and, thus, move into the neighbouring category of discourse particles. These findings square with Ramat and Ricca (1998: 231ff) who analysed sentence adverbs in a wide range of European languages: they found that epistemic particles very often emerge either through the fusion of a modal with a second element (= univerbation) or the conversion of a modal: a) fusion of the components ‘modal.3SG’ + ‘to be’; e.g. English maybe (

may + be), French peut-être ‘perhaps’, Russian možet byt’ ‘perhaps’, Moroccan Arabic x u ykuun ‘probably’;

b) fusion of the components ‘modal.3SG’ + ‘to happen’; e.g. Swedish kanske, Danish måske, Dutch misschien all with the meaning ‘perhaps’;

c) fusion of the components ‘modal.3SG’ + complementiser’ (‘can/must that’); e.g. Serbian/Croatian možda ‘perhaps’, valjda ‘probably’, Slovene morda ‘perhaps’;

d) conversion of a modal; e.g. Polish mo e and Romanian poate ‘perhaps’ or ‘can.3Sg’; Slovak možno ‘perhaps’ or ‘one.can’.

All sentence adverbs differ from modals with adverbial morphology like Slovene lahko in their mono-functionality.

A third variant of TAM-marking in ModCxns is found in Arabic where the operators are doubled: we are dealing with the juxtaposition of two finite verbal forms, both regularly marked for TAM. This construction type can be considered less condensed because both clauses display the full range of operators.



(38) Maltese Arabic il-mara tieg =i ma tista=x issajjar ART-wife of-1SG NEG can.IPFV3F.SG-NEG cook.IPFV3F.SG g ax marid=a because ill-F ‘My wife cannot cook because she is ill’. (39) dawn kwa i setg u kienu sunetti DEM.PL almost can.PFV3PL be.PFV.3PL sonnets ‘These could almost have been sonnets.’ The fourth type of TAM-marking involves the presence of a second auxiliary or light verb. Here, the structural size of the construction, which the modal helps to form, is larger than in the cases where the ModCxn consists exclusively of the modal and the lexical verb plus its arguments. This auxiliary type will be dealt with in section 3.4.4 below.

As already hinted at, TAM and agreement marking patterns in ModCxns are not evenly distributed among the European languages. The data show the Mediterranean area and South Eastern Europe to be the hotbeds of the use of finite lexical verbs. Map 3 contains four isoglosses: First, ModCxns with double-marking for both TAM and agreement are found in the analysed varieties of Arabic; second, doubled agreement marking is found in the Balkan languages in the form of split/doubled patterns, apart from the doubled pattern found in Arabic.

The third isogloss shows the more general distribution of all split and split/doubled patterns, i.e. constructions where TAM is marked on the modal and the agreement on the lexical verb, irrespective of singular or double marking. These ModCxns are found in an even larger area comprising not only the mentioned varieties of Arabic and the Balkan languages, but also the Turkic languages and Hungarian. The latter two have ModCxns where the modal carries TAM-marking and the lexical verb is in a nominalised form marked with a possessive suffix for the subject. These are pure ‘split patterns’ in the sense of Anderson (2006). Finally, ModCxns with uninflected particle-like modals are mainly found on the Balkans: Albanian, Greek, Bulgarian, and Slovene.



Map 3. Distribution of Agreement and TMA-marking in ModCxns ( ): double TMA and AGR marking (doubled pattern) ( ): double AGR marking (doubled and split/doubled pattern) (- - - -): split AGR and TMA marking (split/doubled and split pattern) ( ): AGR and TMA marking exclusively on the lexical verb 3.4.4. Presence or absence of an auxiliary or light verb In contrast to the linguistic tradition and also in contrast to Heine (1993) and Anderson (2006) who claim that auxiliaries are generally derived from verbs, we do not assume that modals obligatorily carry verbal features. Thus, we found many instances of polyfunctional modals originally going back to other parts of speech. The elements which are not derived from verbs are usually accompanied by a second auxiliary bearing the TAM marking. This is the case with adverbial-like modals in Russian (in the



present tense a zero element) or with nominal modals in Irish; both need the copula: (40) Russian a. Možno rabotat’. possible work-INF ‘It is possible to work.’ b. Možno bylo rabotat’. possible AUX-PST-SG.N work-INF ‘It was possible to work.’ (41) Irish Níorbh fholáir dó éirí NEG-be-PST excess for.him get.up-VN ‘It was not excess for him to get up = He had to get up’ Another construction type with a second auxiliary is represented by Basque ModCxns which contain the light ‘verb’ izan and one of the modal elements behar ‘necessity’, nahi ‘volition’ or ahal ‘possibility’. The construction has the internal structure ‘have + X’ where X is the modal lexeme that may also function as a noun. (42) Basque Nagusiak etorri behar du.

boss.ERG come.PRF need X.has(.Y) ‘The boss has to come.’

3.4.5. Presence or absence of a complementiser The last syntactic feature according to which the ModCxns in the languages of Europe vary is the explicitness of linking between the modal or the modal-auxiliary complex with the lexical verb. The linking is usually marked by a specific morphological form of the lexical verb. Some languages use infinitival forms, while others use the subjunctive marked e.g. for person and number. As a ModCxn is the result of the condensation of two clauses into a single one, some constructions contain a comple-menttiser originally functioning as a clause linkage marker. The use of (former) complementisers in ModCxn is typical of the Balkan region:



(43) Albanian Në shtëpinë e tij mund të in house:ACC.SG.DEF PTL:POSS.ACC.SG.DEF his can COMP gjesh gjithfarë tabelash. find:SBJV.PRS.2SG all.kinds chart:ABL.PL.INDF ‘In his house you can find all kinds of charts.’ (44) Serbian Ivan i Slobodan treba da rade. Ivan and Slobodan should.3SG COMP work-3PL ‘Ivan and Slobodan should work.’ (45) Greek Boris na pijenis tora.

can-2SG/can-3SG COMP go-2SG now ‘You may go now.’

(46) Romani (Kaspi an Xoraxane, Bulgaria) Može te džas kaj gav.

can COMP go.SBJV.1PL to village ‘We can go to town.’

The presence of a complementiser can be interpreted as a lower degree of condensation of a bi-clausal sentence into a mono-clausal one. This becomes even more evident in cases where modals allow different complementation patterns: either a non-finite form without or a finite form with a complementiser, as attested in Hungarian: (47) Hungarian Haza kell mennem. home must go.INF.POSS.1SG ‘I have to go home.’ vs (48) Az kell, hogy hazamenjek. that must COMP home.go.SBJ.1SG

‘It is necessary that I go home.’



Here, the complementiserless construction (47) contains an untensed verbal form marked for the subject by means of a possessive suffix. In example (48), however, the construction shows more features of a complex sentence, because it contains the complementiser hogy and a fully-fledged finite form of the verb. Modals in different languages may vary in respect to the possibility to govern complement clauses introduced with a complementiser. For example, the Russian impersonal modal of necessity nado can regularly govern a complement clause introduced by the complementiser toby, whereas its Polish impersonal synonym nale y in a similar construction sounds odd: (49) Russian Nado, toby ljudi uznali, to

necessary COMP people-NOM.PL learn-PST-PL what takoe svoboda. that-NOM.N freedom

(50) Polish ?Nale y, eby ludzie doznali co must-3SG COMP people-NOM.PL learn-PST-PL what to jest wolno . that be.3SG freedom

‘The people should learn, what freedom is.’ 3.4.6. Conclusions We have seen that modals form a wide range of differing morphosyntactic constructions, both within one language and across languages. In this respect, the relative morphosyntactic homogeneity claimed for English seems to be rather exceptional. This diversity can be captured by a morphosyntactic typology based on the mechanisms of clause linkage among which we identified the interlacing of elements shared by the two predicative elements and the explicitness of the linking as the most crucial ones. The morphosyntactic typology is based on the features ‘encoding of the subject’, ‘agreement marking’, ‘TAM-marking’, ‘presence of an auxiliary/light verb’ and ‘presence of a complementiser’. The data from many languages reveal that modals in epistemic function tend to lose grammatical markers, thus showing a higher degree of condensation than dynamic and deontic meanings. We found many instances of epistemically



used modals developing into uninflected discourse particles with exclusively epistemic meaning. 3.5. Bondedness Bondedness is defined as ‘the intimacy with which a sign is connected with another sign to which it bears a syntagmatic relation. The degree of bondedness of a sign varies from juxtaposition to merger, in proportion to its degree of grammaticality’ (Lehmann 2002: 131). Any increase in bondedness is called coalescence which starts as juxtaposition. The next step is the subordination of the modal element under an adjacent accent (cliticisation). Further coalescence leads to agglutination and finally ends with the grammaticalised element becoming an integral part of the morpheme modified.

Recall that ModCxns are defined here as syntactically autonomous expressions of modality which implies that the parameter bondedness is used to distinguish modals from modal affixes. Thus, a modal per definitionem is characterised by a low degree of bondedness, i.e. by the simple juxtaposition with the lexical verb it modifies. In this section we shall focus on two aspects. First, we will present certain syntactic symptoms indicating the very beginning of the coalescence of juxtaposed elements which can be observed before phonological consequences like cliticisation make themselves felt. Second, we would like to discuss the relation between modals and modal affixes by looking for the very few cases of a transition of the former into the latter. It will be shown that ‘modals’ and ‘modal affixes’ do not form discrete categories, but represent two focal points on a common grammaticalisation chain.

In respect to first ‘hidden’ symptoms of coalescence, our data are relatively scarce and do not present a full coverage of all modals in all languages, but do allow for some hypotheses. One of the syntactic symptoms of a beginning coalescence process is the impossibility of inserting linguistic material between the modal and the modified verb. Körtvély (this volume) notes that all modals of Hungarian allow the insertion of constituents between the modal and the lexical verb except the modal of possibility talál ‘might’. In the following example, the string ‘modified verb plus modal’ cannot be interrupted by the adjunct phrase ‘in the bush’:



(51) Hungarian Ha a bomba robbani talál a bokorban, fuss. if the bomb blow up.INF might.3SG the bush.INE run.SBJ.2SG vs (52) *Ha a bomba robbanni a bokorban talál, fuss. if the bomb blow up.INF the bush.INE might.3.SG run.SBJ.2SG ‘If the bomb happens to blow up in the bush, run.’ Slavonic and Greek modals need not necessarily be adjacent to the modified verb and allow other elements to be inserted between them. Exceptional in this respect is Italo-Albanian where the modals have to be placed immediately before the main verb and tend to develop into proclitics (see Breu, this volume).

An interesting case of coalescence is found among the new peripheral English modals11 have got to, have to and want to which in the spoken language show the contracted forms gotta, hafta and wanna as in : (53) English

[…] You gotta come along. (example from Krug 2000: 72) Who do you wanna succeed? (example from Krug 2000: 141) I mean, you hafta do those things to be successful anyway. (example from www)

These are cases of univerbation where the modal element coalesces with the morpheme to originally belonging to the verbal form. Coalescence is also reported in cases of the transition of modals into epistemic particles as mentioned above: 1) ‘modal.3SG’ + ‘to be’ as in English maybe, 2) ‘modal.3SG’ + ‘to happen’; e.g. Dutch misschien ‘perhaps’ and 3) ‘modal.3SG’ + complementiser’ as in Serbian/Croatian možda ‘perhaps’.

A purely syntactic symptom of a slow increase of bondedness is the inseparability of the two elements under coordination reduction, which can be illustrated by the German morpheme zu which shows a higher degree of bondedness than its English counterpart to, because it does not allow coordination reduction, i.e. it is more firmly attached to the infinitival verb (Lehmann 2002: 133f.):

(54) German a. Er beabsichtigt das Problem zu beschreiben und he intend-3SG the problem to describe-INF and



zu erklären. to explain-INF b. *Er beabsichtigt das Problem zu beschreiben und he intend-3SG the problem to describe-INF and erklären. explain-INF

(55) English

He intends to describe and explain the problem. In the case of modals, we are dealing with the question if clauses like X can p and X must p can be reduced to X can and must p or not. The same holds for the possibility of the deletion of the modal: X can p and X can q becoming X can p and q. Since most contributors to our language survey posit a very low degree of coalescence and do not explicitly address the question of coordination reduction, we do not have much to say about it. Suffice it to point out here that Germanic, Hungarian and Slavonic modals freely allow constructions like: (56) English

Globalisation can and must change. You can change and delete data sources.

A related symptom of incipient coalescence which intersects with the parameter of structural scope is the impossibility of the use of the grammaticalised element in elliptic contexts, i.e. some modals do not allow the omission of the modified verb. Thus, the Romance modals devoir, falloir (French), a trebui (Romanian), tener que, deber (Spanish) and dovere (Italian) can be used in elliptic constructions in their deontic reading, but not in their epistemic use. This contrasts with the modals haber de, haber que (Spanish), avoir à (French) and a avea de (Romanian) which cannot be used without an infinitival (Cornillie et al. this volume). From these findings, we can conclude that epistemic usages display a higher degree of coalescence than dynamic and deontic meanings (see below). Without addressing the question whether we are dealing with ellipsis or with an intransitive use of the modal we can claim that the parameter of bondedness is also relevant for the possibility of a modal to occur with non-infinitival complements. Mortelmans, Boye, and van der Auwera (this volume) show that English modals in contrast to Dutch, German and



Danish demand an infinitival verb and are incompatible with verbless complements: (57) English

*He may/can/must/wants home. ‘He may/can/must/wants to go home.’

(58) Dutch Hij mag/kan/moet/wil naar huis. (59) German Er darf/kann/muss/will nach Hause.

he may.PRS/can.PRS/must.PRS/will.PRS to home

Dutch modals are shown to have the widest range of verbless complements; they even combine with adjectival predicates not allowed in German: (60) Dutch Deze fles moet vol/leeg. this bottle must.PRS full/empty (61) German *Diese Flasche muss voll/leer. this bottle must.PRS full/empty ‘This bottle must be filled/be emptied.’ Having discussed the earliest stages of coalescence processes, we can proceed with the few instances of the transition of modals into clitics and affixes. There are some rare cases of the split of a modal into two elements: a regularly juxtaposed modal on the one hand, and a clitic or even agglutinated affix on the other. The Serbian/Croatian volitional modal hteti has additionally developed a future meaning in which case it loses a syllable and cliticises to the verbal stem or another constituent usually occupying the first syntactic slot in the clause:



(62) Serbian ja ho u pevati ovu pesmu

I want-1SG sing-INF this-ACC.SG song-ACC.SG ‘I want to sing this song.’

vs (63) a. ja u pevati ovu pesmu

I FUT.1SG sing-INF this-ACC.SG song-ACC.SG

b. peva u (peva-ti + u) ovu pesmu sing-FUT.1SG this-ACC.SG song-ACC.SG ‘I will sing this song.’

Note that hteti cliticises exclusively in its temporal function; it does not do so in its modal meanings. This shows that modality implies a lower degree of bondedness than tense.

The second attested case of a more advanced bonding between modal and lexical verb is found in Turkish, where the modal of possibility bil- can be used either as a juxtaposed modal or as a firmly attached suffix. This is a case of agglutination. It is worth pointing out that Turkish is a very typical agglutinating language with a wide range of grammatical functions expressed by affixes and less often by independent words; e.g. passive, reflexive or causative. (64) Turkish Yüz-mek bil-ir mi-sin?

swim-INF can-NFPRS12 Q-2SG

(65) Yüz-e-bil-ir mi-sin? swim-CVB-can-NFPRS Q-2SG ‘Are you able to swim?’

If a modal element shows further symptoms of coalescence it develops into a fully-fledged modal affix. These affixes are firmly attached to the verbal stem with which they form an accentual unit. It is noteworthy, however, that not all modal affixes historically go back to juxtaposed modals. See the discussion in section 2.

We come to the conclusion that modals are inherently characterised by a low degree of coalescence. The data show that the modals in the languages of Europe in general do not show any tendency towards increasing coalescence. Modals only rarely cliticise and develop into



affixes. Modal affixes are not typical of the European linguistic area; they are mainly found in the agglutinating languages of Eurasia.

3.6. Syntagmatic variability “The syntagmatic variability of a sign is the ease with which it can be shifted around in its context” (Lehmann 2004: 140). As pointed out by Norde (in print) syntagmatic variability and bondedness can be seen as one and the same parameter being relevant for different stages of grammaticalisation, because elements with a high degree of bondedness are inherently fixed in a certain position. In this sense, fixation occurs in the first stages of grammaticalisation and, thus, precedes the later ongoing process of coalescence. In the case of modals, syntagmatic variability concerns the positional mutability of the modal with respect to the lexical verb with which it forms a construction. If the modal can either precede or follow the lexical verb we are dealing with a low degree of fixation and the more fixed the word order becomes, the higher the degree of grammaticalisation. However, we have to add the caveat that this parameter has to be seen in the wider context of the general word order rules available in the individual languages. Therefore, the degree of fixation of a ModCxn has to be determined in comparison to similar constructions in the individual language.

Among the ModCxns of our language sample we found ModCxns with diverging degrees of fixation of the modal in relation to the lexical verb. Russian, Polish, Greek and most Hungarian ModCxns are reported to allow for pragmatically triggered reversals of the unmarked word order ‘Modal precedes lexical verb’ which is an indicator for a low degree of fixation. This is illustrated by the following Russian examples, where the modal nel’zja ‘it is not allowed/it is impossible’ occupies the unmarked pre- or the marked post-verbal position: (66) Russian a. ego nel’zja delat’ v Indii? what.GEN is.not.allowed do-INF in India-PREP ‘What are the don’ts in India?’ b. Rebenok zabolel: ego delat’ nel’zja?

child get.ill-PST what.GEN do-INF is.not.allowed ‘Your child has become ill: the don’ts.’



In contrast, Serbian/Croatian modals never appear after the main verb. They have to be positioned before the verb irrespectively of the realisation of the main verb as an infinitive or the da-construction. The same holds for the Romance modals of necessity. Cornillie et al. (this volume) point out that Latin debere could either precede or follow the infinitival verb whereas its cognates in the modern Romance languages have to be used with the infinitive to their right, which is an increase of fixation.

We can conclude that ModCxns are not characterised by the coalescence of the modal with the lexical verb, but frequently show a certain increase of fixation which sets them apart from more lexical constructions. 3.7. ModCxns and asymmetries of degrees of grammaticalisation As emerges from the chapters dealing with the parameters of grammatical-isation, ModCxns show diverging degrees of grammaticalisation on the following levels: 1) differences between individual meanings of one and the same modal, 2) differences between modals of one and the same language and 3) differences between modals of different languages. When determining degrees of grammaticalisation we have to bear in mind that the point of comparison should be lexical structures of the language analysed; i.e. we have to take into consideration the inventory of morphosyntactic structures of the language in question.

Ad 1: Several authors note that modals in their epistemic use tend to show a higher degree of grammaticalisation than in their dynamic or deontic meanings; e.g. an epistemic modal can be morphologically more defective as it is limited to the 3rd person form as Estonian pidama ‘must’. Germanic modals and many Romance modals of necessity can be used in elliptic constructions in their deontic reading, but not in their epistemic use, which shows that epistemic usages display a higher degree of coalescence and a narrower structural scope than dynamic and deontic meanings (see Cornillie et al and Mortelmans et al. this volume).

Ad 2: Some data suggest that there is a tendency for modals of possibility to be grammaticalised before modals of necessity. This can either correlate with the pure ‘age’ of the ModCxn or the degree of grammaticalisation. According to Elšík and Matras (this volume) Early Romani can be reconstructed to have possessed two or three possibility modals and one volition modal, but no dedicated necessity modals. A similar situation is suggested for the Slavonic languages which have inherited a common modal of possibility from their ancestor language.



Proto-Slavonic *mogti ‘to be strong’ developed into a possibility modal before the break-up of the Slavonic linguistic unity and can be considered by far the oldest modal. The dedicated modals of necessity, however, are the result of later developments thus leading to a great diversity among the Slavonic languages in this semantic domain (see Hansen 2001). Further evidence for the privileged status of possibility is found in Hungarian where the possibility expression talál is considered the most grammaticalised of all modals.

Ad 3: As each parameter of grammaticalisation allows the comparison of degrees of grammaticalisation also across languages, we can see that there are languages whose inventory of ModCxns tend to be located at the lexical end of the grammaticalisation cline; e.g. East Slavonic and Hungarian ModCxns seem to be closer to lexical constructions whereas English modals have developed many specific features setting them apart from lexical verbs. A rather high degree of grammaticalisation is also found in the Balkan languages, whose modals tend to develop into uninflected particle-like elements.

4. Modals and language contact: borrowing asymmetries and areal convergence

The next topic we would like to address is the behaviour of modals in situations of language contact. Until recently, there were no cross-linguistic studies available on the question of how modals in general react in language contact situations. The known borrowing scales (e.g. Thomason 2001) operate with discrete dichotomies like content words vs. function words and claim that the former are more easily transferred than the latter. Apart from that, it is generally held that nouns are more easily borrowed than verbs. The categories used in the borrowing scales do not take into consideration the hybrid nature of modals. We are, however, in a lucky position, because we can build on the work by Elšík and Matras who generalise important results of the recently published cross-linguistic studies on the ‘borrowability’ of grammatical elements carried out in the framework of the Manchester Romani Project (Elšík and Matras 2006) and the project ‘Grammatical borrowing in Cross-Linguistic Perspective’ (Matras and Sakel 2007). We will follow Matras and Sakel (Sakel 2007) who distinguish between the borrowing of matter (MAT) and the borrowing of pattern (PAT). The authors speak



“of MAT when morphological material and its phonological shape from one language is replicated in another language. PAT describes the case where only the patterns of the other language are replicated, i.e. the organisation, distribution and mapping of grammatical or semantic meaning, while the form is not borrowed” (Sakel 2007: 15)

Elšík and Matras (this volume) and Matras (2007) claim that ‘modality is a domain that is conspicuously susceptible to structural borrowing’. As they show, the Romani modal systems are characterised by massive borrowing of matter and pattern from the second languages spoken by Romani speakers. The authors list the following MAT-borrowings for necessity: Turkish lâz m, Greek prepi, South Slavonic trjabva, treba(ti), mora(ti) and valjati, Romanian trebui and musai, Hungarian muszáj, Slovak musie , ma , treba and potrebova , Polish musie , trzeba and powinien, East Slavonic dolžen, nado and prixoditsja, German müssen and brauchen, English ought, Swedish måste and må, and Finnish pitää. MAT-borrowings for possibility are somewhat less frequent: Greek boro, Macedonian and Bulgarian može, Slovene lahko, Polish móc, East Slavonic mo ’ and možno, German dürfen, Italian potere, and Finnish voida. Due to the dialectal diversity and the multitude of language contacts, these Romani data are highly relevant also to other languages and allow for some generalisations. Apart from that, the findings based on Romani are corroborated by the data compiled in the book Matras and Sakel (2007) which contains descriptions of grammatical borrowing in 27 languages spread over all continents of the world.

Elšík and Matras (this volume) and Matras (2007: 45) claim that the borrowing behaviour of modals is highly asymmetrical; i.e. some modal categories are more likely to be borrowed than others. The overall likelihood of modals to be affected by borrowing is expressed by the following implicational hierarchy:

necessity > possibility > volition

Necessity appears at the top of the implicative scale. It is the most frequently borrowed semantic category and possibility and volition are not borrowed unless necessity is borrowed too (Elšík and Matras this volume). Although the authors of the individual chapters of our book were not explicitly asked to give a contact-linguistic account of the respective modal system, we received a large amount of data which allow for some generalisations about borrowability. As it turns out, our data clearly confirm Matras’ borrowing scale: from the some fifty languages of Europe



(apart from the varieties of Romani) around one half has reportedly borrowed at least one modal from another language. Table 1 contains a – non-exhaustive – list of MAT-borrowings reported of in the individual chapters: Table 1. MAT-borrowings of modals

Borrowing language

Borrowed from language

Modal Semantics

Estonian Middle High German pruukima ¬NEC Karelian Russian dolžen NEC Karelian, Veps Russian prišlos’ NEC Polish German musie NEC Czech German muset NEC Slovak German musiet’ NEC Upper Sorbian German dyrbje NEC Lower Sorbian German musa NEC Ukrainian German via Polish musyty NEC Belorussian German via Polish music’ NEC Latvian Balto-Finnic vajadz t NEC Hungarian German muszáj NEC Romanian South-Slavonic a trebui NEC Turkish Arabic lâz m NEC Arabic mümkün POSS Azeri Arabic la:zïm NEC Arabic va:jïb NEC Gagauz Arabic la:zïm NEC Uzbek13 Arabic mumkin POSS Yakut Russian na:da NEC Berber Arabic laq NEC Arabic mken POSS Arvanitika (Greek Albanian)

Greek préps mborés epitrépset

NEC POSS POSS

In the vast majority of cases, the languages borrow one modal of necessity; in some cases, i.e. Turkish, Azeri, Berber and Greek Albanian, we find MAT-borrowings for both necessity and possibility, which is well compatible with Matras’ borrowing hierarchy; the scale predicts that modals of possibility can be MAT-borrowings if modals of necessity are borrowed too. In the view of the rare borrowings in the semantic field of possibility it is not surprising that we found even fewer instances of MAT-



borrowing of volitional modals. Among the authors of our book only Elšík and Matras (this volume) report of two cases: the verb wånt-(a)s- from English in Welsh Romani and the verb ho - from Slovene in Dolenjski Romani of Slovenia. No further MAT-borrowings of volitional modals are attested. Other cases of contact-induced replacements of volitional modals are PAT-borrowings like Balkan Romani which uses the verb mang- ‘to ask, to demand’ copying Bulgarian iskam to express volition. MAT-borrowing of modals seems to be quite normal in contact situations when a language with a lower degree of prestige comes into contact with a culturally dominant language, which is associated with high prestige functions as the language of education. Such a high prestige language is German which used to be a widespread language of education in large parts of Central and Eastern Europe. Therefore, the German modal müssen has become so popular in Central and Eastern Europe that it has partly mediated by Polish found its way into six Slavonic languages and Hungarian. A similar sociolinguistic role was played by Arabic which has considerably influenced the modal systems of the Turkic and Berber languages and by Russian which as the dominating language of Russia has been the model language for the Eastern branch of the Balto-Finnic (e.g. Karelian and Veps) and the Siberian Turkic languages like Yakut.

Apart from the fact that neighbouring languages can share structural features we have to assume similarities in the text frequency of morpho-syntactically similar ModCxns. Van der Auwera, Schalley and Nuyts (2005) investigate the Slavonic translational equivalents for English auxiliaries and adverbs of epistemic modality (may, might, could, maybe, perhaps), as they occur in Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets. The focus is on whether verbs and adverbs are translated by elements of the same word class. The authors show that the Slavonic translations differ substantially and systematically according to the parameter of distance from the Germanic linguistic area. 5. Modals and Euroversals / SAE-features This section offers some thoughts on the findings of the previous sections in relation to the question of “Standard Average European” (SAE, Haspelmath 2001). Specifically we ask whether modal verbs and ModCxns are as widespread in the rest of the world as they are in Europe. We contrast this with modal affixes, which seem more prevalent outside



Europe. Haspelmath (2001: 1493) gives four criteria for determining whether a given feature is part of SAE: a) The great majority of (core) European languages possesses it. b) The geographically adjacent languages lack it. c) The Eastern Indo-European languages lack it (i.e., Armenian, Indo-

Iranian and Indo-Aryan). d) The feature is not found in the majority of the world’s languages. We have shown that criterion (a) is met: the vast majority of the languages of Europe possess modal verbs and ModCxns. They are found in all language families in Europe, from Celtic in the west to Finno-Ugric in the East, albeit with varying degrees of grammaticalisation (see section 3). In contrast, only a few possess modal affixes, a feature which appears to be more prevalent outside of Europe (see map 1). Criterion (b) is a little harder to analyse, as it is not quite clear how literally the notion “geographically adjacent” should be taken. Haspelmath (2001: 1493) refers to “Celtic in the west, Turkic, eastern Uralic, Abkhaz-Adyghean and Nakh-Daghestanian in the east, and perhaps Afro-Asiatic in the south” and this does not quite correspond to our findings. For one, Celtic and (eastern) Uralic definitely fit in with the SAE model of modal verbs. The same can be said for Arabic. The varieties of Arabic discussed in Vanhove, Miller, and Caubet (this volume) all make use of modal verbs. Haspelmath (ibid.) mentions that Maltese exhibits a number of SAE features that are lacking in other varieties of Arabic (among them participial passives and a dative external possessor), but all varieties of Arabic discussed here have some system of modal verbs. The precise modal inventory differs from language to language, but that is a situation found in many of the core language families of SAE. Basque is a language that usually does not participate in the SAE Sprachbund, and it does seem that its system of modality is more akin to non-European languages. It does, however, have some ModCxns, such as behar izan ‘need’, consisting of the noun behar ‘need’ and the auxiliary izan. This is not too unlike the Slavonic constructions of the Russian type nado / nužno byt’. Given this state of affairs, it is unlikely that criterion (b) is true for modals. According to criterion (c) of SAE-ness, modals should not, or rarely, occur in the eastern Indo-European languages. However, it would appear that modals can and do occur in these languages. In Hindi (Kachru 2006: 82-4) there is a category of modal auxiliaries, although it is not a homogeneous category. For instance, the modal verb s kna ‘can, be able’



takes the full range of tense-aspect affixes and the subject is in the Nominative. The verb p na ‘have to, must’ also takes the normal tense-aspect morphemes, but it takes a Dative subject. The modal cahiye ‘should’ also takes a Dative subject, but it is invariant. In short, it is just as difficult to describe a category of ‘modal verb’ in Hindi as it is in many core SAE families. Similar remarks may be made of Indo-Aryan languages in general (see Masica 1991: 374ff for an extensive discussion) and also of Indo-Iranian (Persian, for instance, has modal verbs as well). This means that criterion (c) is not met: modals are found in the non-European Indo-European languages, apparently very similar to modals in the languages of Europe and with very similar grammaticalisation paths.

Criterion (d) concerns the presence of modals in the rest of the world. Because we are not aware of an exhaustive survey of modals around the world, we can only make some preliminary observations. We will concentrate on modal verbs, because we have very little information on the status of ModCxns world-wide. Nevertheless, it seems that we have enough information to note that criterion (d) is not met, either.

Modal verbs do not seem to be widespread outside of Indo-European with the exception of E. and S.E. Asia. In languages from this area, we do find systems of modal verbs that are reminiscent of European systems. Languages with modal verbs in this area include Mandarin (Hsieh 2005), Cantonese (Matthews and Yip 1994), Khmer (de Haan 1997), and Thai (Iwasaki and Ingkaphirom 2005). Outside of the S.E. Asian area we can find languages with modal verbs, but it seems to be rarer. One such language is Yoruba (Adéw lé 1990, de Haan 1996).

In many instances, the attested modal verbs in these languages are polyfunctional. It is certainly true for the languages described in the previous paragraph. For instance, Thai has the following systems of modals (from Iwasaki and Ingkaphirom 2005: 133):

Table 2. Thai modals

Epistemic Deontic Gloss

t t must cam-pen necessary

khuan (khuan) should nâa nâa should

kho may àat may



(67) Thai a. khun cà t maa dûay ná

you CM must come also PP ‘You must come too, all right?’ (134) b. kháw t pen m n - n l y he must COP doctor surely PP ‘He must be a doctor for sure.’ (138) As can be seen from the table, most of the strong modal verbs (those denoting ‘must’ and ‘should’) are polyfunctional, while the weak modals (denoting ‘may’) are epistemic only. As mentioned, the weak modals are not polyfunctional, but are epistemic only. However, there are modal elements, classified as ‘potential’ by Iwasaki and Ingkaphirom, that occupy a place near the end of a sentence. One of which, dây (from the verb dây ‘get, obtain’), is polyfunctional: it can express epistemic (68a), dynamic, and deontic (68b) modality. (68) a. phrû -níi chûay maa thíi bâan dây máy tomorrow help come at house POT Q ‘Can you come to my house tomorrow?’ (350) b. kh aw alay maa khuy k dây LK take something come chat LP POT ‘I mean you can bring anything to talk about.’ (351) Polyfunctionality is not just limited to modal verbs. As shown in van der Auwera, Ammann and Kindt (2005: 253) it also occurs with modal affixes (for example, the W. Greenlandic affix -ssa) and particles (the Ainu particle kuni). Van der Auwera and Ammann (2005) show that the situation is relatively complex outside Europe, as far as polyfunctionality is concerned. In their study of 207 languages they found that the notion of polyfunctionality is sensitive to the distinction between strong and weak modality. Their breakdown is as follows:

polyfunctionality in both weak and strong modality 36 polyfunctionality in either weak or strong modality 66 no polyfunctionality 105

However, most of the languages that use the same modal elements for epistemic and deontic modality in both weak and strong modality (26 out



of 36) are either in Europe or just outside Europe (this includes Turkish and Modern Hebrew). The remaining 10 languages are mainly in Asia (including Mandarin Chinese and Thai, but also Tagalog and the Papua New Guinea language Yimas) with only one language in sub-Saharan Africa (Yoruba) and none in the Americas (if we don’t count West Greenlandic). This points to a strong areal influence.

The 66 languages that have polyfunctionality in either weak or strong modality (but not both) are more evenly spread. They can be found on every continent, so an areal claim is harder to make here. However, it also includes such languages as Icelandic, Welsh and Albanian as having only partial polyfunctionality, something which is not quite substantiated in the present volume.

The 105 languages in which there is no polyfunctionality at all are also more or less evenly spread among the world’s languages. It is interesting to note that the only languages in Europe in the survey that show no overlap are Saami and Votic, two Balto-Finnic languages (but see Kehayov and Torn-Leesik, this volume).

This means that criterion (d) is not met either: there are languages outside of Europe that have modal verbs. The only possible difference between European and non-European languages is that modal verbs outside of Europe tend to occur in languages with very little, if any, inflectional morphology, such as Thai, Khmer, Yoruba and Mandarin Chinese. As the European languages are still highly inflectional, this may point to the one true difference between the SAE languages and the languages outside Europe. It could be argued that this difference may save criterion (d), but in the present paper we have chosen to accept the fact that criterion (d) is not met.

This means that there is one criterion for SAE-hood that is met (modals occur in most languages of Europe), but that there are three that are not met. From this, we have no choice but to conclude that the feature of [+ModCxn] is not part of SAE. In the terminology of Heine and Kuteva (2006), [+ModCxn] is not a Euroversal.

Finally, even though modal constructions are not unique to the European area as a whole, but nevertheless there are areal issues on a smaller scale. Indeed, as shown in the previous section, such areal issues play important roles in the shaping of the modal systems of various languages. Looking for Euroversals does not mean that one also abandons the search for areal influences.



6. Conclusion In this article we outlined the various types of modals and ModCxns in the languages of Europe. We argued that in the individual languages modals can be identified on the basis of semantic polyfunctionality and the syntactic status of an operator on the predicational and/or propositional level of the clause. ModCxns are found in all languages of the area with some very few exceptions. The boundary between ModCxns and lexical constructions, however, is difficult to draw. Modals derive from lexical elements, mainly from verbs, but in some cases also from nominal or adverbial elements, and show specific symptoms of grammaticalisation setting them apart from their lexical sources. It turns out that only in Germanic ModCxns have developed a dedicated morphological paradigm and a dedicated morpho-syntactic marking. In all other cases we are dealing with a gradual transition from the first construction type to the other one. We tried to describe and measure the degree of grammaticalisation of ModCxns by applying the ‘traditional Lehmann parameters’ which cover both paradigmatic and syntactic aspects of the linguistic sign.

Mortelmans, Boye, and van der Auwera (this volume) point out that the Lehmann parameters function as eye-openers leading to observations that might otherwise pass unnoticed: “Seemingly arbitrary facts concerning the form and behaviour of the core modals can be integrated in a larger framework and understood accordingly” (ibid.). The parameters turn out to be a powerful tool for spotting features setting modals apart from lexical elements, because most if not all of these features reflect the unidirectionality of grammaticalisation processes. The analyses, however, also reveal some deficiencies of Lehmann’s parameter approach. Whereas certain features can easily be compared across languages like e.g. the degree of polyfunctionality, others are much less suitable for straightforward comparison. As Mortelmans, Boye, and van der Auwera convincingly argue some of the parameters cannot be applied without taking the entire structure of the verbal system of a particular language into account. Thus, the degree of fixation of a modal within a ModCxn depends on the word order rules valid for the whole verbal system. Therefore, it is for example difficult to determine the different degree of fixation of ModCxns in a language with a syntactically fixed word order with a language with so-called free word order.

We also saw that there is an asymmetry in the borrowing of modals. Modals of necessity are much easier to borrow than those of possibility and



volition. This fact, coupled with the findings of the grammaticalisation parameters, may cause us to rethink the notion of the category of modality as a whole. Based (mainly) on the English modals we have become accustomed to viewing modality as a system in which modal notions, such as necessity and possibility, are easily definable in terms of one another. Given these asymmetries, it seems likely that taking such notions as basis for a cross-linguistic typological view of modality as a whole will only yield an incomplete picture.

We looked at the question of whether the situation found in Europe is unique or whether similar patterns can be discerned outside Europe as well. Based on accepted criteria we found that Europe is not unique and that similar patterns are found for instance in Southeast Asia.

Finally, we hope to have shown that the languages of Europe are very diverse in their treatment of modal notions. If this diversity is reflected in future studies on modality, we consider this book to have served its purpose.

Notes

1. Neither does the extension of the class of ‘peripheral modals’ coincide with the one of ‘semi-auxiliaries’ (Quirk et al. 1985: 137) or ‘quasi-modals’ (Traugott 1997: 193).

2. N-egation: modals allow negation contraction (mustn’t vs *hopen’t), I-nversion without do-periphrasis (Can we go? vs *Hope we to go?), C-ode (John can swim, so can Bill) and E-mphasis (*Yes, I DÒ can come. vs Yes, I DÒ hope to come.) (Quirk et al. 1985: 137).

3. For a discussion of modal polyfunctionality see van der Auwera, Ammann and Kindt 2006.

4. This is due to the large number of languages that Romani has come into contact with and the large area in which different varieties of Romani are spoken.

5. This is not to say that there cannot be other differences between main and auxiliary verbs. In fact, many verbs have a different syntactic behavior between their main and auxiliary verb reading.

6. It is also found in the Indo-Aryan languages, see Masica (1991). 7. There may be exceptions to this rule, see Mortelmans, Boye, and van der

Auwera (this volume). 8. Due to the complexity of data the map does not include Romani. The reader is

referred to the corresponding article by Elšík and Matras (this volume).



9. Italian bisognare is to be treated as a peripheral modal because it is restricted

to different shades of participant-external necessity. 10. Anderson (2006: 116-144) calls this type LEX-headed Auxiliary Verb

Construction. 11. Krug (2000) uses the term ‘emerging modals’; see also Bolinger (1980). 12. NFPRS – Non-focal present or non-episodic present 13. Although not mentioned in the article, Uzbek has also borrowed a modal of

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