Article published in:
The Rise and Development of Evidential and Epistemic Markers
Edited by Silvio Cruschina and Eva-Maria Remberger
[Journal of Historical Linguistics 7:1/2] 2017
► pp. 190–212

The grammaticalization of Dutch klinken

| University of Oxford
This article demonstrates the diachronic development of present-day Dutch klinken as an evidential copular verb meaning ‘to seem, based on (auditory) evidence’ from the Middle Dutch intransitive verb klinken meaning ‘to give off a clear sound’. I identify four semantic stages in the history of klinken, which are divided by processes of semantic bleaching (14th–16th century, 16th–17th century) and subjectification and copularization (during the 16th century). I claim that the process of copularization is the trigger of both the evidential meaning and the subjective interpretation that copular constructions with klinken receive. Furthermore, I show that, unlike the development of eruitzien ‘look’ and voelen ‘feel’ from cognitive perception verbs, klinken has developed much like the Dutch copular verbs schijnen ‘seem’ and blijken ‘turn out’: from an intransitive verb with a sensory-related meaning.
Keywords: grammaticalization, perception verbs, evidentiality, subjectification, copularization
Published online: 23 November 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.7.1-2.08poo
References

References

Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y.
2003 Evidentiality in Typological Perspective. Studies in Evidentiality ( Typological Studies in Language 54 ) ed. by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald & Robert M. W. Dixon, 33–62. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Aikhenvald, Alexandra. Y.
2004 Evidentiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Asudeh, Ash
2012 The Logic of Pronominal Resumption. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Asudeh, Ash & Ida Toivonen
2012 Copy Raising and Perception. Natural Language Linguistic Theory 30:2.321–380. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Lloyd B.
1986 Evidentials, Paths of Change, and Mental Maps: Typologically regular asymmetries. In Wallace Chafe & Johanna Nichols, eds., 273–312.Google Scholar
Barron, Julia
1997 LFG and the History of Raising Verbs. Proceedings of the LFG97 Conference ed. by Miriam Butt & Tracy Holloway King. Stanford: CSLI.Google Scholar
Bender, Emily & Dan Flickinger
1999 Diachronic Evidence for Extended Argument Structure. Constraints and Resources in Natural Language Syntax and Semantics ed. by Gosse Bouma, Erhard W. Hinrichs, Geert-Jan M. Kruij, & Richard T. Oehrle, 3–19. Stanford: CSLI.Google Scholar
Boas, Franz
1938 General Anthropology. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company.Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J. & Donna Brinton
2010 The Linguistic Structure of Modern English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan. L.
1985 Morphology: A study of the relation between meaning and form. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Chafe, Wallace. L. & Johanna Nichols
eds. 1986 Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishers.Google Scholar
Cruschina, Silvio
2015 The Expression of Evidentiality and Epistemicity: Cases of grammaticalization in Italian and Sicilian. Probus 27:1.1–31. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cruschina, Silvio & Eva-M. Remberger
2008 Hearsay and Reported Speech: Evidentiality in Romance. Rivista di Grammatica Generativa 33.95–116.Google Scholar
De Haan, Ferdinand
1999 Evidentiality and Epistemic Modality: Setting boundaries. Southwest Journal of Linguistics 18:1.83–101.Google Scholar
2007 Raising as Grammaticalization: The case of Germanic SEEM-verbs. Italian Journal of Linguistics 19:1.129–150.Google Scholar
2013 The Interaction of Modality and Negation: A typological study. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
De Smet, Hendrick & Jean-Christophe Verstraete
2006 Coming to Terms with Subjectivity. Cognitive Linguistics 17.365–392.Google Scholar
Diewald, Gabriele & Elena Smirnova
2010 Evidentiality in German: Linguistic realization and regularities in grammaticalization. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gisborne, Nikolas & Jasper Holmes
2007 A History of English Evidential Verbs of Appearance. English Language and Linguistics 11:1.1–29. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Haiman, John
1991 From V/2 to Subject Clitics: Evidence from Northern Italian. Approaches to Grammaticalization. Vol. II. Focus on Types of Grammatical Markers ed. by Elizabeth C. Traugott & Bernd Heine, 135–157. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Haßler, Gerda
2002 Evidentiality and Reported Speech in Romance Languages. Reported Discourse: A meeting ground for different linguistic domains ( Typological Studies in Language 52 ) ed. by Tom Güldemann & Manfred Von Roncador, 143–172. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2015 Evidentiality and the Expression of Speaker’s Stance in Romance Languages and German. Discourse Studies 17:2.182–209. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Helle, Philipp
2006 A Contrastive Analysis of Perception Verbs in English and German. Munich: GRIN Verlag.Google Scholar
Holierhoek, Christina M. G.
1978 Auditory Verbs in Dutch. Linguistics in the Netherlands 1974–1976 ed. by Wim Zonneveld, 81–101. Lisse: Peter de Ridder Press.Google Scholar
Iatridou, Sabine
1990 About AgrP. Linguistic Inquiry 21:4.551–576.Google Scholar
Kim, Jong-Bok
2014 English Copy Raising Constructions: Argument realization and characterization condition. Linguistics 52:1.167–203. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Koring, Loes
2013 Seemingly Similar: Subjects and displacement in grammar, processing, and acquisition. Utrecht University PhD Thesis.Google Scholar
Landau, Idan
2009 This Construction Looks Like a Copy is Optional. Linguistic Inquiry 40:2.343–346. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Langacker, Ronald W.
1990 Subjectification. Cognitive Linguistics 1.5–38. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lasersohn, Peter
1995 Sounds Like ‘Like’. Linguistic Analysis 25:1–2.70–77.Google Scholar
Lesage, Clair, Nalini Ramlakhan, Ida Toivonen, & Chris Wildman
2015 The Reliability of Testimony and Perception: Connecting epistemology and linguistic evidentiality. Proceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society ed. by David C. Noelle, Rick Dale, Anne S. Warlaumont, Jeff Yoshimi, Teenie Matlock, Carolyn D. Jennings, & Paul P. Maglio. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Levin, Beth
1993 English Verb Classes and Alternations: A preliminary investigation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lohndal, Terje
2009 The Copula Cycle. Cyclical Change ed. by Elly van Gelderen, 209–242. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Maling, Joan
1983 Transitive Adjectives: A case of categorial reanalysis. Linguistic Categories: Auxiliaries and related puzzles 1 ed. by Frank Heny & Barry Richards, 253–289. Dordrecht: Reidel. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Matushansky, Ora
2002 Tipping the Scales: The syntax of scalarity in the complement of seem. Syntax 5:3.219–276. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Palmer, Frank. R.
1986 Mood and Modality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Poortvliet, Marjolein
2016 Copy Raising in English, German and Dutch: Synchrony and diachrony. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 28:4.370–402. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Forthcoming. Perception and Predication Copular Evidentials: A synchronic and diachronic study of descriptive perception verbs in Dutch. University of Oxford PhD Thesis.
Potsdam, Eric & Jeffrey T. Runner
2001 Richard Returns: Copy raising and its implications. Proceedings of CLS 37.453–468.Google Scholar
Rett, Jessica & Nina Hyams
2014 The Acquisition of Syntactically Encoded Evidentiality. Language Acquisition 21:2.173–198 CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rogers, Andy
1971 Three Kinds of Physical Perception Verbs. Papers from the Seventh Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, April 16–18, 206–222. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
1972 Another Look at Flip Perception Verbs. Papers from the Eighth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society ed. by Paul M. Peranteau, Judith N. Levi, & Gloria C. Phares, 303–315. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
1974 Physical Perception Verbs in English: A study in lexical relatedness. University of California, Los Angeles PhD Thesis.Google Scholar
Squartini, Mario
2004 Disentangling Evidentiality and Epistemic Modality in Romance. Lingua 114:7.873–895. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2012 Evidentiality in Interaction: The concessive use of the Italian future between grammar and discourse. Journal of Pragmatics 44:15.2116–2128. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C.
1996 Subjectification and the Development of Epistemic Meaning: The case of promise and threaten . Modality in Germanic Languages: Historical and comparative perspectives ed. by Swan Toril & Olaf J. Westvik, 185–210. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C. & Richard B. Dasher
2001 Regularity in Semantic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Van Gelderen, Elly
2014 Changes in Psych-verbs: A reanalysis of little v. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 13.99–122.Google Scholar
2015 The Copula Cycle. Lingue e Linguaggio 14:2.287–301Google Scholar
Viberg, Åke
1984 The Verbs of Perception: A typological study. Explanations for Language Universals ed. by Brian Butterworth, Bernard Comrie, & Östen Dahl, 123–162. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2001 The Verbs of Perception. Language Typology and Language Universals: An International Handbook ed. by Martin Haspelmath, Ekkehard König, Wulf Oesterreicher, & Wolfgang Raible. Berlin: Mouton de GruyterGoogle Scholar
Vliegen, Maurice
2011 Evidentiality. Dutch ‘seem’ and ‘appear’ verbs: blijken, lijken, schijnen . Linguistics in the Netherlands 28:1.125–137.Google Scholar
Whitt, Richard J.
2009 Auditory Evidentiality in English and German: The case of verbs. Lingua 119:7.1083–1095. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2010a Evidentiality, Polysemy, and the Verbs of Perception in English and German. Linguistic Realization of Evidentiality in European Languages ed. by Gabriele Diewald & Elena Smirnova, 249–279. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
2010b Evidentiality and Perception Verbs in English and German. Oxford: Peter Lang. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2011 (Inter)Subjectivity and Evidential Perception Verbs in English and German. Journal of Pragmatics 43:1.347–360. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Willet, Thomas. L.
1988 A Cross-Linguistic Survey of the Grammaticalization of Evidentiality. Studies in Language 12.51–97. CrossrefGoogle Scholar