The English construction “be supposed to X” is used in a variety of functions in Present-day English, including evidential, epistemic, and deontic functions. This research offers description and explanations for the development of the evidential, epistemic, and deontic functions from an earlier passive construction, through distinct processes of reanalysis (Hopper and Traugott 1993). I argue that the motivations for these semantic and syntactic shifts are motivated by pragmatic inferences based on: discourse function, discourse expectations about human subjects, frequency effects related to semantic properties of the construction in discourse, and reader-writer expectations about genre type. The results indicate that the evidential function is not part of the general category of epistemicity for this construction, following de Haan (1999, 2001b); that this construction does not exhibit the predicted pathway of semantic development from deontic to epistemic functions (Traugott 1989) due to constraints imposed by the source construction; and that genre plays an important role not only in the relative frequency of the construction (Biber et al. 1999), but also in the emergence of the deontic function diachronically. Finally, I situate the construction in relation to cross-linguistic patterns (Bybee et al. 1994), noting how it parallels broader patterns in the development of the deontic function.
2023. Modals and Quasi-Modals in English World-Wide. Journal of English Linguistics 51:3 ► pp. 265 ff.
Fajardo, José Antonio Sánchez
2023. A morphopragmatic study of [X-word] constructions through their morphological replicability and pragmatic functions. Lexis :21
Disney, Steve
2016. Another Visit to BE Supposed to from a Diachronic Constructionist Perspective. English Studies 97:8 ► pp. 892 ff.
Brinton, Laurel J.
2015. Historical Discourse Analysis. In The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ► pp. 222 ff.
Verhulst, An & Liesbet Heyvaert
2015. Root Modal Uses ofShould, Ought toandBe Supposed toin Present-Day English: From Patterns and Profiles to Proficiency Guidelines. English Studies 96:5 ► pp. 562 ff.
2013. Source and strength of modality: An empirical study of root should, ought to and be supposed to in Present-day British English. Journal of Pragmatics 55 ► pp. 210 ff.
Ørsnes, Bjarne
2011. Passives and evidentiality: Danish reportive passives and their equivalents in German. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 43:1 ► pp. 21 ff.
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