Cover not available
Part of
Tense, Aspect, Modality, and Evidentiality: Crosslinguistic perspectives
Edited by Dalila Ayoun, Agnès Celle and Laure Lansari
[Studies in Language Companion Series 197] 2018
► pp. 145–164

Chapter 7
Evidentiality and epistemic modality in Old Catalan

A diachronic cognitive approach to the semantics of modal verbs

| Universitat de València
Epistemic modality and evidentiality are two categories that have not been clearly defined in the literature. In order to clarify the boundaries between them, I draw a detailed semantic map for Catalan modal verbs deure (‘must’), haver de (‘have to’) and poder (‘can/may’) in the Old period (11th–16th centuries). On the one hand, the modals deure and haver de develop an evidential reading (inferential process). On the other hand, an epistemic possibility value arises in the case of poder, which is not based on any explicit premise. I show that all these verbs are subjectively construed in different degrees and argue that a clear distinction between the subjective values and an evidential or epistemic interpretation is paramount.
Keywords: evidentiality, inference, epistemic modality, possibility, dynamic modality, subjectification
Article outline
  • 1.Evidentiality and epistemic modality: State of the art
    • 1.1Evidentiality and epistemic modality
    • 1.2 Evidentiality and modal verbs in Romance
  • 2. An inferential reading for deure, haver de and poder in Old Catalan?
    • 2.1The modal verb deure: Specific vs. generic inferences
    • 2.2 The modal verb haver de ‘have to’: Specific inference
    • 2.3 Deure and haver de: Subjectification, evidentiality and epistemic modality
    • 2.4The modal verb poder ‘can/may’: Epistemic modality
      • 2.4.1Possible counterexamples?
  • 3. Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 2 August 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.197.07sen
References (49)
References
Aijmer, Karin. 1997. ‘I think’ and English modal particle. In Modality in Germanic Languages, Toril Swan & Olaf Jansen Westvik (eds), 1–47. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2004. Evidentiality. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Anderson, Lloyd. B. 1986. Evidentials, paths of change, and mental maps: Typologically regular asymmetries. In Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology, Wallace Chafe & Johanna Nichols (eds), 273–312. Norwood NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan L., Perkins, Revere & Pagliuca, William. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace. 1986. Evidentiality in English conversation and academic writing. In Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology, Wallace Chafe & Johanna Nichols (eds), 261–272. Norwood NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
CICA = Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic (CICA), J. Torruella (dir.), Manuel Pérez Saldanya, Josep Martines & Vicent Martines (text selection). <[URL]> [query 2009–2016]
Cornillie, Bert. 2007. Evidentiality and Epistemic Modality in Spanish (Semi-)Auxiliaries: A Cognitive-functional Approach. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
. 2009. Evidentiality and epistemic modality. On the close relationship between two different categories. Functions of Language 16(1): 44–62.Google Scholar
de Haan, Ferdinand. 1999. Evidentiality and epistemic modality: Setting boundaries. Southwest Journal of Linguistics 18: 83–101.Google Scholar
. 2001. The relation between modality and evidentiality. Linguistische Berichte 9: 201–216.Google Scholar
Dendale, Patrick & De Mulder, Walter. 1996. Déduction ou abduction: Le cas de devoir inférentiel. In l’Énonciation médiatisée, Zlatka Guentchéva (ed.), 305–318. Louvain: Peeters.Google Scholar
Garachana Camarero , Mar (ed.). 2017. La gramática en la diacronía: la evolución de las perífrasis verbales modales en español. Madrid: Iberoamericana; Frankfurt: Vervuert.Google Scholar
Dendale, Patrick & Tasmowski, Liliane. 2001. Introduction: Evidentiality and related notions. Journal of Pragmatics 33: 339–348. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dendale, Patrick. 1994. Devoir épistémique, marqueur modal ou évidentiel? Langue Française 102: 24–40. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Floyd, Rick. 1999. The Structure of Evidential Categories in Wanka Quechua. Dallas TX: The Summer Institute of Linguistics.Google Scholar
Frajzyngier, Zygmunt. 1985. Truth and the Indicative Sentence. Studies in Language 9: 243–254. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gavarró, Anna & Laca, Brenda. 2002. Les perífrasis temporals, aspectuals i modals. In Gramàtica del català contemporani, Vol. 3, Joan Solà, Maria Rosa Lloret, Juan Mascaró & Manuel Pérez Saldanya (eds), 2663–2726. Barcelona: Empúries.Google Scholar
González, Montserrat. 2014. Evidentiality, intersubjectivity and salience in Spanish and Catalan markers claro/clar and la verdad/veritat. Special Issue Evidentiality in Discourse . Intercultural Pragmatics 11(3): 411–436. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2011. Indirect evidence in Catalan. A case study. In The Pragmatics of Catalan, Lluís Payrató & Josep M. Cots (eds), 145–172. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kronning, H. 1996. Modalité, cognition et polysémie: Sémantique du verbe modal ‘devoir’. Uppsala & Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International.Google Scholar
2003. Modalité et évidentialité. In Aspects de la modalité, Merete Birkelund, Gerhard Boysen & Poul Søren Kjaersgaard (eds), 131–151. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Langacker, Ronald Wayne, 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Linguistics, Vol. I: Theorical Prerequisites . Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
. 1991. Foundations of Cognitive Linguistics. Vol. II: Descriptive Application . Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
. 2006. Subjectification, grammaticization, and conceptual archetypes. In Subjectification: Various Paths to Subjectivity, Angeliki Athanasiadou, Costas Canakis & Bert Cornillie (eds), 17–40. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Le Querler, Nicole. 2001. La place du verbe modal pouvoir dans une typologie des modalités. In Les verbes modaux, Patrick Dendale & Johan van der Auwera (eds), 17–32. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Mortelmans, Tanja. 2000. On the ‘evidential nature of the ‘epistemic’ use of the German modals müssen and sollen . Special issue Modal Verbs in Germanic and Romance Languages , Johan van der Auwera & Patrick Dendale (eds). Belgian Journal of Linguistics 14: 131–148.Google Scholar
2002. ‘Wieso sollte ich dich küssen, du hässlicher Mensch!’ A study of the German modals Sollen and Müssen as grounding predications in interrogatives. In Grounding: The Epistemic Footing of Deixis and Reference, Frank Brisard (eds), 391–432. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nuyts, Jan. 2001. Subjectivity as an evidential dimension in epistemic modal expressions. Journal of Pragmatics 33: 383–400. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2006. Modality: Overview and linguistic issues. In The Expression of Modality, William Frawley (ed.), 1–26. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Palmer, Frank Robert. 1979. Modality and the English Modals. London: Longman.Google Scholar
. 1986. Mood and Modality. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Pelyvás, Péter. 2000. Metaphorical extension of ‘may’ and ‘must’ into the epistemic domain. In Metaphor and Metonymy at the Crossroads, Antonio Barcelona (eds), 233–250. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
. 2006. Subjectification in (expressions of) epistemic modality and the development of the grounding predication. In Subjectification: Various Paths to Subjectivity, Angeliki Athanasiadou, Costas Canakis & Bert Cornillie (eds), 121–150. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schmid, Beatrice. 2012. Un aspecto sintáctico del Curial e Güelfa: Las perífrasis modales. In Novel·la cavalleresca anònima del segle XV en llengua catalana. Linguistic and Cultural Studies on ‘Curial e Güelfa’, a 15th Century Anonymous Chivalric Romance in Catalan [IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature 3], Antoni Ferrando (ed.), 843–874. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Sentí, Andreu & Cornillie, Bert. In press. The rise of the evidential readings of the Catalan periphrasis deure + infinitive. In From Composite Predicates to Verbal Periphrases in Romance Languages, Mar Garachana, Sandra Montserrat & Claus Pusch (eds). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Sentí, Andreu. 2015a. Subjectification and attenuation in the conceptual schema of the Catalan modal verb deure with evidential meaning. eHumanista/IVITRA 8: 517–543.Google Scholar
. 2015b. Modal verbs, future and grammaticalization in Old Catalan. A cognitive approach. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 14: 179–198.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2016. Modality and evidentiality in Old Catalan. Grammaticalization and subjectification of the modal verb poder ‘can/may’. Talk given at 49 Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, Naples.
. 2017. Modalitat i evidencialitat en català antic. Un acostament cognitiu a les perífrasis verbals amb deure i amb haver . Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat / Institut Interuniversitari de Filologia Valenciana.Google Scholar
Squartini, Mario. 2004. Disentangling evidentiality and epistemic modality in romance. Lingua 114(7): 873–889. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2008. Lexical vs. grammatical evidentiality in French and Italian. Linguistics 46(5): 917–947. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2016. Interaction between modality and other semantic categories. In The Oxford Handbook of Modality and Mood, Jan Nuyts & Johan van der Auwera (eds), 50–67. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Talmy, Leonard. 1988. Force dynamics in language and cognition. Cognitive Science 2: 49–100. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tasmowski, Liliane. 2001. Questions au conditionnel. In Le conditionnel en français, Patrick Dendale & Liliane Tasmowski (eds), 331–343. Paris: Klincksieck.Google Scholar
Torró, Jaume. 2012. El manuscrit del Curial e Güelfa. Els pròlegs i el filocolo. RLM XXIV: 296–281.Google Scholar
van der Auwera, Johan & Plungian, Vladimir A. 1998. Modality’s semantic map. Linguistic Typology 2: 79–124. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vetters, Carl. 2004. Les verbes modaux pouvoir et devoir en français. Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 82: 657–671. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Willett, Thomas. 1988. A cross-linguistic survey of the grammaticalization of evidentiality. Studies in Language 12: 51–97. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yllera, Alicia. 1980. Sintaxis histórica del verbo español: Las perífrasis medievales. Zaragoza: Universidad de Zaragoza.Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Sentí, Andreu & Bert Cornillie
2022. The rise of the evidential readings of the Catalan periphrasis deure  + infinitive. In From Verbal Periphrases to Complex Predicates [IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature, 31], ► pp. 63 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.