Dutch ('t) schijnt and german scheint(')s: on the grammaticalization of evidential particles

This paper presents a contrastive study of on the one hand ('t) schijnt (‘it seems’), a form of the Dutch verb of appearance schijnen (‘seem’), and on the other hand, a similar use of the German cognate scheinen , viz. scheint(')s (lit. ‘seems it’). On the basis of corpus data, using a mainly qualitative methodology, we argue that these forms of schijnen and scheinen have grammaticalized into evidential particles. We demonstrate that ('t) schijnt and scheint(')s evolved via distinct grammaticalization paths, the former via the path outlined by matrix‐clause hypothesis and the latter via that of the parataxis hypothesis, and that ('t) schijnt has reached a higher degree of grammaticalization than scheint(')s .