Open Accessmorphological and semantic classification of 'evidentials' and modal verbs in German : the perfect(ive) catalyst
Author(s) -
Werner Abraham
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
zas papers in linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1435-9588
DOI - 10.21248/zaspil.15.2000.20
Subject(s) - evidentiality , german , linguistics , modal , meaning (existential) , present perfect , modal verb , phenomenon , philosophy , computer science , epistemology , verb , chemistry , polymer chemistry
This paper draws a link between the typological phenomenon of the paradigmatically supported evidentiality evoked by perfect and/or perfectivity and the equally epistemic system of modal verbs in German. The assumption is that, if perfect(ivity) is at the bottom of evidentiality in a wide number of unrelated languages, then it will not be an arbitrary fact that systematic epistemic readings occur also for the modal verbs in German, which were preterite presents originally. It will be demonstrated, for one, how exactly modal verbs in Modem German still betray sensitivity to perfect and perfective contexts, and, second, how perfect(ivity) is prone to evincing epistemic meaning. Although the expectation cannot be satisfied due to a lack of respective data from the older stages of German, a research path is sketched narrowing down the linguistic questions to be asked and dating results to be reached.