Modalitys Semantic Map PDF

Modality's semantic map
JOHAN VAN DER AUWERA and VLADIMIR A. PLUNGIAN
Abstract
Starting from Bybee, Perkins, & Pagliuca (1994) and complementing their
insights with observations that often originale in the non-English literature
on modality, this paper attempts to supply the grammaticalized expressions
ofmodaly with a semantic map. The term "modality" is taken to refer t o
just those (four) domains in which possibility contrasts with necessity, and
"semantic map' refers to a representation of cross-linguistically relevant
synchronic and diachronic connections between modal, premodal, and post-
modal meanings or uses. Special attention is given to meanings that are
vague between possibility and necessity, to developments from possibility to
necessity and vice versa, to postmodal meanings that can originale in either
possibility or necessity, and to demodalization of non-epistemic modality.
Keywords: auxiliaries, degrammaticalization, grammaticalization, mod-

ality, semantic change, semantic map, semantics
1. Introduction
Semantic maps are powerful tools in the analysis of cross-linguistic Varia-
tion. The point of this paper is to sketch some features of the semantic
map of modality, starting from the paths ofFered by Bybee, Perkins, &
Pagliuca (1994), and to use this to make predictions about the ways
languages express modality. In Section 2 we explain our use of the terms
"modality" and "semantic map" and we describe the data that were the
input to our proposal. Section 3 is about semantics and about semantic
change. First we provide a somewhat adjusted representation of the three
modal paths found in Bybee et al. (1994). Then we propose to connect
the three paths, thus approaching the semblance of a true map, and we
turn our attention to "demodalization",
>
i.e., the tracks that lead out of
Linguistic Typology 2 (1998), 79-124 1430-0532/1998/002-079

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80 /. van der Auwera and V. A. Plungian
modality. Section 4 exploits the map for the explanation of certain formal
features of the expression of modality.
2. Terminology andmethodology
2.1. Modality
2.1.1. Introduction
Modality and its types can be defined and named in various ways. There
is no one correct way. The only requirement is that one makes clear how
one uses one's terms. Our definitions and terms are fairly traditional. We
will first present our terminology, explain, and illustrate it. We then
compare our terms with some other terms and other uses of the same
terms, in particular with the terms and uses found in Bybee et al. (1994).
We also relate our relatively restricted over-all notion of modality to the
notions of volition and evidentiality.
2. l .2. Motivating four types

We propose to use the term "modality" for those semantic domains that
involve possibility and necessity s paradigmatic variants, that is, s
constituting a paradigm with two possible choices, possibility and neces-
sity. We take this to be the case in just four domains. One is what will
be called "participant-internal modality". This term refers to a kind of
possibility or necessity internal to a participant engaged in the state of
affairs. In the case of possibility we are dealing with a participant's ability
(capacity), s in (la), and in the case of necessity with a participant's
internal need, s in (lb).
(1) a. Boris can get by with sleepingfive hours a night.

b. Boris needs to sleep ten hours every night for him to function
proper ly.
The second domain in which possibility and necessity contrast is that

of "participant-external modality". The term refers to circumstances that
are external to the participant, if any, engaged in the state of affairs and
that make this state of affairs either possible or necessary.
(2) a. To get to the Station, you can take bus 66.

b. To get to the Station, you have to take bus 66.
In (2a) the participant-external modality is possibility: bus 66 offers just

one means of transport making it possible for the hearer to get to the

Modality's semantic map 81
Station. In (2b) the participant-external modality is necessity: bus 66

happens to be the orily means of transport that will get the hearer to the
Station. Hence, to reach the Station bus 66 becpmes a necessity.
The third domain is that of "deontic modality". It is a subdomain or
special case of participant-external modality or, with the terminology to
be used later, the former is a hyponym and the latter a superordinate or
hyperonym. Deontic modality identifies the enabling or compelling cir-
cumstances external to the participant s some person(s), often the
Speaker, and/or s some social or ethical norm (s) permitting or obliging
the participant to engage in the s tte of affairs.
(3) a. John may leave now.

b. John must leave now.
The case of permission is illustrated in (3a): there is some person with

authority and/or some norm with respect to whom John's leaving is
possible. Permission is thus a matter of deontic possibility. (3b) expresses
Obligation or deontic necessity: s far s the person with authority and/or
the norm goes, John's leaving is necessary.
The last domain is "epistemic modality". It refers to a judgment of
the Speaker: a proposition is judged to be uncertain or probable relative
to some judgment (s).
(4) a. John may have arrived.

b. John must have arrived.
With (4a) the Speaker presents John's arrival s uncertain. This concerns
possibility, for relative to some other judgments (e.g., the belief that John
is very unreliable) John's arrival is judged possible. Thus uncertainty is
epistemic possibility. With (4b) the Speaker represents John's arrival s
relatively certain, relatively probable. This concerns necessity, for relative
to some judgments (e.g., the belief that when John comes by bike, he
chains bis bike to the tree and the belief that the bike is in fact chained
to the tree right now) John's arrival is necessary. Certainty and a relatively
high degree of probability thus amount to epistemic necessity.
Within the set of participant-internal, participant-external, and episte-
mic modalities, theoretically three subgroupings are possible: (i) partici-
pant-internal and participant-external modality together make up
non-epistemic modality; (ii) participant-external and epistemic modality
together make up non-participant-internal modality; and (iii) participant-
internal and epistemic modality together make up non-participant-exter-
nal modality. Only the first subgrouping makes sense, the reason being

that both participant-internal and participant-external modality concern

aspects internal to the state of affairs that the proposition reflects, whereas
epistemic modality concerns (has scope over) the wfeole proposition.
The terms for the four domains, some paraphrases and alternative
terms, and the relevant hyponym relations are summed up in Table L
Though it is in general desirable to use one-word terms, we will always
choose the longer but more systematic ones. So we will not use "ability",
for instance, but rather "participant-internal possibility". The latter is
more cumbersome, but it immediately relates the meaning in question to
other participant-internal notions (not only participant-internal necessity,
but also, e.g., a notion of participant-internal actualitySection 3.3) and
it contrasts it with participant-external possibility.
It goes without saying that the above typology can be developed
further. Participant-internal possibility can be distinguished s learnt or
inherent (or, perhaps better, intellectual or physical), s expressed, for
example, in French by the choice between savoir ccan, know to' and
pouvoir ccan'.
(5) Ceux qui ne savent ou ne peuvent lire ...

those who not know.how.to or not can read
'Those who do not know how to read (those that have not learnt
it) and those that cannot read (e.g., the blind) ...'
(Grevisse 1980: 800)
An Obligation could be strong or weaka dimension claimed to charac-

terize the diiference between must or have to and should or ought (e.g.,
Bybee et al. 1994: 186-187, 320). Or, s the last of a long list of possible
Table 1. Modality types

Possibility
Non-epistemic possibility Epistemic possibility
(Uncertainty)
Participant-internal Participant-external possibility
possibility
(Non-deontic Deontic possibility
(Dynamic possibility,
possibility) (Permission)
Ability, Capacity)
Participant-internal (Non-deontic Deontic necessity
necessity necessity) (Obligation)
(Need)
Participant-external necessity Epistemic necessity
(Probability)
Non-epistemic necessity
Necessity

refinements, the deontic modality may or may not involve the speaker's
subjectivity, a dimension called "subjectification" or "grounding" (see,
e.g., Goossens 1997; Mortelmans 1997).
2.l.3. Motivating the terminology

To relate our terminology to all other relevant terms and to all other
relevant uses of our terms would take too much space. We will by and
large compare our terminology only with that of Bybee et al. (1994) and
with some other important or token studies. For a discussion of some
classics of the modality literature in English, we refer to Palmer (1986).
Our use of the term "epistemic" and "deontic" is Standard, though a
perusal of the literature will exhibit interesting differences. As to the term
"epistemic", the literature contains two traditions, depending on whether
or not one finds the speaker's cominitment critical or not. We side with
those who do (e.g., Palmer 1986) s against those who do not (e.g.,
Coates 1983).1 Our use of "deontic" is supposed to be fully unproblem-
atic. Interestingly, Bybee et al. (1994) do not use "deontic". They do,
however, study permission and Obligation uses, considering them what
they call "agent-oriented" and, to the extent that it is the Speaker that
permits or obliges, "speaker-oriented" (s in the case of an imperative).
On the term "speaker-oriented" we side with Hengeveld (forthcoming)
and would rather consider distinctions such s imperative, prohibitive,
operative, etc. s pertaining to illocutionary type than to modality.2 The
term could furthermore be confused with "subjectification" and "ground-
ing". On the term "agent-oriented", fairly common s of Bybee (1985)
and comparable also to Wunderlich's (1981) "handlungsbezogen", we
likewise side with Hengeveld (forthcoming). He points out that "agent-
oriented" is not quite felicitous s it indicates that the participant in the
state of affairs has to assume the semantic role of agent. But this is not
the case, s is shown in (6).
(6) a. / need to be left in peace today.

b. / can be bribed easily.
Hengeveld proposes "participant-oriented". We prefer "participant-

internal" s it is more specific and allows a contrast with "participant-
external", a contrast and terminology quite Standard in the literature
(e.g., Goossens 1979, 1983, 1987, 1996 for notions of possibility and
Duffley 1994 for notions of necessity), which furthermore harks back to
the labels "intrasubjective" and "extrasubjective" from Bech (1951),
probably the most influential non-English study on modal verbs. But the
term "participant-internal" is still not specific enough, for the simple

reason that the proposition may involve more than one participant
e.g., you and bus 66 in the examples in (3). On the basis of English alone,
"subject-internar would seem appropriate, but this notion does not
generalize easily, witness the dative experiencer in Kannada (7), which,
s Bhat (1991: 160-169) argues, is not a subject.
(7) avani-ge holey-annu da:ta-lu sa:dhya ide.

he-DAT river-ACC CIOSS-INF possible is
c
He can cross this river.' (D. N. S. Bhat, personal communication)
For the purpose of this paper, though, "participant" will have to do.
A widely used term is "root modality". Bybee et al. (1994: 178) use
"root pssibility" in much the sense of our "participant-external possi-
bility", but they have no use for "root necessity". An example of a
linguist who has both root pssibility and root necessity in much the
sense of our participant-external pssibility and necessity is Gamon
(1993). Most scholars, however, equate the notion "root" with "non-
epistemic" (e.g., Coates 1983; Palmer 1986: 103-104; De Haan 1997: 7).
This was also the original usage in Hofmann (1966 [1976: 93]), but
Hofmann does not give any motivation for the term, nor do, s far we
know, any later users,3 the usually tacit assumption being that the root
sense is more basic, whether diachronically (which is correct) or synchron-
ically (which is disputed) or both.
The view that the basic divide in modality is that between epistemic
and non-epistemic is fairly Standard. Not so the view that deontic mod-
ality is a special case of participant-external modality, but it agrees at
least partially with Bybee et al. (1994:193), and earlier also with Goossens
(1979: 88-89) and Bybee (1988: 256), who all make this point with
respect to deontic pssibility ("permission") and participant-external
("root") pssibility.4
2. l .4. Vohtion and evidentiality

Reserving the term "modality" to just those domains in which pssibility
contrasts with necessity and furthermore accepting only four such
domains amounts to a relatively restriktive use of the term. Other notions
frequently subsumed under the general heading of modality are volition
or desire ("volitive modality") and evidentiality ("evidential modality").5
The expression of volition or desire is illustrated with English want or
would rather, the latter conveying preference.
(8) a. Fred wants to learn French.

b. Jack would rather learn Sorbian.

Evidcntiality concerns the indication of the source or kind of evidence

Speakers have for their Statements. The evidence is marked s, e.g., direct
or non-direct, first-hand or second-hand, based on visual or auditory
evidence, on hearsay or on reasoning. An example of a hearsay evidential
f'quotative") is German sollen in (9).
(9) Es soll ein guter Film sein.

it should a good film be
'It is said to be a good film.'
Examplcs of recent works that do or do not encompass volition and

evidentiality under modality are shown in Table 2.
The linguists listed in Table 2 with a '' for evidentiality exclude all
of evidentiality under modality. This is not quite our position, for we do
welcome the subtype of evidentiality termed "inferential". This is the
subtype that identifies the evidence s based upon reasoning. Cross-
linguistically, it often derives from a perfect or it is still a use of the
perfect fsee the papers in Chafe & Nichols (eds.) 1986 and Guentcheva
(ed.) 1996, and also Willen 1988 and Guentcheva 1993). Example (10)
shows the Turkish evidential in -
(10) Ahmet
Ahmet come-EVi
'Ahmet must have come.' (Aksu- & Slobin 1986: 159)
The claim is not that the inferential reading is obligatory; in fact (10)
also has a quotative reading s well s a mirative one (expressing surprise;
see DeLancey 1997). The claim is only that the inferential reading
amounts to epistemic modality9 and more particularly epistemic necessity:
Table 2. The relation between volition, evidentiality, and modality
modality encompasses
volition evidentiality
Givon 1984; Chung & Timberlake 1985;6 Palmer 1986; + -f

Dik 1989; Hengeveld forthcoming
Longacre 1976; Bybee et al. 1994; Mel'auk 1994; +
Bybee & Fleischman 19957
De Haan 1997 +
Anderson 1986; Nuyts 1994 - -

for both categories we are dealing with the certainty of a judgment

relative to other judgments. From this point of view it also causes no
surprise that inferential evidentials often receive 4n English translation
with epistemic must. Inferential evidentiality is thus regarded s an over-
lap category between modality and evidentiality (see Table 3).
Our decision not to include volition and non-inferential evidentiality
does not mean that we do not want to study these notions nor that we
deny that they are closely connected with modality. The motivation for
handling a relatively restricted notion of modality is threefold. First, the
demarcation is relatively easy. Second, the uses in which possibility
contrasts with necessity are worthy of special attention anyway. It is just
here that Aristotelian logic and Gricean pragmatics are at work (see
van der Auwera 1996, forthcoming b). Third, even if one accepts more
types of modality, it is probably rather uncontroversial to claim that the
modality that is characterizable in terms of both possibility and necessity
constitutes the core of modality.
Finally, it should be pointed out, we will steer clear of the term
"mood". We will not pronounce any views on acceptable uses of this
term, but simply make our point without using the term.
2.2. Semantic maps andpaths

A semantic map is a geometric representation of meanings or, if one
likes, uses, and of the relations between them. Meanings/uses and their
connections thus constitute a semantic space. As employed in linguistic
typology, the map describes and constrains languages that venture their
grammars and/or lexicons into this space, both with respect to diachrony
and synchrony. Recent years have seen explicit typological map proposals
in the realms of tense and aspect (Anderson 1982); evidentiality
(Anderson 1986); conditionals (Traugott 1985); voice (Croft, Shyldkrot,
& Kemmer 1987; Kemmer 1993); so-called "counterexpectation" (Heine,
Claudi, & Hnnemeyer 1991b: 202); meanings emanating from notions
of coming, going, and returning (Lichtenberk 1991), s well s getting
(Matisoff 1991); and indefiniteness (Haspelmath 1997a). That modality
Table 3. Inferential evidentiality = epistemic necessity
Necessity
Deontic Epistemic necessity
necessity Quotative
Inferential evidentiality evidentiality
Evidentiality

should have a map of its own was a wish explicitly phrased by Bybee
(1985: 195-196). In fact, a year later, a map was given by Anderson in
his study on evidentiality (1986), but it seems fair to say that the map
occurs there only s an afterthought to his proposals on evidentiality,
without arguments and illustrations. Modality notions also appear on
some of the other maps, in particular, those offered for conditionality
(Traugott 1985: 299), and for the notion of getting (Matisoff 1991: 427).
Furthermore, Bybee et al. (1994) supply three paths, and paths or rather
the representations of them are maps, too, be it "mini-maps".10 The time
has come, we propose, to put these and other leads together and to
redraw the modality map. The strategy that we will follow is to Start
from the paths or "mini-maps" of Bybee et al. (1994) and to connect
and extend them.
In taking the Bybee paths to be our starting point we will assume that
they are essentially correct, even though there would be occasions to note
that a feature of a path is insufficiently argued for or insufficiently
illustrated. The Bybee paths are meant to portray the distribution and
development of those modal markers (i) that are verbal and are consid-
ered at least partially grammaticalized (to auxiliary, derivational, or
inflectional Status) or (ii) that may be assumed to develop into or out of
the Status described under (i). We adhere to this restriction too. Hence
we do not study modality markers that are nouns (necessity, Obligation),
adjectives (possible, inevitable), adverbs (perhaps, possibly), or mental
state predicates (think, be convinced). Clearly, for a fll study of modality,
these expression types will have to be included (see, e.g., Bader, Werlen,
& Wymann 1994; Nuyts 1994). We submit, however, that the basic
outline of the semantic map of modality that we will establish on the
basis of arguably grammaticalized verbal markers will be valid for the
other types of markers, too. This hypothesis is based on another hypoth-
esis, the one that associates grammaticalization with meaning change and
polyfunctionality, and it is these diachronic and synchronic links that
constitute the paths of the map.
An example of a Bybee et al. (1994) path is shown in Figure 1. It
represents a part of the path for possibility. Like some of the non-modal
semantic maps mentioned above, the mini-map of Figure l has an explicit
participan -exteraal
participant-intern epistemic possibility
possibility
(deontic possibility)
Figure 1. Possibilities

/. van der Auwera and V. A. Plungian
diachronic dimension. The arrows indicate that one meaning/use can

develop into another one. Another feature that th^mini-map of Figure l
shares with some of the other maps is that the entities connected can be
considered both meanings and uses. From a cross-linguistic point of view,
the difference between a meaning (semantics) and a use (pragmatics)
need not concern us, the reason being that what could be argued to
constitute a separate meaning in one language is only a use of a more
vague or ambiguous meaning in another language. We will favor the
term "meaning", but nothing much hinges on this choice (cf. also
Haspelmath 1997a: 58-62). Note finally that we do not design our maps
or anything eise to embody any claim s to which meaning would be
more basic in a non-diachronic sense (basic s being more widespread,
semantically primitive or unmarkedcf. Wierzbicka 1992: 408-409 or
Givon 1994: 275-277).
Figure l essentially corresponds to that given in Bybee et al. (1994:
199), but there are some differences. First, in Figure l and in all further
figures, we "translate" Bybee's terms into our own terminology. Second,
meanings are represented with elementary set-theoretical means. This
allows for a simple representation of the claim that deontic possibility is
a subtype of participant-external possibility: we just enclose the represen-
tation for deontic possibility within that for participant-external possi-
bility. The set-theoretical format also has a drawback, however: it gives
the various meanings an air of categorial discreteness, while they in fact
often function on a cline. As Coates (1983) has shown for English, this
drawback can be overcome with ideas from fuzzy set theory, but we will
not attempt to incorporate such refinements here.
Figure l shows that participant-external possibility can develop in two
directions, towards epistemic possibility or towards deontic possibility.
These changes are of different type. Precisely because deontic possibility
is a subtype of participant-external possibility, we can consider a change
from the latter into the former s sernantic shrinking or specialization:
whereas with participant-external possibility the enabling condition can
be any circumstance external to the participant, with deontic possibility
this external condition has to refer to .authority and norms. Whatever
the right way may be to characterize the change from participant-external
to epistemic possibilitys metaphorical, s argued by Sweetser (1990),
or s metonymical, s argued by Traugott (1989) and Goossens (forth-
coming)it is not a matter of semantic specialization.11
The opposite of specialization is generalization or extension. This also
occurs in the modal realm, e.g., in the history of the English modal can.
Originally its participant-internal meaning had to refer to a learned

Qearncd participant-internal possibiliw
participant-inte nal possibility
Figure 2. Extcmion ofmeaning
ability, like the modern French savoir illustrated in (5); it later extended
it to any ability, see Figure 2.
When in a figure a meaning develops in two directions, nothing is
implied s to the temporal order. In Figure l, for example, participant-
external possibility develops in two directions, those of deontic possibility
and epistemic possibility. We do not say anything about the temporal
priority of deontic vis-a-vis epistemic possibility. In the literature one
comes across the claim that deontic meanings precede epistemic ones
see the very title of Shepherd's (1982) "From deontic to epistemic: An
analysis of modals in the history of English, creoles, and language acquisi-
tion" (cf. also Bybee 1985: 168). However, when one comes to the details,
this claim becomes controversial. An instructive example concerns two
of the best-studied modal verbs, English may and can. If, s shown in
Table 4, even the may and can facts are possibly not that clear, one may
fear that the facts in languages that have attracted less attention are even
less clear.
The representation of a path is a map, and since the path shows
meanings, the map is semantic. The semantic map in Figure l does not
refer to any language-specific element or its semantics yet. The latter
Information could of course be entered. In Figure 3 we do this with
Table 4. On the diachrony of deontic and epistemic uses for may and can
may can
Deontic before epistemic Shepherd 1982: 323 Traugott 1972: 198

Epistemic before deontic Traugott 1972: 198, 1989: 36; Shepherd 1982: 323
Plank 1981: 60
Figure 3. Some language-specific possibility markers: English may f and Dutch mgen

diagonal linesfor English may and its Dutch cognate mgen, respec-
tively. The meanings are exemplified in (11) and.(,12).
(11) a. She deals with it s best she may. [participant-internal]

b. To get to the Station, you may take bus 66.
[participant-external ]
c. John may leave now. [deontic]
d. John may have arrived. [epistemic]
(12) Jan mag weggaan nu. [deontic]
John may go.away now
"John may leave now.'
In this way semantic maps can teil us something about the semantics of
any relevant lexical element at any stage of a language.
Note that the format of Figure 3 does not say anything about the
frequency or markedness of any one meaning. It does not say, for
instance, that English may is predominantly epistemic, that the other
meanings are on the decline and that the participant-internal meaning is
archaic (see Coates 1983; Jacobsson 1994). Note also that Figure 3 is
not intended s a complete description of either English may or Dutch
mgen. Both have other uses, but they are out of the mini-map of
Figure 3.
2.3. Database
The data that we take recourse to have a double origin. First, we make
use of the well-sampled data collection oifered by Bybee et al. (1994)
themselves, thereby assuring the same degree of representativeness that
they aspire to. Second, to finetune the hypotheses we essentially use all
the data we had access to, and this particularly involves Germanic lan-
guages other than English.
3. Meaning and change of meaning

3.1. Bybee et al (1994), with adjustments
In their chapter on modality Bybee et al. (1994) ofFer one path for
possibility and two for necessity. Figure 4 is our "translation" of the
Bybee et al. path for possibility. Figure 5 enriches this map with Informa-
tion on the lexical sources of the modal meanings. Most of this Informa-
tion also stems from Bybee et al. (1994). The Information is represented
s abstract notions (e.g., duty in Figure 11) and s meanings (e.g., 'be
strong' in Figure 5). As in the evidentiality map offered by Anderson

Wicipant-intemal condition
possibility
participanl-external
possipility
(oeontic possibility) epistemic possibility
complementaon
Figure 4. To possibility and beyond
/i
bestrong, 'know'j
l 'arrive at', finishy participant-interaal
v :suffice'_ J possibility
participan :-external
'be permitted', condition
'dare' .
deontic possibility)
[ 'be', 'become', l epistemic possibility
'happen', 'stand',1
don't know',
'like'
complementaon
(1986), which also contains Information on the lexical sources, the central
domain will be enclosed within a square. In this way we can clearly
separate the central modal domain from the premodal and postmodal
domains.
As the focus of this paper is on modality itself, there will be no attempt
to make the description of the premodal and postmodal domains exhaus-
tive. The sense of incompleteness is bound to be strongest for the
premodal domain, the assumption being that the development from
premodal to modal to postmodal can be a grammaticalization chain,
with variegated lexical input and restricted grammaticalized Output. To
represent sets of premodal lexical elements that have been attested s
going in the same direction we will use dashed lines. Thus enclosing cbe
strong', 'know', 'arrive at', 'finish', and 'suffice' with dashed lines is not
meant to refer to any one marker that can have each of these meanings.
The point is rather to refer to all markers that have at least one of the
enclosed meanings. The description of the source expressions is further-
more incomplete in that it gives no Information about the grammatical
shape of the lexical predicate that co-occurs with the future modal marker.
As Bybee & Pagliuca (1985: 73) and Bybee et al. (1994: 284) show, often
the grammatical shape of the lexical predicate contributes a meaning too.

Their example concerns the fact that Obligation markers may develop
from a combination of a possession verb ('have') and a main verb in the
infinitive, s in English (2b). It is not really 'have' alone which is the
source, but also the prospective or incompleteness sense of the infinitive.
Figure 5 lists various sources for participant-internal possibility, such
s 'be strong' and 'know', obvious from Standard Average European
(e.g., may < 'be strong' and can < 'know'), which first led to inherent or
learnt participant-internal modality, hyponyms of participant-internal
possibility, which they later extended to (see Figure 2). We also list 'arrive
at' and fifinish' from Bybee et al. (1994: 190-191). Bybee et al. (1994:
188) also mention 'enough' (in Tok Pisin), possibly better glossed s
'suffice, be enough' (cf. Heine et al. 1993: 75 on the Nilotic language
Acholi) and 'get', which we will single out for special attention later
(Section 3.3). They also point out that deontic and epistemic possibility
can develop directly out of the lexicon without any intermediate stages.
c
Be', 'become', 'happen', 'befall', 'stand', don't know' are sources which
Bybee et al. (194: 206) list for epistemic possibility, and from Heine et al.
(1993: 139) one could add 'like', reported for Lango (Nilotic). For
deontic possibility Bybee et al. (1994: 191) list cbe permitted' s a source.
A semantically more interesting source, documented from our materials,
is cdare', s in Serbian/Croatian (13), but also in Czech and Sorbian.
(13) Smijete zapoceti kad sie spremni.

dare.PKS.2pL start.iNF when be.2?L ready.PL
'You may Start when you are ready.' (Kalogjera 1985: 205)
It could be argued to marginally exist in Russian, too, and interestingly,

to the extent that it is found there, it is restricted to (strongly) prohibitive
uses, such s the one in (14), introduced with the jussive particle/?w^' 'let'.
(14) Pust' nikto ne smeet sjuda vxodit'.

let nobody.NOM not dare.pRS.3sc hither enter.iNF
'Let nobody dare to come in here.'
'Let nobody come in here.'/'Nobody can come in here.'
The restriction to negative contexts suggests that 'dare' was reinterpreted

first in negative contexts (Russian) and that it shed its negative polarity
later (Serbian/Croatian, Czech).12
The hyperonym-hyponym relation that exists between, e.g., participant-
internal possibility and inherent participant-internal possibility (Figure 2)
may also hold between modal and premodal notions. Take 'be' s a
source for epistemic possibility, for instance. It is not implausible to think

that this kind of development did not happen through a metaphor or

metonymy but rather through the kind of shrinking/specialization we
have postulated for the change from general participant-external possi-
bility to specific, deontic participant-external possibility. If we know this
to be the case we would want to represent the relevant change not s
shown in Figure 6, but rather s shown in Figure 7. However, because
the premodal notions are not themselves the focus of this paper, we will
not try to investigate this issue. All the changes from premodal to modal
will be represented with the format for metaphor and metonymy, s in
Figure 6. The more specific the source meanings are, the higher the chance
that the change through metaphor or metonymy hypothesis is correct.
The more general the source meanings are, the higher the chance that
the change through specialization hypothesis comes in.
Figure 5 lists three postmodal meanings: condition, concession, and
complementation. Conditionality can be illustrated with Dutch mocht in
(15), which, just like the should of the English translation, signals that
the subordinate clause it introduces is a conditional clause; the concessive
meaning can be illustrated with Dutch mgen cmay' in (16).
(15) Mocht ik ziek worden, zoek dan een vervanger.

might I sick become search then a substitute
'Should I get sick, look then for a substitute.'
(16) Hij mag dan een genie zijn, dat is een fout.
he may then a genius be that is a mistake
c
He may be a genius, yet that is a mistake.'
Note that English he may be a genius or Dutch hij kan dan een genie zijn,
with the modal kunnen ccan' instead of mgen cmay', have concessive
interpretations too, but in the case of English may and Dutch kunnen
one can derive this Interpretation from their epistemic meanings. Dutch
mgen, however, does not have any epistemic meaning (any more).
-> (epistemic possibility
Figure 6. Change through metaphor/metonymy
->(epistemic possibility"
Figure 7. Change through specialization

The label "complementation meaning" refers to a postmodal marker

which has become associated with certain types ,of complement clauses
and of which it has become a near-automatic concomitant. This meaning
is said to be found, e.g., with the modal particle pwe in Trukese
(Micronesian) (Bybee et al. 1994: 222).
In their chapter on modality Bybee et al. (1994: 206-208) also mention
that possibility markers may often have a future meaning, but they do
not there clarify the exact relation. They do, however, in their chapter
on the future and it turns out that the future is taken to be a postmodal
meaning, with intention s an intermediate stage, developing not like the
other postmodal meanings out of epistemic possibility but out of partici-
pant-external possibility (Bybee et al. 1994: 252, 265-266). The evidence
is meager: they only list Cantonese and explicitly say that it is the only
example in their databasethereby refuting Bybee (1991: 27) on Trukese
and Tanga (Malayo-Polynesian). Heine, Claudi, & Hnnemeyer (1991b),
which is otherwise fll of African examples, approve of the proposal but
do not supply further evidence. Still, one more candidate may be Akha
(Lolo-Burmese), s described by Thurgood (1986: 218-219). Figure 8
encompasses the future s postmodal hypothesis.
We now come to necessity, for which, s was said before, Bybee et al.
(1994) offer two paths. In their first path (1994: 240), the "translation"
of which is Figure 9, the paths into and out of the future and out of the
'be strong', 'know') ^ -^
'arriveat', 'finish', participant-intemal

' suffice; possibility
participan
l 'be permitted', l
'dare' J
deontic possibility)
'be', 'become', ^/epistemic possibility
'happen', 'befall',
'stand',
'Idon'tknow',
complementation
*'
epistemic necessity
complementation
participant-external necessity
imperative
Figure 9. Necessiiy- and beyond

Modalitys semantic map 95
imperative are more complex, but this need not concern us here. It is not
clear whether Bybee et al.'s "Obligation" Stands for deontic necessity or
for its hyperonym participant-external necessity. Since the Obligation is
exemplified with modern English should and since the latter is probably
best described s expressing the more general participant-external neces-
sity, even though deontic necessity is both the original meaning s well
s the one that is still prominent in the modern language, we take
'Obligation" in the sense of "participant-external necessity".
Figure 10 differs from Figure 9 in that it includes deontic necessity s
well s a change from deontic necessity to participant-external necessity.
This change seems plausible not only for English should but also for
some of its cognates in other Germanic languages (see Ramat 1972:
196-200 on (older) Germanic; Coates 1983: 59 on Modern English;
Stevens 1995: 191-193 on the development in German). Interestingly,
the direction of this change is from hyponym to hyperonym, which is
the reverse of what we have seen with possibility.
Figures 9 and 10 say nothing about the source expressions yet, but
Bybee et al. (1994: 183, 196) list Owe', 'need', 'be good/proper/...', 'be',
'become', 'have', 'fall', 'want', 'see', and 'understand'. It is not explained,
however, which modal meaning these feed into. About some of these
sources we are ready to make some Claims. Thus it seems to us that
'need' feeds into a participant-internal necessity, lacking in Figures 9 and
10, but it is clearly needed for meanings such s (Ib). It furthermore
seems rather plausible to think that notions such s owing and duty (for
English should and Russian dolzen (Bulygina & Smelev 1991)), belonging
(for Dutch hren), and being good or proper skip the participant-internal
dimension and go directly to the deontic subtype of participant-external
necessity. The necessity that uses 'have', at least in English have to, is
also participant-external, but there is no reference to any authority or
moral code, so the participant-external necessity is general. Bybee et al.
(1994: 206) also mention one case of a direct source to epistemic necessity,
viz. a Tigre (Ethiopic) combination of 'become' and 'if, which we
suppose yields something that can be glossed s 'if it becomes'. The
epistemic necessity
^deontic necessitj^)
participai t-extemal
nece ssity
Figure 10. Necessity and beyond

perfect which yields inferential evidentiality could be entered here too

(see the discussion in Section 2.1.4). Finally, 'bb supposed' is a source
ibr participant-external necessity, too (cf. Bybee 1985: 94-95; Bolinger
1980:295).
(17) John is supposed to be in Calcutta.
Note that the development from the participant-external necessity reading

out of a construction with a verb originally meaning 'to hold s opinion'
looks like a development from epistemic to participant-external necessity,
which would be a direction counter to the canonical one. The point is,
however, that our notion of epistemic modality makes an obligatory
reference to the judgment of the Speaker, and this is absent in (17).
Figure 11 takes account of all these hypotheses.
As to postmodal meanings, Bybee et al. (1994) list four. We find no
good examples for the concessive and imperative meanings. The comple-
mentation meaning can be exemplified with English should (18).
(18) I suggest that you should call immediately.
The path from participant-external necessity via intention to the future

is commonly assumed to be the road taken by the Romance future (Bybee
et al. 1994: 202, 224).
Figure 12 is the second necessity path offered by Bybee et al. (1994:
240). It documents the fact that epistemic necessity may derive from a
future, s exemplified with English will (19).
''if itbecomesv. ^(epistemic necessity concession

iorT)
^ perfect )
(^omplementation)
( Owe', duty,"^ (Jeontic necessity)
. 'belong',
vbe good/proper future
participar t-external
'have', nece ssity (Imperative)
l'be supposed'
participant-internal
necessity
Figure 11. To necessity and beyond
Tdesire, movement toward ) epistemic necessity

complementation

Modality s semantic map 97
(19) Thai will be the postman.
In Bybee et al.'s map (1994: 240) there are other paths going on from
the future and future is preceded by intention, but we will not represent
these Claims.
3.2. Connecting thepossibility and necessity paths

The first Step towards making a single map of modality consists in
unifying Figures 11 and 12. This is unproblematic: Bybee et al. (1994:
240) claim that epistemic necessity can lead to concession and comple-
mentation meanings, independent of whether epistemic necessity comes
from participant-external necessity or from the future. The unification of
Figures 11 and 12 is shown in Figure 13. Note that Figure 13 contains
the future meaning both in the premodal and the postmodal domain.
This allows for cyclicity: it is imaginable that a meaning would demodalize
from participant-external modality to future and then "remodalize" from
future to epistemic modality. This cycle is in fact attesteda point
implicitly made already in Heine (1993: 69). An example of an epistemic
necessity that comes from a future that itself comes from participant-
external necessity is Spanish (20).
(20) Tendr v einte anos.

have.FUT.3so twenty years
'She's probably about twenty years old.' (Bybee et al. 1994: 224)
The second step towards the desired integrated map of modality con-
sists of unifying the possibility and necessity maps, in particular, Figures
8 and 13. There are several reasons for doing so. One reason is that there
are postmodal meanings that are shared by the possibility and necessity
tracks. Bybee et al. (1994) make this claim for concession, complementa-
desire, movement
toward
' 4 if itbecomesv ^(epistemic necessity
perfect )
complementation
( Owe', (Jcontic necessity)
. 'belong',
vbe good/proper parucipai t-external
necc ssity (Imperative)
f 'have', .
l'be supposed' \
participant-interna
necessity

tion, and future. We can add condition s wel}.13 Bybee et al. (1994)
mention condition s a postmodal destination for possibility, a case
illustrated with Dutch mocht in (15). The same sentence, with the same
conditionality meaning, would in regional (Southern/Belgian) Dutch
employ the necessity modal moest, s in (21).
(21) Moest ik ziek worden, zoek dan een vervanger.

must I sick become search then a substitute
'Should I get sick, look then for a substitute.'
(Geerts et al. 1984: 546)
And, of course, s the English translation shows, English can employ a

necessity modal s well, viz. should. An attempt at unifying the possibility
and necessity tracks is shown in Figure 14.
Note that Figure 14 allows for participant-external possibility to demo-
dalize into a future, which could then remodalize into epistemic necessity.
This scenario is not attested, but it will be remembered that the track
from participant-external possibility to future is rarely used. If the
scenario were attested, we would have a case where an element would
change from a possibility meaning to a necessity meaning. This brings
us to the next point.
With Figure 14 we see that possibility and necessity may share post-
modal meanings and we have argued that this constitutes the first reason
''be strong, 'know'j

l 'arriveat',finishv paracipant-intemal
v !suffice'_ J. possibility
'bepermitted', participan t-external
'dare' ,
r 'be', 'become', ] deontic possibilitv)

1
'happen', 'befall',1
'stand',
, 'Idon'tknow', ,
l 'like' }
epistemic possibdity condition
desire,
toward
''if it becomes v
perfect J epistemic necessity complementation
Owe',
. 'belong',
vbe good/proper
deontic necessity)
f 'have', imperative
l'be supposed' participar t-exteraal
''need' necessity
Figure 14. Unifying the possibility and necessity paths

for wanting to integrale the possibility and necessity maps. A second

rcason is that deontic necessity can develop out of deontic possibility.
This happened with English must and its cognates in Dutch (moeteri) and
German (mssen) and it is Happening now with its Danish cognate m,
so that (22) is vague between a permission and an Obligation reading.
(22) Nn m du for taue.

now may/must you teil
'Now you may/must teil a story.' (Davidsen-Nielsen 1990: 187)
Other cases may be the Hungarian suffix -hat/-het (Kiefer 1981: 152-153)
or the verb dr in the Melanesian language Tinrin (Osumi 1995: 71).
(23) Most ?ne-hei-sz a tisztitoba.

now go-can-SG the cleaner.in
'Now you may/have to go to the cleaner's.'
(24) Nra dr bee ta p nr wiri.
it suffices COMP kill flying.fox POSS 2PL
'It suffices your killing flying foxes.'
'You may/should kill flying foxes.'
For Hungarian -hat/-het it is clear that the original meaning involves

possibility (Casper de Groot, personal communication). Hence its deontic
necessity reading has to be derived from deontic possibility. The Tinrin
verb dr literally means 'to suffice, to be enough'. This is independently
found to be a source for possibility, so it makes sense to construe the
necessity reading s a development of the possibility reading. As to the
explanation of why this development can take place, there is a dispute
see Gamon (1993: 156-161) for an overview and a discussion, in so far
s it relates to Germanic.
The third reason for unification is very similar to the second one. It
turns out that deontic possibility can develop out of deontic necessity,
which is the opposite of the scenario just discussed. A switch from deontic
necessity to deontic possibility is attested with German drfen. It started
out s a polarized necessity modal of the need type, used for the negation
of deontic necessity; it then slid into the deontic necessity of not p
through Gricean implicatureand via the equivalence of necessity of
not p and the impossibility of p, it got reinterpreted s a possibility
marker (see Bech 1951: 14-16; Valentin 1984: 19; van der Auwera forth-
coming b). Applied to a pseudo-example, the hypothesis says that (25a)
first meant 'he need not stay home alone5, then 'he must not stay home

alone', and finally 'he may not stay home alone', at which stage drfen
developed a positive deontic possibility sense (25b).
(25) a. Er darf nicht allein zu Hause bleiben.

he may not alone at house stay
may not stay home alone.'
b. Er darf allein zu Hause bleiben.
c
He may stay home alone.'
Figure 15 sums up the most interesting parts of this section. It shows

that some postmodal meanings can be reached from possibility s well
s from necessity meanings, and that deontic possibility can turn to
deontic necessity and vice versa. The fact that the potential of change in
deontic modality can reside in either possibility or necessity allows for
an element to Start from one end, to go to the other, and then come
back. This is not attested, but it is easy to imagine. Should modern
German deontic drfen go from possibility to necessity the way German
mssen did before, we would have a case in point.
3.3. Vagueness between necessity and possibility

Up to now we have witnessed how possibility and necessity are connected
in either of two ways: (i) paths of possibility and necessity can yield the
same result, (ii) a possibility meaning can turn into necessity and vice
versa. There is yet a third way in which possibility and necessity become
associated with one another: meanings may be vague between possibility
and necessity readings, without this vagueness being a transition stage
from the one reading to the other. This Situation is found with the
German "modal passive" (or "modal infinitive"). In some contexts the
modal passive allows both readings (26), some contexts trigger the possi-
bility reading (27) and some the necessity reading (28).
parucipant-extem
possibility
(deontic possibility)
(epistemic possibility condion
Qieontic necessit^) epistemic necessity complementation

participant-extemal
necessity
Figure 15. Connections between possibility and necessity

Modality 's semantic map 101
(26) Wesensprobleme sind mit den Mitteln der Ontologie zu lsen.

problems.of.being are with the means of.the ontology to solve
'Problems of being can/must be solved with the means of ontology.'
(Drosdowski 1984: 106)
(27) /...] eine goldene Monstranz, die noch heute in der Kirche [...]
a golden monstrance which still now in the church
zu sehen ist.
to see is
'...a golden monstrance, which can still be seen in the church
today.' (Gelhaus 1977: 16)
(28) Nur die Frage des Mastabs war noch zu klren.
only the question of.the criterion was still to clarify
Only the question of the criterion still had to be clarified.'
(Gelhaus 1977: 57)
The construction is not only vague between possibility and necessity,

but also between participant-internal and participant-external modality.
One can use it to predicate a property of the subject, like the visibility
of the golden monstrance in (27), and thus present this visibility s a
possibility internal to the monstrance. But precisely because the property
is passive it also involves an agent, either explicitly or implicitly (a generic
or contextually given one), and one can construe the modality s referring
to conditions external to this agent, e.g., to some circumstances that force
the implicit agent of (28) to solve all of the questions. Of course, that a
modality marker is vague between a participant-external and participant-
internal Interpretation is rather common. We find it with English can and
need, too. But what makes the German modal passive peculiar is that we
know of no indication for assuming the participant-internal Interpretation
to be diachronically prior, the way it is the case for modals like may/can
and need. It probably is not. The German sein + zu + Infinitive immedi-
ately yields a modality that is vague both along the participant-internal
vs. participant-external dimension and along the possibility vs. necessity
dimension.
We represent the vagueness of the German modal passive in Figure 16.
As source we just write 'be', although we realize that this description is
incomplete s the meaning of the infinitive is part of the source meaning
too (see the discussion about 'have' following Figure 5). For the sake of
clarity, we omit the meanings and connections that are irrelevant to the
modal passive.
Modal infinitives exist in other languages too (at least in other
Germanic, Romance, and Slavic ones). It remains to be seen whether the

'participant-external
participant-intemal possibility possibility
^deontic possibiHtv)
(^deonticnecessity)
participant-internal necessity participant-external
necessity
Figure 16. The German modal Infinitive
constructions always share the vagueness of the German ones. Regarding

English, for example, one often finds the claim that its modal Infinitive
involves only necessity, in particular predetermination or deontic neces-
sity (cf. Swan 1980: 97; Bybee et al. 1994: 184).
(29) We are to meet there at seven.
However, s Jespersen (1940: 237) already noticed, with a passive infini-

tive, we are often in the realm of possibility, and Blanchon (1988: 175)
and Goossens (1992: 64) make the point that a possibility reading is
available even for an active Infinitive.
(30) Such things are not to be seen any day.

(31) A^ man of quite ordinr strength is to Hft this crate easily.
And English also has relic uses of the German-style modal passives (see
Demske-Neumann 1994), which, we suppose, are also vague between
possibility and necessity.
/
(32) The president is to blamefor this.
So the English modal Infinitive may after all be best considered vague
toobut see Goossens (1992) for a path hypothesis.
Note that the vagueness may not be a reflection of a change from
possibility into necessity or vice versa, for this would take us back to
what we have seen with, e.g., Danish ma (22) or German drfen (25). It
may of course be difficult to distinguish between these two types of
vagueness. Consider the Latin "gerundive", more particularly, the predi-
catively used gerundive.14 In classical Latin, the predicative gerundive
typically expresses necessity, but possibility uses are also found.

(33) M/A/ colenda est virtus.

ISG.DAT cultivate.GRD.RSG.NOM be.FRS.3sG virtue.F.SG.NOM
have to cultivate virtue.' (Ernout & Thomas 1972: 285)
(34) Tu ipse tarn amandus es.
2SG.NOM Seif SO love.GRD.M.SG.NOM be.PRS.2SG
are so lovable.' (Ernout & Thomas 1972: 287)
The possibility meanings seem restricted to some verbs, to the extent that
one may even call them lexicalized (cf. Risch 1984: 54). Sometimes one
finds the possibility sense described in terms of the weakening of the
necessity sense (Ernout & Thomas 1972: 287; Risch 1984: 54, 61-62),
and sometimes in terms of the preservation of a more original possibility
sense, prior to its necessity sense (Michel 1978: 236). Either way, at least
in classical Latin the vagueness would seem to be of the type indicative
of semantic change and not of the type found with the German modal
infinitive. On the other hand, it is not to be excluded that in older Latin
the predicative gerundive was in fact truly vague between possibility and
necessity and that necessity, which was to dominate later, developed
through specialization.
The modal infinitives have their origin in a use of the 'be' verb. A
participant-external modality vague between possibility and necessity is
also documented for a construction that employs 'have', s in regional
and colloquial Basque (Alan King, personal communication):
(35) Joa-te-a du/dauka.

go-VN-ART have.FRS.3sG
'He has a/the going.'
'He can/has to go.'
A verb meaning 'get' is another source, s shown in Swedish (36).
(36) Lasse f r k ra bil.

Lasse gets drive car
'Lasse gets to drive the car.5
'Lasse may/must drive the car.' (Wagner 1976: 56)
The lexical verb fa 'get' still exists (37), and an intermediate meaning is
what we want to callpace Wagner's (1976) "ingressive""participant-
external actuality" (38), meaning that some state of affairs is actualized
because of participant-external circumstances, in particular, because the
participant in some way "received" the state of affairs.

(37) Han fick 50 av rsterna.

he got 50 of the.votes
c
He got 50 of the votes.' (Wagner 1976: 56)
(38) Han fick veta heia sanningen.
he got know whole the.truth
c
He got to know the whole truth.' (Wagner 1976: 58)
An advantage of the term "participant-external actuality" is that it invites

one to consider the possibility of "participant-internal actuality". This is
the term we would like to reserve for a verb like manage.
(39) He managed to learn Japanese infour weeks.
Figure 17 represents the meanings and the postulated development of the

relevant Basque 'have' and Swedish cgef constructions.
As the translations of (36) and (38) already indicate, English get is
very similar to Swedish f , but in contradistinction to the latter, it covers
the internal actuality sense too, a usage in which get thus means 'manage'
(e.g., in (39)). Yet another case is Lahu (Sino-Tibetan) ga literally 'get',
possibly covering the same rnge s well s participant-internal possibility
(Matisoff 1973: 233, 551; 1991: 419).15
3.4. Demodalization
This section is devoted to demodalization. Of course, we have already
seen various manifestations of it. We have seen how modal meanings
may yield postmodal ones, independently of whether the modal meaning
was possibility or necessity. This was the case for condition, concession,
and complementation, s coming from epistemic modality, and for future,
s coming from participant-external modality. There was one postmodal
meaning which was exclusive for necessity, more particularly participant-
'participant-exterm
possibility
Xoeontic possibility)
participant-extemal actuality
Qteontic necessit
fhavel participant-external
necessity
Figure 17. Basque 'have' and Swedish 'get'

external necessity and that was imperative. In this section we will discuss
some other types.
3.4.1. Out ofparticipant-internal possibility

The literature consulted documents five subtypes of demodalization out
of participant-internal possibility. In four subtypes the modal marker
retains the participant-internalness component, but changes the notion
of possibility. One is Swedish ma 'may'. Swedish m was an ordinary
participant-internal possibility modal, but in Middle Swedish it developed
the meaning 'feel' s in feel good (Birkmann 1987: 311). In this new
meaning, the verb acquired a different present and past tense. The 'feel'
verb got an ending -r in the present, like regulr verbs, and its past tense
became mdde instead of the modal matte. Swedish now truly has two
ma verbs.16
(40) Jag mr bra
I may well
feel fine.'
(41) Vad som an m hnda ...
what REL still may happen
'Whatever may happen, ...'
In German and Dutch the cognates to may and m also demodalized,
yet not to 'feel' but to 'like', s in German (42).
(42) Ich mag Tom nicht.
I may Tom not
don't like Tom.'
For German it has been suggested that the demodalization started in
negative sentences (Fritz 1974: 79; Paul et al. 1975: 1721; Stevens 1995:
194). For Dutch no such claim has been made, and for German there is
an alternative view (Kahl 1890: 41, and especially Lhr 1987: 273-274,
who also argues that the negative context hypothesis is wrong). Whatever
the finer details of the explanation may be, there is agreement that the
'like' meaning developed out of the participant-internal possibility mean-
ingand, in German, furthermore led to 'want' (with the subjunctive
mchte; Lehmann 1991: 512).
In Russian (s well s in Ukrainian and Byelorussian) the cognate to
may, moc, did something different still. In Russian, verbs are either
imperfective or perfective and the majority of the regulr verbs allow the
derivation of a verb of the opposite aspect. Originally moc' was an
imperfective verb that disallowed the derivation of a perfective counter-

part. A development, however, not completed until the beginning of the

twentieth Century (Bulygina & Smelev 1990: 151-152), took place, allow-
ing to perfectivize moc into s-moc\ Most perfective verbs, when paralleled
to their imperfective counterparts, mark the completion of the process.
In the case of s-moc', the new perfective came to mark the actualization
of the possibility. This is the meaning 'manage'. As the participant-
internal component is still there, we will call it "participant-internal
actuality", to be differentiated from the participant-external actuality of
c
gef, discussed in Section 3.3.
(43) Boris s-mog prosnut'sja v vosem' utra.

Boris.NOM pFV-can.PST.3sG.M wake.up.iNF at eight morning.GEN
'Boris managed to wake up at eight o'clock.'
The s- prefix furthermore is not the only perfectivizer. Attested are also
pere- Over-' in (colloquial) pere-mog Overcame (e.g., an illness)', pre-
voz- Over-up-' in pre-voz-mog Overcame', za-ne- 'INCH-NEG-' in za-ne-
mog cgot , and iz-ne- cout-NEG-' in iz-ne-mog 'became exhausted'.
Interestingly, Russian also has a modal for learned capacity, umet' 4know
to', like French savoir in (5). Umet' was originally imperfective and
without perfective counterpart, too, and it also underwent the perfectiviz-
ing development, with this twist that perfective s-umet' lacks the learned-
ness component (Satunovskij 1996: 215-216).
The fourth type of demodalization is Latin posse, s described in Lewis
& Short (1975: 1404, 1409). Posse ccan, may' is a verb which is a
univerbation of the adjective potis cable' and the verb esse cbe'. The
phrase potis esse was used in pre-classical times and seems to have had
only modal meanings. The later verb posse, however, also has the non-
modal meanings cto have influence, to avail', s in (44).
(44) plus ... apud te pecuniae cupiditas quam

more at you.ACC money.SG.GEN desire.SG.NOM than
judicn metus potuit
law.case.GEN fear.SG.NOM can.PF.3sG
c
in your case avarice could more than fear of justice'
c
in your case avarice was stronger than fear of justice'
(Lewis & Short 1975: 1404, quotation from Cicero)
The fifth type, hinted at by Heine et al. (1993: 9), is totally different.
The marker sheds both the possibility and the participant-internal compo-
nent and becomes a consecutive marker. The case has been argued for
the Shona (Bantu) verb gona- C to 7 be able to' developing to -go-, a

consecutive prefix ('then'). The semantic reasoning is presumably that

the consecutive event is made possible by the preceding one.
(45) va-cha-inda nwngwana va-go-dzoka madekwana.
3pL-FUT-go tomorrow 3pL-coNS-return evening
They will go tomorrow and come back in the evening.1
3.4.2. Out of participant-external possibility

Figure 14 already shows there to be a development from participant-
external possibility to future. But another postmodal use seems to be the
Optative, s illustrated by English may and its cognates in other Germanic
languages, such s German mgen in (47).
(46) May he live a hundred years!
(47) Mchten doch alle eure guten Wnsche in Erfllung gehen!
might still all your good wishes in fulfillment go
'May all your good wishes become true.' (Drosdowski 1984: 105)
The optative retains the participant-external component: a wish is like
an appeal to circumstances (destiny) to allow the realization of a state
of affairs. For a diachronic analysis confirming the semantically plausible
scenario of the optative's development out of participant-external possi-
bility, see Gamon (1993) for German.
3.4.3. Out of non-epistemic necessity

An Optative can not only develop from possibility, but also from necessity.
The evidence concerns the Russian modal infinitive. It is said to have
two meanings, one of them necessity, s in English, often with a tinge of
inevitability.
(48) Vam vyxodit'.
2PL.DAT gO.OUt.INF
'You must get off.' [s on the bus]
(49) Sidet' mne tut teper' vsju zizn.
sit.iNF ISG.DAT here now all.F.SG.ACC life.F.sc.ACC
'Now I have to hang around here all my life.'
But differing from the modal infinitives of English and German, discussed
in Section 3.3, the Russian one also allows an Optative meaning.
(50) Zit' vam dp sta let!
Hve.iNF 2PL.DAT till hundred.GEN year.PL.GEN
'May you live a hundred years!'

108 /. van der Auwera and K A. Plungian
We suggest that the Optative is a later developmieht. We do not know of

any direct historical evidence, but at least the suggested scenario makes
semantic sense. The Optative is again, like we have seen with may in (46),
an appeal to circumstances, not this time to allow a certain state of
affairs, but simply to force it. Note that under these hypotheses, we have
detected a fifth postmodal meaning, reachable via necessity s well s
possibility, to be added to the condition, concession, complementation,
and future meanings.
3.4.4. Out of participant-external or epistemic necessity

Figure 14 shows that participant-external necessity can demodalize to
future and to imperative. There are indications that it can also demodalize
to non-inferential evidentiality, at least to the quotative.17 This is the
hypothesis reached by Anderson (1986: 289-295) for German, s in (9),
s well s for Wintu and Patwin, both Californian languages. The evi-
dence Bybee et al. (1994: 203) report for Guaymi (Chibchan), with the
prefix reserving Obligation and non-witnessed reporting, points in the
same direction.
In view of our acceptance of inferential evidentiality s epistemic
necessity and of the fact that an evidential may be vague between an
inferential and a quotative readingsuch is the case for Turkish (10)
it is a little strnge to see the quotative associated with participant-
external necessity rather than epistemic necessity. At first sight, the
German evidence is in support of the posited link between participant-
external necessity and quotative, for German sollen normally allows no
epistemic reading. But the facts are more complicated. As Tanja
Mortelmans (personal communication) has pointed out, epistemic uses
are attested, at lest for subjunctive sollte(n).
(51) Auf den Planeten, die [...], ist die Art des Bodens eine
on the planets that is the manner of.the soil a
ganz andere: [...] und es gibt keine [...] Krater.
completely different and it gives no craters
Auf der Venus sollte es demnach keine Krater [...] geben.
on the Venus should it therefore no craters [...] give
On the planets that [...] the soil is constituted quite differently:
[...] and there are no craters. On Venus there should therefore be
no craters [...].'
s'
Dutch is interesting in this respect too. Outcti7moeten has been claimed
to allow a quotative meaning by De Haan (1997: 146, 153-154).

(52) Het moet een goedefilm zijn.

it must a good film be
1t is said to be a good film.'
We find the latter proposal intuitively plausible and we are indeed inclined
to accept that moeten is different from English must in this respect,
although one can use the English It must be a good film in a context
where it is understood that the evidence relative to which the film is
certain to be good is hearsay evidence. In fact if Dutch moeten should
be attributed a separate quotative meaning, it seems highly plausible to
Interpret it s a conventionalization of the contextual reading just posited
for English. In that case we wold have a quotative that does not come
from participant-external modality but rather from epistemic modality.
3.4.5. Out of epistemic necessity

We have so far seen evidence for the development of two types of
illocutionary markers out of modality, the imperativefrom participant-
external necessityand the Optativefrom participant-external possi-
bility and from non-epistemic necessity. Interrogative markers, too, can
develop out of modality. The evidence is an interrogative particle, mon
in Danish (53) and, marginally, mnde/manne in Swedish. Their history
is complex, but they seem connected to a verb 'will' (Bjrkstam 1919:
97-143; Birkmann 1987: 247, 305-306, 326-327).
(53) Mon han kommer?

whether he comes
'Will he come?'
The gloss 'whether' in (53) is inspired by Hammerich's (1960) glossing

of German ob s 'whether'. What is interesting about (53) is that kommer
is a finite verb, thereby showing that mon is no longer verbal (for otherwise
the sentence would have two finite verbs, which is impossible). In conces-
sive clauses mon is still verbal, but this use is archaic in Danish.
(54) Hvad han end monne mene, ...

what he still might mean
'Whatever he might mean, ...' (Hammerich 1960: 57)
Hammerich (1960: 46-47) gives a nice minimal contrast for Swedish,

with manne taking up the position of the finite verb in (55a), but filling
an adverbial slot in (55b):

110 J. van der Auwera and V. A. Plungian
(55) a. Manne min herra vara frn Brahestad?

will my sir be from Brahestad?
fi
Are you from Brahestad?'
b. Ar her ran manne/raw Brahestad?
is sir.the maybe from Brahestad
'Are you from Brahestad?'
Where does the interrogative meaning come from? We advance the

hypothesis that it derives from epistemic necessity. This is a meaning still
found in Icelandic and Faroese, and we know that epistemic necessity
can come directly from the future, the original meaning of the verb, and
that it can lead to concession (see (54)).
Figure 18 provides an overview of all the demodalization processes
hypothesized in this section.
3.5. Modality 's seman tic map

Abstracting from many of the details but keeping a few of the most
relevant ones, the semantic map of modalityand some of its immediate
surroundingscan be depicted s in Figure 19. Figure 19 shows three
spheres: premodal, modal, and postmodal. In the modal sphere four
types of possibility are distinguished, four types of necessity, s well s
a number of modal notions that are vague between possibility and neces-
sity. Both in the premodal and in the postmodal spheres there are three
subgroups, depending of whether the destination involves possibility,
necessity, or both.
Like the paths in Bybee et al, (1994), the new map is supposed to have
universal relevance, both with respect to diachrony and synchrony. With
participant-internal 'feel', 'like', 'avail', l

possibility participant-internal actuality,
consecutive )
pamcipant-extern
possibility
epistemic possibility
interrogative
epistemic necessity
necessity
quotauve
necessity
Figure 18. More demodalization

Modality's sernantic map 111
premodal P articipant-intcmal
mcanings possibility
going to
possibility /postmodal meanings^
V coming from
participari ' possibility
prcmodal possi ility
mcanings epistemic possibility
going to whal (deontic possibility) postmodal meanings }
is vaguc .- coming from either .
bctwccn l possibility or necessity l
possibility
and ncccssity/ (jeontic necessit) epistemic necessity
participant-external /postmodal meanings^
prcmodal neceksity
mcanings coming from
going neccssity
to nccessity participant-intcmaP^/
(onc is future) . nccessity
Figure 19. Modality's semantic map
respect to diachrony, the map shows that most if not all of the modal
notions are directly accessible from a premodal notion. In the horizontal
dimension there is fll unidirectionality, going from premodal notions to
participant-internal modality, participant-external modality (either the
general notion or the deontic subtype), and epistemic modality, with
demodalizations at (nearly) every modal stage and limited remodalization.
The latter scenario involves an element going from a modal meaning to
a postmodal one and taking this s the premodal source of a new modal
meaning. Meanings attested in both the premodal and the postmodal
sphere are future, actuality, and 'like'. At least in the case of the future
a remodalization cycle is attested, with the future s a postmodal develop-
ment out of participant-external necessity and subsequently serving s
premodal input to epistemic necessity. Methodologically, the demodaliza-
tion and cyclicity facts should remind us of the limits of our ability to
reconstruct the past from the present, a counsel also voiced by Anderson
(1986: 282).
In the vertical dimension, however, there is no unidirectionality, for
within the deontic realm markers have been found to switch from possi-
bility to necessity s well s from necessity to possibility.
4. Form and change of form

4.1. A synchronic universal
We side with Bybee et al. (1994: 17) and other grammaticalization theo-
rists when they claim that the synchronic multiple meanings of a single
marker must be seen s stages on a path. We furthermore think that the
claim can be made stronger and propose that, on any single path, syn-

chronic multiple meanings of a modal marker must be adjacent. With

the condition "on any single path" we provide for the fact that paths
may split, that a marker will thereafter move on more than one path,
that it may survive on more than one path, and lose a pre-split meaning,
in which case the remaining post-split meanings are not adjacent. In
abstract terms, we allow for the multiple meanings represented with
diagonal lines in Figures 20 and 21, but not for those in Figure 22.
Figures 23 and 24 show Dutch kunnen 'can' and mgen 'may'. For the
first the meanings are completely adjacent, for the second they are not
but the extant meanings do not violate the "single path" restriction.
The adjacency requirement can also be phrased in terms of an implica-
tional universal, (56).
Meaning l
>-(Meaning 6
Figure 20. Multiple meanings (allowed)
-^Meaning 4
Meaning l -^(Meaning 2
Figure 21. Multiple meanings (allowed)
->^Meaning 4,
> (Meaning 2
-^("Meaning 6
Figure 22. Multiple meanings (disallowed)
Figure 23. Dutch kunnen 'can'

Modallty 's seman tic map 113
participant-mtern
possibility
participan -external
possi
epistemic possibility
Figure 24. Dutch mgen 'may*
(56) If a marker can express two meanings that are on an identical

path of the modal map, then it can express any meaning that
comes in between these two meanings.
Explicitly positing an adjacency requirement on the expressibility of a

semantic map is also known from work on other domains (e.g., Anderson
1986; Heine, Claudi, & Hnnemeyer 1991a: 154-156; Haspelmath 1997a),
and it is also a defining feature of implicational hierarchies. Interestingly,
in the case of modality the adjacency requirement is not absolute, for
because of the splits it only holds on any one path. Relaxing adjacency
owing to the disappearance of a link meaning is attested elsewhere, too.
A good example is the fact that languages may have a tense marker for
future and habituale.g., Lezgian (Nakho-Daghestanian; Haspelmath
1994), Kui (Dravidian; Bybee et al. 1994: 277) and Dogon (Niger-Congo;
Plungian 1995: 24-25)and the link meaning, which no longer
allows this tense marker, is the present progressive (see Haspelmath
forthcoming).
As for the other domains, the explanation for adjacency is that it
reflects semantic relatedness. On the question of just how the various
meanings are semantically related, a lot of work has already been done,
on the relations between premodal and modal meanings and even more
on the relations between the various modal meanings. As to the latter,
the discussion often centers
0
on whether or not the participant-internal,
participant-external, and epistemic meanings are not merely related mean-
ings, but uses of unitary meanings (thus, compare the polysemy account
of Palmer (1979), the monosemy account of Kratzer (1978), and Coates'
(1983) attempt to combine both strategies). On the issue of the relatedness
of the modal meanings themselves, our paper has nothing to contribute,
apart from our claim, made in Section 2.2, that the issue makes sense
only on a language-specific level. On the issue of the relatedness of the
modal meanings to the premodal and postmodal ones, however, we have

contributed both new phenomena and new hypotheses. An example of a

phenomenon that is relevant for the semantic map of modality but that
had not been studied in this context before and,is therefore "new" is the
fact that Russian developed a perfective verb s-moc meaning 'manage'
from its imperfective verb moc cmay'. The need for providing this phe-
nomenon with a new path on modality's semantic map was arrived at
inductively. We formulated a partial hypothesis about it s well, viz., the
view that perfectivizing a participant-internal possibility must yield some-
thing like participant-internal actuality.
4.2. Grammaticalization and degrammaticalization

For a paper that is so thoroughly influenced by Bybee et al. (1994), we
have kept remarkably silent about the notion of grammaticalization so
far. Of course, it is common to take semantic change s a dimension of
grammaticalization too, and to that extent grammaticalization could be
said to have been implicit all along. Below, however, we will limit our-
selves to the formal side of grammaticalization.
A claim found in Bybee (1985: 166) and supported by more evidence
in Bybee et al. (1994: 241-242) and also in Hengeveld (forthcoming)
says, in our terms and restricting the claim first to the modal sphere only,
that non-epistemic modality employs non-bound markers significantly
more often than epistemic modality, which goes to show that non-
epistemic modality is generally formally less grammaticalized than episte-
mic modality. This claim is based on a count of the number of bound
and non-bound markers found for the two modality types across lan-
guages. Interestingly, the claim is not based on observations on how one
and the same marker progressively attains a higher degree of formal
grammaticalization when it develops epistemic modality from non-episte-
mic modality. When one addresses this issue and studies the English
modals, like the ones that are discussed most frequently in any discussion
of modality including Bybee et al. (1994), one actually finds that the
English modals are just s grammaticalized formally in non-epistemic
meanings s in epistemic meanings. This was pointed out in passing by
Plank (1981: 64) and was the issue addressed by Goossens (1985c), who
applies the grammaticalization criteria offered by Lehmann (1982) and
finds them incapable of differentiating between non-epistemic and episte-
mic modals. To the extent that relevant Information can be extracted
from Bybee et al. (1994) and that the properties of elements marking
both modality types can be compared in other languages, one similarly
finds no sign of any difference in degree of formal grammaticalization.
It is also of interest that Bybee et al. (1994) make no claim to the effect

thal parlicipant-external modality should be more grammaticalized for-

mally than participant-internal modality. This is a little surprising, for
grammaticalization thcory posits that semantic change is connected with
formal change.
The claim that modal markers can differ in degree of formal grammati-
calization depending on modality type is on record, however, at least
sincc Plank (1981: 58-59). On the basis of German facts, relating in
particular to the ability or inability of modals to combine with nominal
objects and directional adverbs, Plank makes a case for a hierarchy of
formal grammaticalization or "auxiliarity", which with some tcrminologi-
cal and notational modification comes out s (57), with '<' meaning
'cxhibits a lower degree of formal grammaticalization'.
(57) participant-internal < participant-external < epistemic modality
In the very same paper, however, he mentions that the English modals
do not correlate the semantic distinction with any formal features. So,
to make (57) cross-linguistically more appropriate, we propose to change
'<' into '<', meaning 'exhibits an equal or lower degree of formal
grammaticalization':
(58) participant-internal < participant-external < epistemic modality
English and German are not the only languages that can be mentioned
in support of (58). Especially the divide between participant-external and
epistemic modality seems to provide a good parameter. Thus, the Greek
possibility modal boro has fully inflected forms for participant-external
modality but an invariable form for epistemic modality (Palmer 1986:
19-20). Similarly, in French pouvoir 'can' allows inflected forms for both
participant-external and epistemic modality, but epistemic modality can
be expressed with an invariable, impersonal // se peut que 'it REFL may
that'.
Note that under the view in (58), semantic change is an enabling
condition for formal grammaticalization. This is in agrecment with Givon
(1975: 86), Heine, Claudi, & Hnnemeyer (1991a: 175), Heine (1993:
48, 58), and Haspelmath (1997b), among others, but not with Lehmann
(1982 [1995]), Croft (1990), of Bybee et al. (1994: 6-7, 19-21), who all
claim that the two processes go hand in hand. Probably both scenarios
are possible, but in the domain of modality semantic change seems to
come first.
This seems eminently plausible for the premodals, too. Premodals are
either normal lexical items or they are elements already grammaticalized,

such s the future auxiliaries acquiring modal meaning. So, comparing

them with their own possible modal uses, premodals are likely to have
either a lower or an equal degree of formal grammaticalization:
(59) premodal meaning < participant-internal < participant-external <

epistemic modality
With respect to postmodal meanings the picture may be more compli-

cated, however. In principle, the degree of formal grammaticalization of
postmodals could be either higher, equal, or lower. The first of these
logical possibilities is what one expects; and it is widely attested: an
example is the English optative may in (46), which is formally more
grammaticalized than modal may in that it is restricted to clause-initial
Position. What we are not aware of is any good case of postmodals and
modals equally grammaticalized. Perhaps German quotative sollen s in
(9) is reasonably close: it seems to show no higher formal grammaticaliza-
tion than participant-external sollen, the main modal meaning, but if
sollen has an epistemic meaning and if it is restricted to the subjunctive,
s in (51), then this modal meaning has attained a higher degree of
formal grammaticalization than the postmodal quotative.
This brings us to the third possibility, degrammaticalization, a kind of
development widely held to be rare if not non-existent (see, e.g., Lehmann
1982 [1995: 16-19]; Traugott & Heine 1991: 6-7; Hopper & Traugott
1993:126-128; Haspelmath 1997b). Arguably, on the evidence of Swedish
ma in its postmodal 'feel' meaning in (40), in which m is a regulr verb,
modals can be formally more grammaticalized than corresponding post-
modals; and the same could be said about the German and Dutch
cognates of may when they mean clike?, s in (42).18 In the Swedish case,
all depends on whether participant-internal ma can be considered formally
grammaticalized at the time that cfeeP m developed from it. This is an
empirical question which we cannot at present answer. Nonetheless, it is
clear that participant-internal m was an anomalous verb, a member of
the small subcategory of preterite-presents. So even if one does not accept
that participant-internal m was formally grammaticalized, one will have
to accept that when it took on the 'feel' meaning, it transferred from a
minor verbal subcategory to a more major one. Presumably, if a transfer
were documented from a minor category (e.g., preposition), rather than
a minor subcategory, to a less minor one (e.g., adjective), this would
represent degrammaticalization, for it would be the reverse of what is
called "paradigmatization" by Lehmann (1982 [1995: 135]) or "decateg-
orialization" by Hopper & Traugott (1993: 103-104)viz., the change
from major to minor along a cline of categoriality. With the m case the

cline is one of subcategoriality, but one may wonder whether the differ-
ence between category and subcategory is all that essential. For German,
in any case, it has been claimed that a transfer to the class of preterite-
presents constitutes grammaticalizationsee Stevens (1995: 184-185),
who then also considers the development of the 'like' sense of mgen s
degrammaticalization. Also, there is the point that Hopper & Traugott
(1993: 108-114) make about intermediate stages between lexical verbs
and auxiliaries,19 illustrated by Indo-Aryan "vector verbs", which com-
bine with lexical verbs in a compound-like fashion but still retain their
lexical meaning. If vector verbs can be considered a verbal subcategory,
then we have a case of a formal grammaticalization chain from major to
minor verbal subcategory to auxiliary. This is like the scenario for most
of the Germanic preterite-presents (see, e.g., Plank 1984 on English)
except that a few Germanic preterite-presents made a U-turn at the minor
verbal subcategory s tage.
Finally, with Ramat (1992) we believe that degrammaticalization really
does exist. Powerfully simple examples are the English nouns if and ism.
And to go by the example of the English noun must, which still has a
modal sense, the degrammaticalization it undergoes in its conversion
from auxiliary to noun does not even presuppose postmodality.
Received: 4 August 1997 Universiteit Antwerpen

Revised: 8 October 1997 Rossijskaja Akademija Nauk
Notes
The initial versions of this paper were written during the time Plungian was a guest
scholar at the University of Antwerp (January-July 1997). Thanks are due to the
Research Council of the University of Antwerp for fmancing this stay. Thanks are
also due to the Science Foundation Flanders (Krediet aan Navorsers, Onderzoeks-
gemeenschap 'Cognitieve Taalkunde). We are furthermore grateful to D. N. S. Bhat,
Ferdinand de Haan, Patrick Dendale, Louis Goossens, Martin Haspelmath, Tanja
Mortelmans, and Jan Nuyts for comments and conversations. The paper is dedicated
to the pathfinder of note 10.
Correspondence addresses: (van der Auwera) Departement Germaanse Taal- en
Letterkunde, * Universiteit Antwerpen (UIA), Universiteitsplein, l, B-2610 Wilrijk,
Belgium; e-mail: auwera@uia.ua.ac.be; (Plungian) Institute of Linguistics, Rossijskaja
Akademija Nauk, B. Kislovsky per. 1/12, Moskva 103009, Russia; e-mail:
plungian@iling.msk.su
1. We thereby decline to adopt Coates' notion of an "objective epistemic" use, s in (i).
(i) Certainly if there is endeavour to x, there must be attention to x'. (Coates 1983: 42).
For reasons of logic, the speaker's certainty s expressed with must happens to be
absolute, but it remains the certainty of the Speaker. One can of course accept the use
in (i) s a subtype, but then we would single it out with a cline of degrees of certainty

rather than with degrees of Speaker involvement. The difference may seem terminologi-
cal only, but it is not. Our choice allows us to avoid having to admit a use of English
supposed to s a counterexample to a claim about the ynidirectionality of any change
involving epistemic modality (see Section 3.1).
2. The notions imperative, prohibitive, and Optative furthermore appeal to volition, which
falls outside of modality, in the sense of modality we embrace (see below).
3. In Coates (1983), for instance, a very influential study of English modality, the term
"root modality" is central, but there is again no motivation or even reference to earlier
uses. Or take Bybee & Pagliuca (1985: 77), criticizing Coates for not being faithful to
the original usage, but not actually referring to any source either. A semi-explicit
attempt to motivate the term is undertaken by Sweetser (1990: 152) when she admits
of "leaning towards an analysis of epistemic modal meaning s rooted in sociophysical
(root) modality".
4. The reason why Bybee et al. (1994) do not make this claim with respect to necessity
hangs together with the fact that they do not employ any notion of participant-external
or "root" necessity.
5. In this respect it may also be mentioned that Bybee et al. (1994: 320) employ a notion
of modality that is very wide, s it encompasses also the notion of attempt Otry') (see
also Givon 1990: 533) and what they call "andative" ('be going t do something') and
"venitive" (cbe coming to do something').
6. Chung & Timberlake (1985) do not actually use the term "modality" but "mood" and
furthermore include all nuances of illocutionary type.
7. Note that of the linguists who include volition and exclude evidentiality, two, viz.
Longacre (1976) and Mel'cuk (1994), do not even accept any notion of epistemic
modality.
8. Abbreviations: l, 2, 3 first, second, third person, ACC accusative, ART article, COMP
complementizer, CONS consecutive, DAT dative, EVI evidential, F feminine, FUT future,
GEN genitive, GRD gerundive, INCH inchoative, INFInfinitive, M masculine, NEG negative,
NOM nominative, PL plural, POSS possessive, PF perfect, PFV perfective, PRS present, PST
past, REFL reflexive, SG singular, VNverbal noun.
9. A terminological variant of our decision to include inferential evidentiality under
epistemic modality is to include epistemic modality under inferential evidentiality (see
Dendale 1994 and Tasmowski & Dendale 1994). Compare also Nuyts (1996), who
accepts evidentiality s modality, but the only type of evidentiality that he considers is
inferential evidentiality.
10. Supplying modality with "paths" with both synchronic and diachronic relevance is not
new. At least for English, Goossens has been doing that since 1979 (e.g., Goossens
1979,1983,1985a, 1985b, 1987).
11. In allowing metaphor or metonymy s well s specialization and generalization, seman-
tic maps come close to semantic networks in the sense of Cognitive Grammar
(Langacker 1988: 50-52).
12. In Germanic languages, 'dare' verbs developed into modality too, with the extra com-
plication that there is a formal closeness to verbs meaning 'need'e.g., Gothic gadaur-
san 'dare' andpaurban 'need'. The developments differ from one Germanic language to
the next, and according to Birkmann (1987: 371) there is no satisfying explanation yet.
SeealsoDufiley(1994).
13. Yet another postmodal meaning reachable via necessity and possibility, but whose
placement and connections oix the map are not clear to us, is preference. In Dutch,
preference can be expressed both via necessity with zou beter/best 'should better/best'

and, s Goossens (1983: 156-157) has pointed out, via possibility with kan beter/best
'can better/best*.
(i) Fred zou/kan beter/best weggaan.
Fred should/can better/best leave
4
Fred had better leave.'
14. This restriction is important. In attributive uses, the necessity reading is very rare, and
in the related nominalized form traditionally called "gerund" it is completely absent. A
recent view on the relation between these forms and uses is Haspelmath (1987).
15. This extension, MatisorT(1973: 551) points out, might well be due to contact interfer-
ence from Shan (Daic), which probably has a verb with both 'get' and participant-
internal possibility meanings, but nothing eisecf. also Matisoff(1991: 419-425) and
Li (1991) on 'get' in other Southeast Asian languages and van der Auwera (forth-
coming a) on 'get' in Hindi-Urdu and Bangla.
Matisoff (1991: 426) and Bybee et al. (1994: 191) note the parallel between Lahu
and English, too, but they exemplify the necessity meaning with the form gotta. The
necessity meaning of the latter, however, probably has little or nothing to do with the
scenario of 'get' verbs which developed a modality meaning that is vague between
possibility and necessity. Gotta, a univerbation of gor to, is better regarded s a reduc-
tion have got to, itself a variant of the necessity modal have to (see Plank 1984: 338;
cf. also Bolinger 1980: 294-295 and even Bybee et al. 1994: 184).
16. A similar case of a development of regulr morphology to a verb that earlier only had
irregulr morphology, a retention of the irregulr paradigm, and a semantic differenti-
ation between the two paradigms can be witnessed with English can (Plank 1984: 323;
Warner 1993: 202). The difference though is that the regulr verb can, now obsolete
and with its origins at the end of the fifteenth Century, did not develop any new
meaning, but rather continued the old premodal meaning cget to known, learn, study'.
17. But there are other links. Thus Thurgood (1986: 218) reports that in Akha (Lolo-
Burmese) the particles expressing nonvisual nonexpected evidentiality (or perhaps mir-
ativity) derive from a marker meaning 'able to'.
18. Compare also Burridge (1995) for a degrammaticalization claim about a 'would' form
in Pennsylvania German, which, though not modal in our sense, is still an auxiliary.
19. See also Sundmann (1983) on modern Swedish modals.
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Modality's semantic map

JOHAN VAN DER AUWERA and VLADIMIR A. PLUNGIAN

Keywords: auxiliaries, degrammaticalization, grammaticalization, mod-

Linguistic Typology 2 (1998), 79-124 1430-0532/1998/002-079

2. l .2. Motivating four types

(1) a. Boris can get by with sleepingfive hours a night.

The second domain in which possibility and necessity contrast is that

(2) a. To get to the Station, you can take bus 66.

In (2a) the participant-external modality is possibility: bus 66 offers just

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Station. In (2b) the participant-external modality is necessity: bus 66

(3) a. John may leave now.

The case of permission is illustrated in (3a): there is some person with

(4) a. John may have arrived.

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that both participant-internal and participant-external modality concern

(5) Ceux qui ne savent ou ne peuvent lire ...

An Obligation could be strong or weaka dimension claimed to charac-

Table 1. Modality types

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2.l.3. Motivating the terminology

(6) a. / need to be left in peace today.

Hengeveld proposes "participant-oriented". We prefer "participant-

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(7) avani-ge holey-annu da:ta-lu sa:dhya ide.

2. l .4. Vohtion and evidentiality

(8) a. Fred wants to learn French.

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Evidcntiality concerns the indication of the source or kind of evidence

(9) Es soll ein guter Film sein.

Examplcs of recent works that do or do not encompass volition and

Table 2. The relation between volition, evidentiality, and modality

Givon 1984; Chung & Timberlake 1985;6 Palmer 1986; + -f

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for both categories we are dealing with the certainty of a judgment

2.2. Semantic maps andpaths

Table 3. Inferential evidentiality = epistemic necessity

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diachronic dimension. The arrows indicate that one meaning/use can

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Qearncd participant-internal possibiliw

participant-inte nal possibility

Figure 2. Extcmion ofmeaning

Deontic before epistemic Shepherd 1982: 323 Traugott 1972: 198

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(11) a. She deals with it s best she may. [participant-internal]

3. Meaning and change of meaning

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(oeontic possibility) epistemic possibility

Figure 4. To possibility and beyond

Figure 5. To possibility and beyond

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(13) Smijete zapoceti kad sie spremni.

It could be argued to marginally exist in Russian, too, and interestingly,

(14) Pust' nikto ne smeet sjuda vxodit'.

The restriction to negative contexts suggests that 'dare' was reinterpreted

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that this kind of development did not happen through a metaphor or

(15) Mocht ik ziek worden, zoek dan een vervanger.

-> (epistemic possibility

Figure 6. Change through metaphor/metonymy

Figure 7. Change through specialization