MASARYK UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Depar tment of Engl i sh Language and Li tera ture

The historical development

of the English modal verb can

Bachelor thesis

Brno 2015

Author: Bc. Lenka Novotná Supervisor: Mgr. Radek Vogel, Ph.D.

Prohlášení

Prohlašuji, že jsem bakalářsku práci vypracovala samostatně, s využitím pouze citovaných

literárních pramenů, dalších informací a zdrojů v souladu s Disciplinárním řádem pro studenty

Pedagogické fakulty Masarykovy univerzity a se zákonem č. 121/2000 Sb., o právu autorském, o

právech souvisejících s právem autorským a o změně některých zákonů (autorský zákon), ve znění

pozdějších předpisů.

Souhlasím, aby práce byla uložena na Masarykově univerzitě v Brně v knihovně

Pedagogické fakulty a zpřístupněna ke studijním účelům.

Brno, 27. březen 2015 Bc. Lenka Novotná ..................................

Acknowledgements

Hereby I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor, Mgr. Radek Vogel,

PhD., who always devoted his precious time and provided valuable advice and active

encouragement as regards my writing this thesis.

Table of contents

1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1

2 The modal verb: theoretical approaches ........................................................................ 3

2.1 Auxiliariness ................................................................................................................ 4

2.2 The modal verb and the primary verb ......................................................................... 6

2.3 Modality....................................................................................................................... 7

3 Can in Modern English and in early English ............................................................... 10

3.1 Can in Modern English.............................................................................................. 10

3.2 Can in early English .................................................................................................. 11

4 Commencement of the English language and its treatment of verbs ........................ 13

4.1 Some aspects of Old English ..................................................................................... 14

4.2 Old English verbs ...................................................................................................... 16

4.3 OE preterite-presents ................................................................................................. 19

5 The verb in Middle English and in Early Modern English ........................................ 22

5.1 Verbs in Middle English ............................................................................................ 23

5.2 Verbs in early Modern English .................................................................................. 24

6 Research framework ...................................................................................................... 26

6.1 Statement of the problem ........................................................................................... 26

6.1.1 Lightfoot’s ‘radical re-structuring’ ..................................................................... 26

6.1.2 Goossens’ reaction to Lightfoot ......................................................................... 28

6.1.3 Objectives and hypotheses ................................................................................. 30

6.2 Employed methodology and data collection ............................................................. 30

6.2.1 Methodology description .................................................................................... 31

6.2.2 Sample description ............................................................................................. 32

6.2.3 Analysis description ........................................................................................... 34

7 Interpretation of findings .............................................................................................. 37

7.1 Syntactic development ............................................................................................... 37

7.2 Semantic development ............................................................................................... 42

7.3 Evaluation of hypotheses ........................................................................................... 51

8 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 54

Works cited ............................................................................................................................. 56

List of figures .......................................................................................................................... 59

List of tables ............................................................................................................................ 59

List of abbreviations

1st Pret. preterite of first and third persons

2nd Pret. preterite of second person singular and all persons plural

AUX auxiliary verb

can-mod can in the function of modal verb

can-V can in the function of main verb

E final position in terms of sentence arrangement

eModE Early Modern English

I initial position in terms of sentence arrangement

inf. infinitive

ME Middle English

mod. modal

ModE Modern English

OE Old English

pl. plural

Ptc. participle

sg. singular

SoA State of Affairs

V main verb

v. verb

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1 Introduction

English modal verbs have been attracting the attention of the linguistic community for a long

time. Not only have there been heated discussions with respect to their present morpho-syntactic

and semantic roles, but a substantial amount of research has also been devoted to their historical

development. The dispute on the process of auxiliarization, in other words the syntactico-semantic

development of the auxiliary verbs, reached its climax during the 1970s-80s, which unquestionably

occurred on account of the rapid technological progress; various historical texts from then onwards

thus could be compared and analysed on an international scale. Conclusions based on these

analyses have been further restructured by renowned historical linguists, beside others, by

Goossens, Lightfoot, Traugott, or Warner, who provided fundamental knowledge for later

research. However, these linguists are not always in concordance, they rather complement one

another, or even differ in such aspects as the causes of auxiliarization or the approximate period

of the individual changes. Lightfoot (1979), for instance, understands that the process of

auxiliarization occurred predominantly on the morpho-syntactic grounds, whereas Goossens’ and

Warner’s theories emphasise the semantic change. Present studies in this field, e.g. by Fischer

(2002) or Lowrey (2012), reflect the former conclusions as well as bring new insights into that

controversial issue.

Next, respecting the general attitude to their development, researchers claim that the modal

verbs each gained modal properties at a different time of the English history. For example, the

historical counterpart of shall, sculan, was relatively frequently used to express modality as early

as in the early Old English period; on the contrary, cunnan, the historical counterpart of can, is

considered to have been quite reluctant to drop its full-verb properties. Additionally, there is

another widely recognized conclusion that any process of grammaticalization, along with its

subordinate auxiliarization, is irreversible, that is, the modal verbs can never obtain their lexical

meanings back. The fact that their development is not yet completely finished is also one of the

common scholarly viewpoints.

The purpose of this thesis is to try to shed light onto that widely discussed, interesting issue

with the aim of providing further knowledge on the subject of the historical development of the

modal verb can, and thus, hopefully, contribute to the investigation into the process of

auxiliarization. Moreover, two contradictory concepts relating to the auxiliarization of can are here

introduced, namely Lightfoot's and Goossens'. The former provides very persuasive arguments

why auxiliarization should be seen as a process purely syntactic. The latter then asserts that there

definitely exists a semantic aspect in this transformation. Therefore, the research here is primarily

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devoted to the investigation of possible connections between the syntactic and semantic changes

of can.

Methodologically, the analysis of a single modal verb enables to focus on its gradual change

during the historical periods, rather than at a particular time, which is the prevailing linguistic

approach presumably employed for its potentiality to cover all the modal items. This is especially

the case of Goossen’s study. In this thesis, however, the investigation is extended over the three

major historical periods of English, i.e. Old English, Middle English and early Modern English.

Furthermore, when required, the periods are sub-divided according to the purposes of the analysis.

The outline here is as follows. Firstly, the theoretical background is divided into the present

and historical parts. The former deals with present properties and puts forward both morpho-

syntactic and semantic features of can. The latter then introduces the most significant theoretic

observations in the field of historical English with emphasis on the process of auxiliarization.

Besides, chapter 3 serves as an interconnection between the present and past. Secondly, the

practical part is based on an analysis of primary sources, in this case on the analysis of 699

historical textual fragments. The purpose is to identify each state of both the syntactic and semantic

properties which can was displaying in a specific period. The fragments are obtained from three

scholarly corpora and their analysis is performed in MS Excel 2013. Lastly, the findings are

interpreted and contrasted with the two above mentioned concepts.

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2 The modal verb: theoretical approaches

It is far beyond discussion that the modal verb functions as an essential linguistic device, the

insertion of which into an otherwise non-modal environment generally induces a different

understanding of the whole statement. Therefore, She writes fiction. and She can/might/will…

write fiction. are not equal albeit different modals can more or less approximate the statement to

its non-modal meaning; e.g., Jessica can write fiction. appears to be closer to the non-modal

meaning than Jessica should write fiction. Whereas in the former the speaker most likely refers to

her ability, the latter suggests that she has not had such experience. This unique function of the

modal verb is recognized as modality and will be further discussed later in this chapter.

Next, the modal verb alternatively called ‘modal (auxiliary)’ (Coates 4; Palmer, A Linguistic

Study 15; Quirk 96), ‘helping’ verb (Quirk 120) or ‘secondary auxiliary’ (Palmer, A Linguistic

Study 15) has certain principal features in which it significantly differs from the full verb and also

from its relative, the primary auxiliary verb. Those features are at both morpho-syntactic and

semantic levels. The position of the modal verbs with respect to the system of other verb categories

according to Palmer (A linguistic study 15), and Quirk1 (96) shall be understood from Figures 1

and 2.

Fig. 2 Quirk's verbal categories

It is not, however, the purpose of this thesis to scrutinize the present properties of the auxiliary

verbs. Hence, the framework of this chapter will solely cover the fundamental features regarded

as the necessary basis for the research into the historical development of can; nor will the

elementary linguistic terms, such as the operator, finite/nonfinite verb, semantic categories, etc.,

be treated as unfamiliar to the reader.

1 Roughly the same distinction as Quirk’s can be found in Dušková (174-203). Their seemingly simplified versions in

comparison with Palmer’s may be explained by the fact that their two publications are considered rather grammars,

whereas Palmer’s is a scholarly study of the verb.

Verbs

Auxiliary verbs

Primary

Secondary or modal

Full verbs

Catenatives

Non-catenatives

Fig. 1 Palmer's verbal categories

Verbs

Full verbs Primary verbsModal

auxiliary verbs

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2.1 Auxiliariness

To begin with, it seems important to state that their capability of “making different

contributions to the verb phrase” excludes the auxiliary verbs from the class of full verbs. Beside

other morpho-syntactic and semantic properties, Quirk highlights their exclusive syntactic feature

to function as an operator. (120) Similarly, neither does Palmer regard their semantic features as

convincing enough for their distinction from the full verbs (Modality 181-182) and, therefore, he

objects to excluding the auxiliaries from the class of full verbs predominantly on the grounds of

their various uses:

It is not their use in the expression of futurity, potentiality, obligation, etc., that makes the

auxiliary verbs a class apart from the full verbs of the language, though relying on such notional

categories some traditional grammars have treated some of the forms we are now considering as

‘tense auxiliaries’, others as ‘modal auxiliaries’ and yet others as ‘full verbs’. (A Linguistic Study

20)

To distinguish the auxiliary verb from the full verb, Coates (4) and Palmer (A Linguistic Study

20-27) employ Huddleston’s methodology, generally referred to as NICE properties, which

consists of four testing criteria put forward below. Dušková (180-181), Quirk (121-128) and

Warner (3-9) do not mention the term NICE properties, nevertheless, their criteria appear to be

fundamentally identical with those of Huddleston’s.

Firstly, the four criteria widely recognized by the scholars consulted are negation, inversion,

code and emphasis. Dušková omits emphasis (184). Then, there are occasionally a few additional

determinants identified by other linguists. These are introduced after the primary four. Their order

corresponds with most here consulted authors.

i. Negation – in contrast with the full verb, Palmer defines the auxiliary as a verb “which has

paired positive and negative forms” (21). According to Coates, one of the characteristic features

of the auxiliary verb is its ability to “take negation directly” (4). Dušková indicates that the

negative is easily formed by the introduction of the particle not (180), which is also supported by

Quirk: “In forming negative finite clauses, the first auxiliary is placed before the negative word

not” (121). Additionally, Warner states yet another feature of negated auxiliary: “The operator

typically has a form with contracted –n’t: e.g., can’t, couldn’t, etc.” (3).

ii. Inversion – unlike most full verbs “auxiliaries, as operators, admit inversion; i.e. the subject

noun phrase and the auxiliary (the first auxiliary if there are two or more) change places” (Quirk

128). The order of elements is “auxiliary, subject and full verb” (Palmer, A Linguistic Study 23).

Warner then states that “inversion of a subject and finite operator is typical of a range of largely

grammaticized contexts” (4). These are specified as interrogatives, tag questions, fronted negatives

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with scope over the auxiliary, in and neither and and so tags, conditionals and comparatives”

(Quirk 128; Palmer, A Linguistic Study 23; and Warner 4).

iii. Code – concerning this feature, an explicit illustration can be that of Firth’s:

Do you think he will?

I don’t know. He might.

I suppose he ought to, but perhaps he feels he can’t.

Well, his brothers have. They perhaps think he needn’t.

Perhaps eventually he may. I think he should, and I very much hope he will.

The key to the code is “join the army”. (qtd. in Palmer, A Linguistic Study 25)

The dialogue above represents the exclusive function of the auxiliary to preserve the meaning

of the predication avoiding its superfluous repetition. Palmer explains the ‘coda’ feature lucidly:

“There are sentences in English in which a full verb is later ‘picked up’ by an auxiliary. The

position is very similar to that of a noun being ‘picked up’ by a pronoun.” (A Linguistic Study 24)

Likewise, Dušková and to a certain extent also Warner assert that one of the properties of the

auxiliary verb is the possibility to represent the whole predication either by means of ellipsis, or

as a pro-form. (Dušková 174; Warner 5) Beside that, Quirk defines the typical constructions of an

auxiliary representing the rest of the predicate to be reduced clauses such as so/neither/nor + the

first auxiliary, the first auxiliary + too/either, predication fronting and relativized predication

(125).

iv. Emphasis – being placed in the last position of the four distinctive features has certainly

its substantial reason since emphasis is definitely not the sole property of the auxiliary verbs. In

general, any word in a sentence may be emphasised in order to achieve contrast simply by using

sentence stress. With respect to the auxiliary verbs, nevertheless, it is the polarity of a sentence,

modality, tense/aspect and emotive force that are emphasised rather than contrast typical of non-

auxiliary emphasis (Quirk 124; Warner 7). This may be the reason why Palmer calls this category

“Emphatic affirmation” (A Linguistic Study 25).

Next, as stated previously, the NICE properties, or the four fundamental criteria of

auxiliariness, are sometimes complemented by a few others: by their positions with respect to

adverbs and quantifiers modifying the subject in which the most probable word order is an

operator, subjunct/disjunct/quantifier, full verb (Quirk 126; Warner 8). Apart from those,

auxiliaries “compared with most main verbs are semantically independent of the subject” (Quirk

126), do not occur after periphrastic do and most of them commonly appear in clitic forms,

especially after pronouns (Warner 7-8). Palmer points out yet another typical feature, that is, the

possibility to occur in a weak form (A Linguistic Study 29-30).

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To sum up, as demonstrated, the auxiliary verbs can be distinguished from the full verbs with

relative ease, even though some of their characteristic features occasionally overlap with those of

the full verbs. Furthermore, their major role in the sentence structure stands for the principal reason

why most scholars argue for their exclusion from the class of full verbs.

2.2 The modal verb and the primary verb

Firstly, the criteria dealt with in 2.1 generally apply to all auxiliary verbs, or in other words, to

both the primary and the modal verbs. This subchapter, therefore, will focus on the specifics related

to each of the two categories.

Secondly, the marginal classes comprising modal idioms and semi-auxiliaries, as put forward

for example by Quirk (137), are not included here since their rather complex characteristics does

not appear to be relevant for the stated purpose of this thesis. The principal attention is drawn to

the “central modals can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, must”, and of peripheral

importance, due to the aforementioned reason, are the “marginal modals need, dare, ought, used

to” (ibid.) solely used to illustrate the morpho-syntactic distinctions.

The relationship between the two major classes of auxiliaries shall now be examined in greater

detail. In order to observe the similarities and differences of the auxiliary verbs, Palmer claims that

either a morphological or a syntactic strategy can be employed. Morphologically, the auxiliaries

are subdivided into five classes as can be seen in Table 1. (A Linguistic Study 35-36)

Class I Class II Class III Class IV2 Class V

be have do will, can, shall, may must, ought, dare, need,

used

present am, are, is have, has do, does will, can, shall, may must, ought, dare, need,

used

past simple was, were had did would, could, should,

might

infinitive to be to have

-ing form being having

past participle been

Tab. 1 Morphological classes of the auxiliary verbs

Next, from the syntactic point of view, Palmer suggests the following four structures

according to the possible relation of the auxiliary verb to its full verb complementation (ibid 36).

i. take (infinitive): do, will, shall, may, must, can; dare and need3

2 Obviously, do has three finite forms whereas the class IV verbs have only two finite forms (Palmer, A Linguistic

Study 36). 3 When dare and need are complemented by to, Palmer regards them as full verbs (A Linguistic Study 36).

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ii. to take (to + infinitive): ought, used

iii. taking (-ing form): be

iv. taken (past participle): be, have

Undoubtedly, the auxiliary verbs as a whole neither share an identical morphological pattern,

nor are they unified in their complementation. However, their most significant categorization is,

presumably, that of the primary and secondary/modal auxiliaries. Coates, Dušková, Palmer, Quirk

and Warner are all in accordance when it comes to the criteria restricted exclusively to the modals

in Standard English. These being the absence of the inflectional suffix –s for 3rd person singular,

their non-occurrence in non-finite forms and their mutual non-occurrence. (Coates 4; Dušková

180-182; Palmer, Modality 9; Quirk 127-128; and Warner 8)

Furthermore, another anomaly of the modals in contrast with the primary verbs is their time-

reference defined by Quirk: “Not only present forms, but the past forms of the modal auxiliaries

can be used to present and future time (often with hypothetical or tentative meaning).”; and

conversely, the modals lacking a preterite “refer to the past in indirect speech”. (128) Likewise,

their preterite forms in most cases do not indicate past tense (Palmer, A Linguistic Study 107).

Semantically, Dušková highlights the fact that the meanings of the modals as opposed to the

absent meanings of the primary verbs are still considerably weaker than those of the full verbs,

and therefore, they cannot function as an independent lexical unit (182).

2.3 Modality

The term ‘modality’ is generally applied to mark the hyperonym of all particular meanings of

the modal verbs. Their position in everyday language is literally irreplaceable for they allow people

to express their own attitudes as well as feelings about what they say. To be linguistically precise,

modality covers “the functions of modal verbs”, and can be defined as “the manner in which the

meaning of a clause is qualified so as to reflect the speaker’s judgement of the likelihood of the

proposition it expresses being true” (Quirk 219). In addition, Palmer further explains ‘modality’

as “a semantic term related to the meanings that are usually associated with mood; the relation

between mood and modality [being] thus like that between tense and time.” (Modality 4)

Next, various meanings of modal verbs can be further categorized, which, however, causes

disputes among linguists. Two frequent divisions of modality are either into epistemic, deontic

and dynamic, or into intrinsic and extrinsic.

Then, the usual meanings covered by modals are ability, volition, permission, possibility,

necessity, obligation, probability, futurity and intention. (Warner 14-15) None the less, those again

8

can sometimes be termed differently as will be seen below. To comment briefly on the two

categorization schemes, the two-type is employed for example by Quirk. This, as already

indicated, divides modality into intrinsic and extrinsic. The former involves “some kind of intrinsic

human control over events”, the latter then “human judgement of what is or is not likely to

happen”. Moreover, it is important to mention that each modal has its intrinsic as well as extrinsic

use, and in some cases they even tend to overlap. For example, can and may for permission, or

could and might expressing possibility. (219)

By contrast, some other linguists, e.g. Coats, Palmer and Warner, follow the three-type

division, which distinguishes modality into epistemic, deontic and dynamic. Besides, deontic and

dynamic modality may be collectively termed ‘root’ in contrast to epistemic. (Coats 10) Firstly,

Warner states that epistemic modality “involves a statement of the speaker’s attitude towards the

status of the truth of a proposition”. The speaker thus expresses his or her attitude to the

truthfulness of the utterance. Then, deontic modality refers to permission and obligation, or “what

is possible and what is necessary with respect to some authority, or to a set of moral values.” The

last note is devoted to dynamic modality, which “evaluates the occurrence of events or the

existence of state of affairs as necessary, important, advisable, possible, desirable, etc. within a

circumstantial frame of reference (commonly not stated). This includes reference to the abilities

or volition.” (14-15)

Finally, for each meaning as stated above there are one or more modal verbs available. Figure

3 below presents the relations between meaning and forms as illustrated by Coats (5). Only one

adjustment has been made, being the omission of ought on the grounds that it does not belong to

the category of core modals.

must obligation

should inference

can possibility

may ability

might permission

could volition

would prediction

will hypothesis

shall quasi-subjunctive

Fig. 3 Relations between modal meaning and form (Coats 5)

9

As can be seen, some modal verbs tend to overlap in their meanings. Nevertheless, specifically

obligation, inference and possibility are usually further discerned. The speaker hence decides

whether he or she intends to express strong or weak obligation, confident or tentative inference,

and root or epistemic possibility, which inevitably entails an exclusion of some modals (ibid.).

Although particular differences in modal meanings are of high interest, not all of them will be dealt

with in the present thesis. Not very surprisingly, the privilege is devoted solely to can.

To summarize this chapter, it introduced the most significant features, such as the ‘NICE’

properties, peculiar time reference or semantic meaning, in order to point to the specific

characteristics of certain verbal items, which distinguishes them from the full verbs as well as from

the primary verbs. It was shown that there undoubtedly exist solid reasons why these items are

excluded from both the previously mentioned classes, and instead form the unique class of modal

auxiliaries.

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3 Can in Modern English and in early English

In this chapter, the attention is drawn to present and historical properties typical of the modal

verb can in particular periods of its development. What, however, is not dealt with here is its

present syntactic features inasmuch as they have already been discussed above.

Additionally, it is important to mention that this thesis in none of its parts approaches could,

and is oriented solely to the verbal item can. Could has obviously quite different and sometimes

even more complex linguistic peculiarities than can; notably in the history. It is thus not possible,

with respect to the present scope, to devote sufficient attention also to could.

3.1 Can in Modern English

As illustrated, can may appear in three various subject-oriented modal meanings, being

ability, possibility and permission as recognized by Coats (85). By contrast, both Quirk (221) and

Palmer (Modality 71) consider ability expressed by can as a special type of possibility, i.e.

dynamic possibility. Coats further states that can is the only auxiliary without epistemic meaning

(85).

The three basic meanings of can may be introduced as follows. Firstly, neutral possibility may

be explained as “nothing in the state of the world prevents the predication”; secondly, with respect

to dynamic possibility/ability, the explanation might be that “there are certain positive qualities of

the subject such that he is cleared for the predication”. Thirdly, and finally, one of the possible

definitions of permission might be expressed as “no lack of permission prevents the predication”.

(Palmer 10) The three uses of can will be now addressed individually.

It is the ‘ability’ meaning of can that enables the speaker to point to a certain quality of which

the referent is a carrier. Coats specifies three clear objectives to be fulfilled in order to identify can

as the marker of ability. They comprise an animate subject in the agentive function, the main verb

denoting physical action or activity, and the possibility of the action dependent upon the qualities

of the subject, including what he or she has learned. (14) Next, Quirk states the reason why ability

should be termed dynamic possibility. This, as believed, is predominantly owing to its paraphrase

by it is possible for. He further provides an explanation that “the ‘ability’ meaning of can is

considered a special case of ‘possibility’, one in which the possibility of an action is due to some

skill or capability on the part of the subject referent”. Nevertheless, he also points to other ‘non-

possibility’ paraphrases which may also capture the ‘ability’ meaning; for example, be able to,

know how to, or be capable of. (222) Be able to is preferred to can in situations which may be

ambiguous in retaining can in the meaning of actual achievement. (Palmer, Modality 77) In

11

addition, a note ought to be made here on the categories of verbs of perception and private verbs,

such as understand, remember, think, afford, stand, bear, etc., both typically following can in its

‘ability’ sense. Palmer regards them as ones of idiomatic use without much in common with the

‘ability’ sense. (ibid. 74) The research below will show that these types of verb were frequently

used with can even in Old English.

Then, another major meaning expressed by can is neutral, or root, possibility, which “simply

indicates that an event is possible”. It can be only paraphrased by it is possible for, followed by a

subject and a to-infinitive clause (Quirk 222), but never by has the ability to. Furthermore, neutral

possibility can be most clearly understood from passive-voice constructions and from statements

with general subjects. (Palmer, Modality 71) Coats states that possibility expressed by can does

not limit the subject to be the agent as it is with ability and permission, and, most importantly, that

it is the case of the ‘possibility’ meaning that there is neither restriction nor inherent properties

implied from the context. There is also the role of external circumstances, allowing the subject to

be involved in the action/activity denoted by the verb. (93)

The third meaning of can is that of permission. This is readily paraphrased by be allowed to

(Quirk 222). In order to interpret can as in the ‘permission’ meaning, there must be some human

authority, rules or regulations allowing to perform the action/activity denoted by the verb

understood from the context (Coats 93). Lastly, on the difference between can and may for

permission, Palmer reports that “may is far more formal than can” (Modality 60).

The last note is necessary to mention here on the not very frequent epistemic counterpart of

must, can’t. Coats asserts that it expresses the speaker’s confidence in the falsehood of the

proposition. Nevertheless, she also points out that it occurs only in the form can’t, whereas the

non-epistemic uses of negated can are found in both forms cannot/can’t. In its non-epistemic use

negated can may be paraphrased by it is not possible for or something prevents, and “it is the

modality and not the proposition which is negated”. On the other hand, the corresponding

paraphrase for epistemic can’t is it is not possible that, in which it is clear that negated is the

proposition. (102)

3.2 Can in early English

The unusual development of can represents one of the linguistic questions to answer not only

in this thesis. What has been confirmed so far is that the earliest forms of OE can were cunnan

(infinitive), can, con (1st and 3rd person sg.), canst, const (2nd person sg.), cunnon (pl.), cunne and

cunnen (sg. and pl. subjunctive respectively). In addition to that, the historical meaning is

12

perceived as to be dependent upon the item that followed. If it was an NP, cunnan carried the

meaning of to be or become acquainted with or to know. If accompanied by an infinitive, the

meaning was to know how to do, to be able, can. (Bosworth and Toller 174) Then, there were other

two preterite-presents with quite similar meaning, magan and witan. The former is generally

translated as to be strong or able, have power and later developed into may. The latter, solely

meaning to know, ceased to exist in eModE. (Warner 163, 204) Cunnan hence may be seen as

overlapping in meanings of them both.

Next, respecting the ME period, the forms, in comparison to OE, even more varied owing to

their liability to a complex dialectic influence. The following rank among the commonest. In the

Northern dialect, there were cunnen, can, canst, can, can, cunne (inf., 1st, 2nd, 3rd person sg., plural,

and subjunctive, respectively). In the Southern and Midlands dialects, can could sometimes be

spelt as con, canst as const or even cunne, the infinitive as conne(n) or cun, and subjunctive as

conne. (J. Wright and E. Wright 201, Brunner 82-3) In fact, it was some of the inflectional suffixes

that used to be retained for relatively long, even after auxiliarization. Regarding can, it was no

longer a full verb in the seventeenth century, and still 2nd person sg. kept its –est. (Barber 254)

As indicated above, beside its function as a full verb, cunnan had also the capability of

operating as a predicate formation. On that subject Warner asserts that the early sense of can with

an infinitive was related to “ability, perhaps learned” (177), which is, however, still not definitely

resolved, as highlighted by Goossens (124-5). Moreover, Warner suggests that it was “presumably

in response to may’s shift in sense [why] can developed a sense of more general ability”, which

he finds difficult to date but estimates that it might have taken place in the course of the thirteenth

and fourteenth century. Neutral possibility expressed by this modal verb, as supposed, was

established by the fifteenth century. (177) The permissive force, on the other hand, had not yet

been fully ascribed to it as late as in early Modern English. (Barber 259)

Summing up, within the development of English up to the present days, as has been seen, the

modal verb can has always had rather a wide range of specific semantic and predominantly

pragmatic uses derived from its basic meaning, which had already become apparent in Old English.

Needless to mention that its syntactico-semantic particularities have not been here completely

exhausted. The following chapters, however, might bring a deeper insight into this issue.

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4 Commencement of the English language and its treatment of verbs

The primary concern here is the period of Old English recognized as the outset of the English

culture in Britain. A brief historical background appears essential to sketch initially since

discussing the origin of any language without prior setting of the most significant events affecting

the whole culture might lead to certain inconsistency. The emphasis is then put on typical language

structures with special focus on verbal constructions. For those were some of the OE preterite-

presents and anomalous verbs that featured as the ancestors of today’s auxiliaries.

Regarding the arrangement, it is set as follows: 4.1 approaches typical language peculiarities

of this period. The concern of 4.2 is OE verbs, and, finally, since the principal focus of the present

thesis is the diachronic development of can, a whole subchapter, 4.3, is devoted to preterite-

present, a member of which was also this modal.

To return to the subject, the language nowadays functioning as the lingua franca for a quantity

of people is generally known to root on the European continent. One of its peoples, the Germanic

inhabitants, more precisely, the Anglo-Saxons, invaded Britain, as first recorded by Venerable

Bede in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People from 731 (Baugh 54). The first conquests

of the Anglo-Saxons over weakened Romans and Celts date back to as early as to the middle of

the fifth century, and their expansion in Britain is universally regarded as to have lasted up to the

twelfth century (Campbell 1, Quirk and Wrenn 1). This period is more accurately defined by

Mitchell and Robinson who set the Anglo-Saxons occupying the Isles between the years 449 and

1066 (118).

Next, the term Anglo-Saxons covers three major, though not fully unified, tribes originally

inhabiting northern Europe. Those comprised the Saxons, Angles and Jutes coming from the area

of contemporary Denmark, Benelux and Germany4. (Baugh 53)

On their arrival in Britain, the tribes spread there in this fashion. Initially the Jutes established

themselves in the south-east around the area of Kent. Very soon after, in approximately fifty years,

the other two Germanic tribes, the Saxons and Angles, began to settle down on the southern and

eastern coasts, respectively (Baugh 56). Those formed the basis of culturally related, yet

independent, kingdoms, the most significant of which being West Saxons, East Anglia,

Northumbria and Mercia (Mitchell and Robinson 111-2).

4 Baugh admits his following the traditional standpoint in terms of the stratification of the Teutonic tribes based on

Bede’s testimony. Nevertheless, he points out an alternative theory placing the Angles on the middle Elbe and the

Jutes next to Frisians, some of whom also came to Britain (53).

14

As already noted, the kingdoms did not share an identical culture; nevertheless, most of their

customs and traditions were very similar. According to Baugh, wars and struggles formed an

important part of their inter-kingdom affairs. In other words, within a few decades, one or another

kingdom would win its supremacy and the boarders would move quite rapidly. Finally, in the ninth

century, West Saxons, or Wessex, gained more or less permanent overlordship after defending

their territory against Danish raids, predominantly thanks to Alfred the Great. Furthermore, Alfred,

the king of Wessex over the years 871-99, greatly contributed to the cultural and educational

enlightenment in the Anglo-Saxon period. (56) For his achievements, some contemporaries even

put this Wessex king at the same eminent level as Sir Winston Churchill (Mitchell and Robinson

119). The superiority of Wessex reflects itself in the considerable number of OE manuscripts, in

most cases written in the West Saxon dialect regarded as the standard for the OE language (Quirk

and Wrenn 4). Yet Alfred’s victory did not bring peace to Britain on any account insofar as neither

Danes nor other continental inhabitants ceased their efforts to conquer the country. It took Wessex

another sixty years to overcome the raiders and unify England into one kingdom. Eventually, there

was a period of peace in Britain. (Mithell and Robinson 119) However, solely a hundred years

remained for the Anglo-Saxons on the throne. For their rule was completely terminated by the

Norman Conquest with William of Normandy defeating Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

With respect to the language, Old English or Anglo-Saxon became to feel influence by the

language of Normans, and developed into Middle English no sooner than during the twelfth

century. (Quirk and Wrenn 1-2)

On the whole, it is unquestionable that the language, or rather the closely related dialects of

the Anglo-Saxons coming from the Continent to Britain were there under the influence of a few

other languages. One the one hand, of the peoples originally inhabiting Britain, and, perhaps more

importantly, of those who more or less successfully endeavoured to conquer the island from the

fifth to the eleventh century. The language of Anglo-Saxons, due to the reasons aforementioned,

must have gradually become different from that of the Germanic peoples then living on the

Continent. It is thus necessary to look through some typical phenomena of Old English in detail.

4.1 Some aspects of Old English

Three notes on the origin and character of Old English are mentioned initially in order to avoid

later misinterpretation. Firstly, the language of the Anglo-Saxons is widely recognized as the first

ascertained predecessor of Modern English. Regardless of its proven ancestry, apart from its name

Old English, it had very little in common with the language people use today, as will be seen later

15

in this subchapter. Secondly, the term Old English with respect to the language has not been

employed by philologists ever since. Quirk and Wrenn point out that in the eighteenth and

nineteenth centuries, Anglo-Saxon was its commonest name and the terminological transformation

into Old English has occurred only recently (1). This is also indicated by Campbell, “Old English

is the name applied in the present work to the vernacular Germanic language of Great Britain as it

is recorded in manuscripts and inscriptions dating from before about 1100” (p. B). And thirdly,

Baugh claims that “the English language of today is the language which has resulted from the

fusion of the dialects spoken by [the Anglo-Saxon] tribes (…) [yet] it is impossible to say how

much the speech of the Angles differed from that of the Saxons or that of the Jutes. The differences

were certainly slight.” (58) Besides, as already mentioned earlier in chapter 4, West Saxon dialect

is considered the primary one for the reason that a vast majority of literary artefacts from that

period are recorded in this dialect. The examples introduced below, therefore, all represent West

Saxon, even though some of the consulted authors also present instances of other dialects. Such

procedure seems of no effect to employ here considering the lack of space.

Moving on to the subject, it appears reasonable to bring out that one of the most obvious

linguistic features serving for discerning inflectional languages from one another is their analytic

or synthetic orientation in terms of the sentence structure. Inflectional languages belong either to

the synthetic or to the analytic class. Supposing a language is a synthetic one, “the relations of

words in a sentence [are carried out predominantly] by means of inflections”. (Baugh 64); in other

words, grammatical inflections of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, determiners and verbs provide the

addressee with a clear notion of their corresponding relationships and roles with respect to sentence

elements. Taking Czech as an illustrative example of a synthetic language, the sentence elements

are liable to inflectional sufffixes with relatively inferior significance of word order; thus the

sentences Petr miluje Janu. and Janu miluje Petr. are syntactically identical since the zero

inflection of the nominative case gives Petr the role of the subject/agent regardless the initial or

end positions in the sentence. Likewise, the inflected proper noun Janu always shows the

accusative case, thus the direct object/affected. On the other hand, pragmatically, there may be a

certain difference, indeed, which is, however, irrelevant to deal with now. It is substantial to

indicate solely that Old English in contrast to Modern English ranks among synthetic languages.

Then, considering the analytic class, there are usually no “distinctive forms (…) [and such

languages] make extensive use of prepositions and auxiliary verbs and depend upon word order to

show other relationships” (ibid.). Now converting the same sentences into analytic Modern English

and sustaining the positions of the particular words, two completely different statements arise:

16

Peter loves Jane. and Jane loves Peter. As obvious, the lack of inflections in Modern English does

not allow the addresser to play with word order.

In view of the fact that the present thesis both cannot exceed the number of pages given and

must follow the stated purpose, it is impossible to provide any complex overview of OE

characteristics as it tends to be in works of historical linguists. Nevertheless, at least some of the

features peculiar to Old English are now to be demonstrated with the primary focus on syntactic

structures.

To begin with, its historical word classes were identical to those of Modern English. Therefore,

what was discerned is nouns, adjectives, pronouns, determiners, numerals, verbs, adverbs,

conjunctions, prepositions as well as interjections. Apart from the last four, all underwent either

conjugation (verbs), or declension (the remaining classes). (Quirk and Wrenn 19-70)

Next, even though word order was not a subject to strict fixation, some structures were

preferred, and prose was where they were usually more adhered to. The following are the

commonest pattern; exceptions, indeed, did not use to be rare. The SVO arrangement, as well as

in ModE, “was operative, though with lesser frequency”. If certain adverbs5 occurred in the initial

position, the subject-verb inversion was then obligatory in matrix clauses. In dependent clauses,

the verb was frequently left in the final position, conforming to the SOV order. However, neither

SVO was excluded.

Negation was made with the help of the particle ne which sometimes formed part of the verb,

and “to make sure that this negative combination was recognized, it became the first word of a

principal clause [ensued by V]”. (Partridge 185-7) On the word order and negation, Mitchell and

Robinson indicate that VS structures were found in “positive non-dependent questions, such as

Gehyrst þu, sælida? ‘Do you hear, sailor?’”, “negative non-dependent questions, such as Ne seowe

þu god dæd on þinum æcere? ‘Did you not sow good seed in your field?’”, yes-no questions, such

as "Wæs he Osrices sunu?” ‘Was he Osric’s son?’”, “negative statements, such as Ne com se here.

‘The army did not come.’”, “in subordinate clauses of concession and condition, such as Swelte ic,

libbe ic. ‘Live I, die I.’" (64-5)

4.2 Old English verbs

Foremost, it is far beyond discussion that in the sentence structure the verb is of prominent

importance. It reveals much more information than any other element in a clause, for example the

5 These adverbs, for example ða or ðonne, had to be derived from demonstrative pronouns. Otherwise, inversion did

not apply. (Partridge 185-6)

17

action of participants, time placement/tense, aspect, mood or voice. The treatment of Old English

verbs is both of great interest and of an intense discussion to historical linguists. As will be seen,

even the few authors consulted in this thesis adopt various standpoints as regards these items in

Old English.

A note should be mentioned beforehand on a typical property of Germanic languages. All of

them are observed to have weak and strong verbs, as first suggested by Jacob Grimm in 1822

(Partridge 172). Therefore, there are these two types, or rather classes, distinguished in Old English

as well as in Modern English. (Mitchell and Robinson 35) In ModE, as Baugh points out, they are

generally termed regular and irregular verbs. Moreover, in both discussed languages the regular or

weak ones are much more numerous than the irregular or strong ones. (68-9) Their crucial

differentiating feature, now every English speaker familiar with, became obvious only after

Grimm’s observations. He noticed that preterites were formed in two ways; either by adding a

dental inflectional suffix –t or –d, sometimes with an extra syllable, or by their root-vowel

mutation. The former being the weak class, the latter then the strong class. (Baugh 68-9)

Now the two classes will be examined in greater detail. Conforming to the presumably

preferred strategy of addressing the more plentiful entity first, the weak verbs shall now be dealt

with. Pyles indicates that “the great majority of Old English verbs formed their preterites and past

participles in the characteristically Germanic way, by the addition of an ending containing d or,

immediately after voiceless consonants, t” (139), which has still been perceptible from the varying

pronunciations of past forms of regular verbs.

Besides, there is generally no dispute regarding the way they form preterite and past participle.

Nevertheless, it may be assumed that there is no unified standpoint in terms of their further

classification. For Campbell suggests three major classes according to their formation of present

tenses: the –ie- class, -oie- class and –æie- class (295), whereas Quirk and Wrenn employ only

two-class division. Class I comprises the stems of verbs undergoing vowel mutation, while such

mutation does not appear in the stems of Class II verbs (42). That the issue of the classification of

weak verbs is not completely resolved yet is literally mentioned by Partridge: “The subdivision

should not be pressed, since knowledge about them is partly conjectural” (172).

To bring these verbs to an end, it ought to be reminded that their conjugation has always been

the dominant or productive one in the English language with practically all new verbs being

conjugated as weak and with many strong verbs adjusted to fit into this class (Baugh 71).

Next, the class of strong verbs is by no means of inconsiderable significance, even though there

existed barely over three hundred items with the exclusion of compounds (Baugh 69). Mitchell

18

and Robinson remark that the irregular forms found in ModE preterites and past participles are

almost all survivals from Old English. Yet a difference may be noticed observing the number of

vowels undergoing variation, i.e., the gradation series. Whereas in ModE there are not more than

three vowels in any gradation series, for example begin, some OE verbs, on the other hand, could

change their vowel even four times, e.g., creopan (creep), creað, crupon, cropen. (36) Pyles warns

that “gradation (Grimm’s Ablaut) should never be confused with mutation (umlaut), which "is the

approximation of a vowel in a stressed syllable to another vowel in a following syllable” (140).

The conjugation based on the gradation patterns enabled linguists to divide all strong verbs

into seven classes, with inflectional suffixes corresponding to those of weak verbs. The ablaut was

then apparent in this fashion: 1st and 3rd person sg. in simple past had the same vowel, 2nd person

sg. plus all persons of plural in past tense had another. The third was then used with past participle,

and the fourth with infinitive. Baugh further points out that “within these classes, however, a

perfectly regular sequence can be observed in the vowel changes of the root”. (69) Below, in Table

2, is the common Class I strong verb drifan ‘drive’ (Quirk and Wrenn 46-47), along with the weak

verb fremmen ‘perform’ (Quirk and Wrenn 43), serving as straightforward representations of both

types of conjugation.

Indicative

Str

ong c

onju

gat

ion

Present Past

Wea

k c

onju

gat

ion

Present Past

1 sg. ic drife draf fremme fremede

2 sg. þu drifst drife fremest fremedest

3 sg. he, heo, hit drifð draf fremeð fremede

1-3 pl. we, ge, hi drifað drifon fremmað fremedon

Subjunctive Present Past Present Past

1-3 sg. ic, þu, he, heo, hit drife drife fremme fremede

1-3 pl. we, ge, hi drifen drifen fremmen fremeden

Imperative Present Past Present Past

2 sg. drif

freme

2 pl. drifað fremmað

Participle drifende gedrifen fremmende gefremed

Tab. 2 Strong and weak conjugation

The regular patterns of the seven classes mentioned above may be illustrated respecting the

order of the infinitive, 1st Pret., 2nd Pret., Past Ptc. as follows. Class I (i-a-i-i) scinan (shine), Class

II (eo-ea-u-o) creopan (creep) or (u-ea-u-o) brucan (enjoy), Class III (e-æ-u-o) bregdan (pull),

Class IV (e-æ-æ-o) beran (bear), Class V (e-æ-æ-e) tredan (tread), Class VI (a-o-o-a) faran (go)

and Class VII (ea-eo-eo-ea) healdan (hold) or (a-e-e-a) hatan (command).

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In addition, apart from Classes I and II, there were some irregularities arising from several

sound laws, which are not to be dealt with since their complexity is beyond the scope of this thesis.

(Mitchell and Robinson 37) Instead, a brief comment will now be provided on two minor groups

of verbs with immense significance in terms of the sentence structure of Modern English, namely

the anomalous verbs and the preterite-presents. Firstly, regarding the anomalous verbs, Campbell

lists only a small number of these items with slightly different inflectional morphology, namely

willan (will), don (do), gan (go) and beon (be). (346-9) Pyles suggests on this subject that “it is

not really surprising that very commonly used verbs should have developed irregularities” (143).

Moreover, their varying forms have still been under a thorough investigation and considered to

present many difficulties. (Campbell 349) And secondly, the other irregular class ascertained

beside the anomalous verbs, the preterite-presents, implies high interest as regards the following

research. Therefore, the next sub-chapter is wholly devoted to these OE predecessors of today’s

modal auxiliaries.

4.3 OE preterite-presents

This class indisputably plays one of the pivotal roles in the scene of the English diachronic

linguistics inasmuch as some of its constituents later achieved a unique position between other

verbs. It feels essential that some fundamental theoretical knowledge about OE preterite-presents

be set out initially.

The class included only twelve items, i.e. witan (know), dugan (avail), cunnan6 (know),

durran (dare), ðurfan (need), unnan (grant), munnan (intend), sculan (have to), mugan (can),

nugan (suffice), motan (may), agan (possess). Next, what is peculiar to all of them is that they

developed their preterites into present meanings in pre-Germanic times, and new preterites were

subsequently created for them following the traditional style of inflecting. (Partridge 173-4)

Cunnan is the subject of interest with reference to the present thesis. For its stated purpose is

tracing the development of this verb from the period of Old English to that of early Modern

English, up to which it is claimed to have been stabilized fully as a grammatical verb (Fischer 18).

Such a transformation, understood as grammaticalization of auxiliaries, i.e. auxiliarization, has

been ascribed predominantly to the class of preterite-presents; more accurately to some of its

members out of all full verbs in general use in early English (Goossens 113). This complex

transition involved gradual gaining and reinforcing the auxiliary properties as presented in 2.1, and

6 Other linguists consulted provide a broader translation for cunnan, such as know how to, can, be able to, be

acquainted with, have mental capacity for, etc. Those meanings are approached in 2.2.

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may be further explained as "a process whereby an autonomous word becomes a grammatical

element.… In the case of auxiliaries we have a related shift from (more) lexical to (more)

grammatical" (Warner 195). How exactly that process may have occurred is notwithstanding still

under investigation. In this regard, there exist various standpoints; two of them, addressed in 6.1

below, then present the focal point of the following research.

Commenting on the nature of this special verb group, it is considered, in terms of ablaut, to

have been conjugated much the same as the strong/vocalic type (Campbell 343). A slight

difference might be found in inflections of singular forms, which were, as introduced above,

transformed from former preterites. Therefore, there is no such verb as *canð/ conð for present 3rd

person sg. Instead, there is can/con. A stark contrast, nevertheless, may be seen in their comparison

with present modal verbs. Unlike their belonging to the category of auxiliaries on the grounds that

the modals significantly affect the sentence structure, preterite-presents evinced no such impact,

so they were not excluded from the class of full verbs. On that subject Machová introduces two

viewpoints, namely Warner’s and Roussou’s. The former ranks preterite-presents

uncompromisingly among full verbs. The latter then rather inclines to their semi-lexical

characteristics since their particular uses did not always undergo solely lexical treatment. (90)

Then, looking at preterite-presents more closely, it is understandable that they largely appeared

in everyday speech, their high frequency thus roughly corresponded to ModE modals (Quirk and

Wrenn 53). What, however, presumably causes many problems for linguists is their semantics

covering a wide range of meanings. There inevitably used to be instances of cunnan taking up the

role of a modal, as will be also demonstrated in the following research, yet this verb is considered

to have been predominantly used as a pure full verb (Warner 197). It therefore might be possible

to suggest that apart from its primary function of V, it also had a secondary one of AUX as early as

in OE, which later developed and eventually survived as the only one. Be that as it may, such a

claim is oversimplified now and its research is still necessary to be conducted in order to say

exactly how extensive were the lexical and auxiliary representations. To return to the subject of

semantics, it is also striking for their later development that their meanings in some cases

overlapped, see 3.2, which is also typical at present, e.g. can and may for granting permission.

To conclude the class of preterite-presents, some of its items apparently impend out on account

of a few factors. Firstly, its pre-Germanic adoption of preterite forms in order to substitute the

present can indeed be regarded as unusual. Nevertheless, it has zero information value in terms of

developing their modality. Secondly, in OE period, these items certainly featured as modals or

future markers in some contexts, which can also be understood from their translations by some

21

linguists. Then, nevertheless, a doubt whether or not they should be considered purely full verbs

may arise. This based on the fact that OE had relatively stable positions of primary sentence

elements in interrogative and negative sentences, and no periphrastic do existed for full verbs

(Lightfoot 112). As the case might be, it was neither necessary to exclude preterite-presents, or

some of them, from full verbs nor take away their lexical meanings. Lightfoot’s widely criticized

suggestion, viz., for example, by Fischer, that preterite-presents in OE could not be recognized as

modals on the grounds that they did not fulfil syntactic criteria pinpointed above in 2.1, thus does

not appear utterly impossible to defend now. In addition, Lightfoot might be supported in his

suggestion that modal verbs are auxiliary verbs due to their syntactic uniqueness, and not due to

their relative semantic emptiness, or incompleteness, as argued against also by Fischer. (18)

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5 The verb in Middle English and in Early Modern English

As regards the development of the language, the period of Middle English following the Old

English may be perceived as revolutionary. Its synthetic structure at the outset turned into analytic

at the end, with all the substantial changes occurring within mere 400 years after the Norman

Conquest. In other words, the era of Old English finished at “the time when the effects of the

Scandinavian invasions and of the Norman Conquest began to be felt on the language” (Quirk and

Wrenn 1). It can be more precisely set to be "beginning about 1100-50 and ending about 1450-

1500” (Burrow and Turville-Petre 1). Furthermore, as Baugh observes, the changes were so intense

that “at the beginning of the period English is a language which must be learned like a foreign

tongue; at the end it is Modern English” (189). This however may wrongly lead to an idea that the

main transformation process from the synthetic to the analytic structure was particularly apparent

on the language as late as by the end of the Middle English period. For Burrow and Turville-Petre

highlight that “most writings of the twelfth century present […] a different appearance from those

of the tenth and eleventh” (1). Also Baugh interprets the ME changes in language as “more

extensive and fundamental than those that have taken place at any time before or since” (189). In

conclusion, the changes during the ME period may be briefly defined as having their principal

impact in three areas: simplification of inflections, dependence upon word order and prepositions,

and fundamental foreign influence of Latin and French on vocabulary (Burrow and Turville-Petre

4).

Then, early Modern English ranging approximately from 1500 to 1700 is the very last period

consulted here. It was one after the invention of press bringing about a revolution in mass language

transmission (Baugh 301). Such an invention may be readily compared to the launch of the

Internet. To turn back to press, in England, incredibly, “over 20,000 titles in English had appeared

by 1640” (ibid. 241). Moreover, a majority of eModE works are possible to read even now without

any serious difficulty, since early Modern English became stabilized to such a degree that it may

appear not far from identical to the language used at present.

Lastly, commenting on the arrangement, the ME verbs along with preterite-presents constitute

the focal point of the first subchapter. Then, in 5.2, fundamental pieces of knowledge are provided

particularly on the early Modern English modal auxiliaries. The theoretical background of this

thesis finishes with the present chapter, and the remaining part is devoted to the research.

23

5.1 Verbs in Middle English

Old English verbs suffered extensive losses in Middle English, especially the strong ones.

Baugh imputes this phenomenon to the Norman Conquest after which a considerable amount of

Anglo-Saxon vocabulary tended to be substituted by borrowings from French and Latin, with all

new verbs conjugated as weak. As regards the already small class of strong verbs, they further

decreased by approximately a hundred items. Some of those left no traces after the twelfth century,

and some were influenced by the majority conjugated as weak and changed over to them by

principles of analogy. (194-5)

The changes or rather relaxation in the inflectional system presents a point of interest here. The

inflectional release was indeed apparent on all the relevant word classes, yet solely that of verbs is

discussed now. To start with, the transformation is believed to have begun as early as in Old

English. With the course of time, especially in Middle English, the existence of inflections became

gradually rarer until they totally disappeared. The verb drink may provide a vivid four-stage

illustration of this phenomenon: OE drincan developed into drinken in early ME, followed by

drinke and final drink. This is claimed to have been completed by the beginning of the fifteenth

century. (Burrow and Turville-Peter 19-20) It none the less cannot be deduced that all inflectional

suffixes were lost within Middle English. For in early Modern English, 2nd and 3rd person sg. still

kept a form of –st and –ð, respectively. Furthermore, in some ME dialects even verbs in plural

indicative would cease to develop in the second or third stage, or did not develop at all within this

period. (ibid. 31)

Then, the conjugation of the remaining strong verbs followed the seven-class distinction,

which was also the case in Old English (J. Wright and E. Wright 178). The phonological changes

entailing morphological reconstruction involved in each of these classes and their even more

complex regional variations are unfortunately not possible to discuss here, since pointing out at

least the most significant ones would completely divert the present course.

To turn to the class of preterite-presents now, in comparison with both weak and strong verbs

they have always evinced certain deflections. In ME they developed yet more such features than

before, which made their group more coherent. Warner suggests that this was owing to “semantic

changes and lexical losses [why there] increased the correlation between modal uses and preterite-

present morphology”. (174) Then, in early ME the group was formed by the following items,

ranked in the order of the seven-class sequence. Preterite-presents of Class I were wite(n) ‘know’,

of Class III unne ‘grant’, cunnen ‘know, be able’, dar ‘dare’ and dearf ‘need’, of Class IV man

‘remember’, sceall ‘shall’ of Class V may ‘can’. Class VI then included mot ‘may, must’, and

24

Class VII aȝe(n) ‘own, possess’. (J. Wright and E. Wright 202) In addition, Brunner also ranks OE

deag ‘avail’ as a ME preterite-present but points to its obsoleteness. Other losses except the future

modal verbs were yet to come as briefly commented on below.

5.2 Verbs in early Modern English

To start with, the invention of press incited people to read in a quite extensive measure.

Education and literacy consequently became gradually commoner. Moreover, the expansion of the

British Empire also contributed to unifying the standard of English. Surprisingly, it was vocabulary

that was enriched the most in early Modern English. With respect to grammatical rules, they

underwent codification and reinforcement, but not such a large-scale reform as in Middle English.

(Baugh 241-3) On the other hand, there still were certain clashes in grammar to be resolved. For

example, the syntactic classification in terms of functions of the sentential elements, or semantic

classification relating parts of speech to categories of meaning (Gorlach 100).

Regarding verbs, the inflected forms were -(e)st for 2nd person sg. and pl., and -eth for 3rd

person. This latter inflectional suffix was then gradually, and regionally, substituted by –(e)s,

which has been preserved with full verbs so far. Interestingly, a few weak verbs in the sixteenth

century became strong. To mention at least some, there were dig, spit and stick. Then, the opposite

process, as described in 5.1, caused the originally strong OE verbs having converted to the weak

class to occur in both forms in eModE, e.g. climb – clamb – clomb, climbed – climbed. Moreover,

eModE was specific in keeping both strong and weak past forms even for some verbs strong in OE

as well as in ModE, e.g. drive – drave – drove, drived – drived. (Barber 250-1)

To proceed, early Modern English appears to have been essential for the class of preterite-

presents. On this subject Warner avers that in this period “the status of modals and auxiliaries was

substantially clarified”. He recognizes four factors playing the pivotal role in the progressing

establishment of the new class. Firstly, can, may and will lost their non-finite forms, which made

them syntactically identical to must and shall. Secondly, non-modal senses of may, will and can

were removed, and in addition, can, dare and need underwent lexemic splits. To provide an

example, con, another form of can, became distinguished to mean solely learn and developed

regular forms. Thirdly, as regards the complementation, writings before the sixteenth century often

evinced that both types of infinitive complementation were possible with preterite-presents.

Nevertheless, this situation was resolved in the sixteenth century by their shaping for the bare

infinitive. Preterite-presents hence became even more distinct from full verbs. Fourthly, and

finally, witan, the last item lacking modal syntactico-semantic properties in this special class, was

25

also lost, or, more accurately, shifted to weak verbs with only a short-term existential prognosis.

(198-205) Thus there remained only can, couthe, dare, durst, may, might, mote, must, shall,

should, will and would. All behaving exactly as modal auxiliaries do now. However, in terms of

negation and interrogative construction, they were neither possible to identify solely on the

adjacent particle not since also full verbs were negated in this fashion, viz. for example I know not;

nor discernible by the interrogative structure, for VSO was the regular question order for modals

as well as for full verbs. (Barber 253-4)

To conclude this chapter, two essential periods of historical English have been discussed and

related to the syntactico-semantic properties of preterite-presents, later acknowledged as modal

auxiliaries. As has also been seen, various cultural factors, such as the Norman Conquest, the

invention of press and the British expansion, influenced all components of language to such a

degree that it consequently led to complete restructuring of the original language, of Old English.

Lastly, with respect to auxiliarization the two now consulted periods are regarded as crucial. For

at the beginning of Middle English, there seem to have only scarcely been uses of preterite-presents

in the role of modality markers. Whereas when the early Modern English period opens, preterite-

presents have already more or less completed the complex transformation, which will eventually

select them, along with the primary auxiliaries, for performing substantial functions in terms of

the sentence structure.

26

6 Research framework

The part now following puts forward two contradictory scholarly viewpoints. Then, research

is conducted with the aim of obtaining relevant arguments in order to decide which of the

viewpoints is possible to pronounce more accurate. A complete description of the employed

methodology along with the primary sources is also presented in this chapter.

6.1 Statement of the problem

Firstly, to repeat the aim of the present thesis, it is tracing the development of the verb can,

which in Modern English functions solely as a modal verb with a rather insignificant lexical

meaning. Recently, the antecedents of the modal verbs have been scrutinized and what has been

discovered is that, syntactically, they behaved not any differently than other full verbs, and

semantically, their meaning was clearly defined, as presented in chapters 4 and 5. Yet historical

linguists neither seem to be arriving at conclusion, nor at a compromise, on the process of their

development. It appears that Lightfoot’s concept introduced in 1979 triggered a lively debate,

which has been lasting up to the present days. In this subchapter, his and another prominent

linguist’s concept are discussed in order to define the crucial contradictory points. The research is

subsequently conducted with the purpose of providing hard evidence in order to support one or the

other standpoint.

It seems necessary to put forward one more commentary here. Lightfoot’s seminal theory is

claimed to apply to the whole set of modal verbs, and Goossens studies two items, can being one

of them. Unfortunately, such a procedure, taking into account more than one modal verb, is not

manageable here with reference to the scope of this thesis. Therefore, the modal verb can has been

selected insofar as it represents the most resistant extreme in its development out of the set of

modal verbs7. It thus might be the case that its resistance proves beneficial for observing the

complete extension of its transformation.

6.1.1 Lightfoot’s ‘radical re-structuring’

Foremost, it is the syntactic structure that plays the key role in Lightfoot’s understanding of

auxiliarization. He observes that “verbs such as sculan, willan, magan, cunnan, motan, which we

usually translate into NE [i.e. Modern English] with modals [had] all of the characteristic

properties of [full] verbs” (98). That is, they had corresponding person-number paradigms,

7 Can in Old English, unlike will or shall, was still rarely found in modal constructions. Its modality is thus seen as to

have been only at the outset. (Goossens 124)

27

underwent number agreement, followed the principles of negative placement and inversion.

Moreover, they could also take a direct object, co-exist with another pre-modal, appear in

infinitives and gerunds, and with normal complementation types (ibid.). Opposing other consulted

authors, Lightfoot proposes a suggestion that “the initial structure of English modals presents us

with a case of pure syntactic change, a change affecting only the syntactic component.” He

nevertheless also points to a semantic change, “they underwent very many changes in their syntax

and in their meaning but […] these changes seem to have proceeded independently of each other”.

This he supports by an assertion that “semantic changes are typical of these words and seem to

have taken place without affecting their syntax.” (100)

Next, as regards the time placement of the transformation, Lightfoot believes that “pre-modals

must have been seen as a unique class by the sixteenth century, if not earlier” (109). The

restructuring is then defined to have been split into two stages, each characterized by a set of

changes.

The first stage, by the end of the fifteenth century, involved the loss of the ability to take direct

objects, with the exception of more resistant can, as well as the loss of all preterite-presents apart

from those now functioning as modals in ME. In addition, Lightfoot especially refers to the fixing

of word the order before which pre-modals used to be considered full verbs, after they formed the

unique class of auxiliaries. To explain, the typical SOV pattern of dependent clauses, if not

influenced by V-fronting, applied to all verbs including pre-modals in Old English. The situation

changed in early ME when the underlying pattern changed into obligatory SVO according to V-

fronting principle. What he notices is that SOVM and SVOM structures then still existed with

those modals now regarded as epistemic. This, he supposes, is the sign that the grammar has

decided to distinguish modal and full verbs. (100-7)

On the basis of these and a few other syntactic changes8, Lightfoot concludes that “in early

OE the pre-modals had no characteristics peculiar to themselves, but by the end of the ME period

they had become identifiable as a unique class by virtue of the five changes in various parts of the

grammar” (109). The changes nevertheless are not observed taking place simultaneously, nor are

they considered interdependent. (ibid.).

The sixteenth century is then understood as quite revolutionary since it involved the transition

from pre-modals into modals and codifying this transition into the grammar. That occurred on

8 The other syntactic distinctions from full verbs are non-occurrence as a to-infinitive, no complementation by a to-

infinitive, and the use of past-tense pre-modals in reference to present (Lightfoot 109).

28

account of another set of syntactic changes. Firstly, pre-modals could not appear in infinitival

constructions or with –ing or –en suffixes. Neither could they any longer co-occur. Then, the

negative particle not was placed between M and V, and in addition, only modals and periphrastic

do could be fronted. Finally, Lightfoot highlights the sudden emergence of the quasi-modals, the

time placement of which is practically identical with pre-modals codified as modals. (111-12)

To sum up, provided that it is primarily the changes in the syntactic structure that incited the

pre-modals to transfer into modals, the semantic factor then must have had its own independent

transition. In other words, the loss of the status of two-place predicate along with increasing

variation of verbal types and of subjective roles should not be observed appearing in roughly the

similar extensity and at the same time as the substantial changes in the syntactic structure.

Furthermore, it is expected, adhering to Lightfoot’s ‘radical re-structuring’, that can has developed

as follows. Firstly, in early OE there will be found a certain proportion, supposedly prevailing, of

can with full-verb properties (can-V). That is, can taking a direct object, frequently placed in the

‘end’ position even in its modal interpretation, and appearing in modal co-occurrence. Then, with

the course of time, in late OE and early ME the proportions of the early features will be decreasing

with respect to the total. Finally, in the period of the sixteenth century, a striking/’radical’ decrease

in the syntactic features corresponding to can-V and in contrast to the proportions in any other

consulted periods. In addition, any semantic changes will be emerging in such a fashion that clearly

evokes independency.

6.1.2 Goossens’ reaction to Lightfoot

Lightfoot’s concept as presented above induced many linguists to carry out further studies in

order to find out whether his radical theory might have been inaccurate, deficient or flawed. In this

thesis, the reaction taken into consideration is that of Goossens’, primarily on the grounds of his

rejection of Lightfoot’s ‘radical re-structuring’ pronouncing the semantic factor in auxiliarization

unimportant. He claims that “Lightfoot’s hypothesis is much too drastic to be empirically

adequate” (112) and that “the change in question is not purely syntactic [since] all the factors have

a semantic dimension.” (ibid.) His conclusion is drawn to such a degree: “Interesting though

Lightfoot’s discussion of the development of the English (pre)modals may be, we can neither

accept that it is a primarily syntactic matter, nor that it had a culminating point leading to

recategorization within a short time span in the course of the sixteenth century” (115).

Following is the background of Goossens’ research concluded by ultimate highlighting the

semantic component of auxiliarization. He analysed 200 instances of can from the period of OE.

The sample was taken from two different sources, namely from Ælfric and Wulfstan. The discrete

29

variables tested were semantic roles of the subject, State of Affairs (SoA) of can-V, semantic roles

of the object of can-V, and the character of the verb complementing can-mod. He conducted the

research with the aim of proving that the semantic component in terms of auxiliarization is by no

means insignificant. Interestingly, his interpretation of findings may be found reasonable.

Approaching the role of the subject first, the findings are as follows. “The subject of cunnan [can-

V] is alwayas an NP denoting an animate entity/-ies.… As is to be expected, there are as a rule no

agent phrases…. My tentative proposal is Experiencer [for subject]…. It must be +human …

described as +cognizant”. (122-3) Turning now to the non-subject complements, Goossens found

out that “the crucial point in the data is the predominance of instances with NP objects (64%) [in

the form of] some ‘knowable entity’…. In all these instances cunnan is clearly an independent

two-place predicate [can-V]. The State of Affairs-type is ‘state’.” (123) In those, cunnan is

understood as to be equivalent to ModE know. Yet very important is the portion of instances (25%)

where cunnan is complemented by an infinitive, or found with verbal ellipses, that is, can-mod.

On that subject, Goossens makes a point that in late OE, the types of infinitive predicates display

“a clear predominance of verbs like tocnawan ‘consider’, asmeagan ‘investigate, think’,

understandan … [and of] action predicates like huntian, teman, secgan etc., all of which have an

ingredient of (intellectual) insight, … [that is] involving ‘cognizance’”. In relation to these two

types of predicate, cunnan is translated as know how to, be able to, can“. His further observation

covers progressing relaxing of “the restriction of [the predicate] to ‘cognizance’ and of the subject

argument to ‘cognizant’.” (124-5)

Next, he offers two alternatives of treating cunnan complemented by an infinitive. Firstly,

cunnan as an independent two-place predicate with an argument in the infinitival form will not be

dealt with here since neither does Goossens provide further explanation. What is in this thesis

however focused on and confronted with Lightfoot’s seminal theory is his second option, that

cunnan complemented by an infinitive is “as a first step away from the independent predicate

status … towards grammaticalization.” (124-5) Goossens then summarizes his observation by an

assertion that “decreasing specificity in the (semantic) combinatorial possibilities for the item that

can be shown to develop from the independent predicate to the other end of the scale9.” (140) In

9 The scale is illustrated as ranging from ‘full predicates’ at one extreme through ‘predicate formation’ to ‘predicate

operators’ at the opposite extreme. Can is regarded as belonging to ‘predicate formation’ in Modern English.

Nevertheless, Goossens observes the beginnings of this second stage of cunnan as early as in late Old English. (118,

140)

30

other words, he seems to regard can-mod in Old English as progressing auxiliarization, whereas

Lightfoot as full verb with anomalies.

To conclude, supposing that Goossen’s theory is valid, what will be observed within the scope

of the research below is the following. In the course of time, firstly, the restriction of the types of

predicate to intellectual will be gradually relaxing, entailing other types of verbs, such as those of

physical ability, accompanying a historical form of can. Secondly, as regards the subject role, not

only Experiencers, and Agents causing an intellectual action, but also other entities will be

emerging. Thirdly, the research will not reveal any striking observation in terms of syntactic

changes in the sixteenth century. And lastly, semantic changes will evince temporal relationship

with the syntactic ones; in other words, they will clearly indicate the state of interdependence.

6.1.3 Objectives and hypotheses

Two primary objectives have been formulated with respect to the aim, based on the two

contradictory standpoints discussed above. The first one is stated as to define how the development

of can may be characterized in respect of the syntactic and semantic transformations, assessed

separately in subsequent fifty-year periods in the history. The second objective is to find out

whether or not the syntactic and semantic transformations are temporally interdependent, and

hence provide supporting contribution for either Lightfoot’s or Goossen’s concept.

Referring to the facts presented in 6.1.2 and to the objectives above, two hypotheses (H) have

been suggested.

H1: Syntactic changes of historical can, more specifically, its loss of the direct object, the

fixing of the word order by avoiding the ‘end’ position and the non-occurrence with another modal,

are in accordance with Lightfoot’s concept, therefore, regarded as extensively increasing in the

course of the sixteenth century as well as found already existing and in gradual progress before.

H2: Semantic changes of historical can, more specifically, its increase in types of subjective

roles and of adjacent full verbs, are not temporally interdependent with changes in the syntactic

structure, hence partially disclaiming Goossens’ rejection of Lightfoot’s theory.

6.2 Employed methodology and data collection

This part is devoted to the methodology selected in order to meet the aim and objectives, as

well as to test the hypotheses. The overall introduction of methods is put forward initially. The

next subchapter then provides a more descriptive commentary on the sample. Lastly, before the

final presentation of findings, the analysis performed on the sample is explained in depth.

31

6.2.1 Methodology description

With respect to the aim, the following methods have been employed. In the first place, a

sufficient number of sentential fragments from Old, Middle and early Modern English had to be

obtained. This was fulfilled by accessing to three historical corpora available on the Internet. All

of them compiled by scholarly institutions, they are believed to be relevant sources of primary data

for the present research. The individual corpora were the Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus

(abbrev. as C1), the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse (abbrev. as C2), and the Penn-

Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English (abbrev. as C3) for OE, ME and eModE

respectively. In each corpus, corresponding forms of can, further described in 6.2.2, were looked

up by the means of computerized generating a random, hundred-item sample. Nevertheless, this

procedure was slightly different for each corpus. Moreover, additional information, such as the

author and estimated year of publication, was also dealt with differently. The character of the

corpora will now be discussed individually.

Firstly, as regards corpus C1, it is claimed to comprise all texts preserved from Old English,

which could have contributed positively to the reliability of the research. On the other hand, out

of the three corpora, solely this one makes use of peculiar codes in order to identify each sentential

fragment, such as ‘And A2.1’, which needed looking up in the corpus bibliography. For instance,

the code now mentioned referred to ‘Andreas: Krapp, 1932a 3-51; Krapp, G.P., The Vercelli Book,

ASPR 2 (New York).’ Obviously, the Vercelli Book was not written in 1932, but the corpus does

not provide any more information on that fragment origin, so the year, genre and author had to be

searched for, usually with the help of Wikipedia. This relatively lengthy process related to each

fragment was eventually simplified by a compilation of a shortened version of bibliography. It

consisted of codes already used and provided with all the requested information in such a format

that it enabled its convenient transfer into MS Excel where the analysis was performed. Translating

the OE fragments, however, produced considerably more struggles, since there were only ordinary

online translators and dictionaries available. The Old English Translator (OET) and Bossworth-

Toller Anglo-Saxon dictionary served as the primary applications for this purpose, supported by

reference books on OE grammar. The translation was often laborious. This was due to the fact that

certain OE words were not possible to look up. Yet this would have regrettably entailed deletion

of a number of sentential fragments on account of their untranslatability. This complication was

dealt with by procedures of shortening and/or respelling each of the entries ‘not found’. However,

only occasionally did this lead to the revelation of its approximate Modern English counterpart

and still quite a high number of instances had to be deleted. Then, sometimes the meaning of an

32

item could be deduced from its pronunciation, e.g., heofenum. This form of word however was

included in neither of the translators. To assure that it stood for the presupposed ME heaven, the

word heaven was entered to find its OE equivalent. The OET provided the answer heofonum,

differing in one vowel from the original word from the corpus. Such complex procedures were

necessary to repeat on many occasions. To provide the very last comment on the process of

translating, it was particularly time-consuming, especially at the beginning. Many words none the

less often tended to repeat, and the process hence gradually eased and quickened.

Secondly, ME sentential fragments obtained from corpus C2 were slightly easier to translate,

since more vocabulary was identifiable. On the contrary, as mentioned in the theoretical

background, many ME words often differed in spelling; therefore attempts of shortening and

respelling in order to reveal the meaning formed a substantial amount of the total translating time.

The asset of the corpus was the immediate provision with year, author, title and genre for each

fragment; there thus was no struggle with looking up these data on the Internet.

Thirdly, fragments from corpus C3 have solely been analysed, not translated, thanks to their

rough correspondence with ME; there only occurred minor changes in spelling and inflectional

suffixes. This corpus also enabled the immediate display of additional information, which

significantly expedited the whole process.

Finally, what was translated and analysed from each fragment is only clauses including a form

of can. The primary task was to retain at least fifty clauses for each form of can. Nevertheless, not

always has this been achieved. For some forms were not numerous even in the corpora, e.g., OE

con, const, cunnen and cunne, or ME cun. The sample is further addressed in the next subchapter.

6.2.2 Sample description

The research sample will now be described in detail. To begin with, the total number of

instances obtained and successfully analysed is 699. The sample is a combination of both prose

(435; 62.2%) and verse (234; 33.5%). Genre was not acquired in 30 instances (4.3%). Figure 4

presents the total of all instances distributed in successive fifty-year periods.

32

9

124

58

31

28

18

80

54 5044

13

76

20

3743

850 900 950 1000 1050 1100 1150 1250 1300 1350 1400 1450 1500 1550 1600 1650 1700

OE

ME

eModE

Fig. 4 Temporal distribution of the sample

33

Every fifty-year period includes sample instances either from the first or second half of the

century. In other words, period ‘850’ comprises all instances from 850 to 899, period ‘900’ then

instances from 900-949. This fifty-year allocation is then followed where temporal division is

required. The fifty-year periods are occasionally further combined according to fit the three

primary English eras.

The Old English sample consists of 254 instances (36.3%), the Middle English of 256

instances (36.6%), and the early Modern English of 189 instances (27.1%). The forms and their

distribution in periods may be understood from Figure 5.

In terms of proportions, OE forms are scattered as follows: can (24.4%), canst (14.6%), con

(11.4%), const (3.5%), cunnan (13.4%), cunne (7.1%), cunnon (19.3%). Then, eight ME forms

were looked up: can (26.2%), canst (14.8%), con (19.9%), conne (17.2%), const (0.4%), cun

(6.3%), cunne (14.8%), cunnon (0.4%). Lastly, solely two eModE forms of can have been obtained

from corpus C3; therefore a hundred-instance sample, instead of a fifty-instance one, has been

assembled in order to provide more or less equal number of fragments from early Modern English.

These two forms are can (51.3%) and canst (48.7%). The first fifty years of 1700 have also been

examined, although they rather mark a boarding line between early Modern English and late

Modern English (Barber 13). In view of the fact that can is claimed to have been reluctant in its

development, it seems reasonable to involve this fifty-year period into the research as well.

To comment briefly on the nature of the sample, it is apparent that the greatest variety in forms

has been achieved in the first two historical periods. This has undoubtedly occurred on the grounds

that can was highly inflected in Old English as well as in Middle English. The extensive loss of

inflections is then evident on the sample from early Modern English.

OE ME eModE

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

62 67

9737 38

92

2951

44

9

116

34

18

38

16

49

1

cunnon

cunnen

cunne

cunnan

cun

const

conne

con

canst

can

Fig. 5 Temporal distribution of grammatical forms

34

The very last note is on the involvement of both prose and verse. Even though verse is not

perceived as the implicit adherer to grammaticality, it still has been included in the research for

the reason that it definitely belongs to the language representation. Had only prose been taken into

account, the findings might prove less accurate in terms of general validity.

6.2.3 Analysis description

The process of analysis was performed with the help of the software Microsoft Excel 2013.

The preparation phase of each sentential fragment consisted of eliciting and translating the clause

including a form of can. The remaining part of the fragment was retained, since it could provide

valuable information where co-text was necessary to examine. Then the clause was analysed

according to discrete variables established beforehand. These were employed in order to obtain

the syntactic and semantic representative features essential with respect to the objectives. All the

findings were then mutually contrasted with the aim of pointing out possible connections between

the substantial syntactic and semantic changes. Subsequently, the results were confronted with the

two concepts presented above, which provided hard evidence in order that the hypotheses could

be tested.

Firstly, from the syntactic point of view, these variables have been taken into consideration.

i. The complete set of the arrangements of primary sentence elements, where can was found,

comprised 54 items. The most numerous are put forward in Figure 6. The elements here

included are S (subject), V (main verb), M (can-mod), O (object), A (adverbial), C

(complement). On condition that no M is in the arrangement, can is the main verb there,

marked as V. On the contrary, if M appears, V is then occupied by a different item from the

class of full verbs as recognized by Modern English. In addition, on some occasions there was

found co-existence of two modals. In this case can was labelled as M, the other modal as X.

Fig. 6 Most frequent sentence arrangements

29,7%

22,8%

11,3% 10,9%

5,8% 5,5% 4,9%2,4% 2,2% 2,2% 2,2%

SMVO SVO

SMV SOV

SMOV MSVO

VSO OMSV

OSMV MSV

OSV

35

ii. The function of can was recognized either as can-V, or as can-mod, that is, can in the function

of the main verb, or of modal auxiliary, respectively.

iii. Three values described the position of can in the sentence, being I (initial), M (medial) and E

(end).

iv. The polarity of the sentence was classified either by A (affirmative), or N (negative). An

interrogative sentence then by Q (question).

v. The (un)inflected form of can was elicited from every clause. The forms have already been

presented in 6.2.2.

And secondly, from the semantic point of view, the following variables have been taken into

account.

i. The three modal meanings were labelled as AB (ability), POSS (possibility) or PER (permission).

The overlapping instances then AB/POSS, AB/PER and POSS/PER.

ii. The subject was defined either as an ANIMATE, or as a NON-ANIMATE entity.

iii. The semantic role of the subject was recognized as AFFECTED, AGENT, EXPERIENCER,

EXTERNAL CAUSER, INSTRUMENT, RECIPIENT and THEME. In addition, due to their low

occurrences, the 2 instances recognized as EXTERNAL CAUSER, 3 as INSTRUMENT, and another

2 as RECIPIENT have been compiled into one hyper-category termed OTHERS.

iv. The total number of different verbs adjacent to can was 198. The most frequent are presented

in Figure 7 below. Then, four major categories have been formed based on the presumed

degree of mental involvement on the side of the subject understood as necessary in order that

the subject can fulfil the predication. These categories are MENTAL STATES AND ACTIONS for

verbs such as know, recognize, say or understand. In other words, those usually not associated

with a particular skill. Secondly, category LEARNT MENTAL SKILLS includes verbs such as read,

govern, play the harp or prove. All these should resemble in the aspect that some previous

intentional learning allows the subject to perform the action denoted by the verb. Then,

category LEARNT PHYSICAL SKILLS implies that the subject must have undergone a type of

cognitive process resulting in physical competency to perform the action. Some examples of

these verbs may be host, make timber obtain, work. The last category is KNOWLEDGE-

UNCONDITIONED PREDICATES where verbs such as have, go, pay or send were included

36

inasmuch as their performance is associated with very little or no previous cognition on the

side of the subject.

v. Within the processes of analysing and contrasting the findings, one additional variable

transpired necessary to employ. This was the character of the second argument of can-V; in

syntactic terminology, that of the direct object. Six major categories have resulted from this

analysis, namely ABSTRACT CONCEPT including items such as anything, evil and God,

goodness, God's spirit, painful journey or the world's wisdom; CLAUSAL ABSTRACT CONCEPT

with noun clauses such as I don't know/understand what you are saying. or We have known

for years what you have heard.; then SKILL, e.g., many crafts, the care of livestock or the craft

of shooting; LANGUAGE such as Egyptian, English, Hebrew or Latin and, lastly,

PRONOMINALIZATION where the argument had a form of pronoun.

tell

, 33

say,

28

do, 24

than

k, 13

under

stan

d,

10

know

, 9

be,

8

pro

ve,

8

read

, 8

reco

gniz

e,

7

take,

7

find, 7

Fig. 7 Most numerous full verbs adjacent to can

37

7 Interpretation of findings

The concern of this chapter is the interpretation of findings obtained by means of the above

described analysis performed on the primary data. Both syntactic and semantic properties of can

have been plotted on graphs to provide a vivid illustration. If not stated otherwise, the horizontal,

independent axe always represents fifty-year periods. The vertical axe then gives the value of the

dependent variable in question.

The arrangement here is as follows. What is at issue in the first subchapter is the syntactic

development of can in the three primary stages of English. The discrete variables are the two verbal

functions of can, i.e. can-V and can-mod; the position of can in the sentence related to both the

functions, and its co-existence with another modal. The second subchapter is focused on semantic

categories. What is primarily examined here is the type of modality, the type of full verb adjacent

to can and the semantic role along with animateness of the subject. Finally, the fourth and last

subchapter brings out the evaluation of the hypotheses suggested above in this thesis.

7.1 Syntactic development

Foremost, it is far beyond discussion that there has occurred the process of auxiliarization,

converting some full verbs into auxiliaries. This process is usually asserted to be one of the

unavoidable consequences of the transition from the synthetic to the analytic structure. Moreover,

it has already been found out that the original function of today’s modal auxiliary can is that of

full verb, as already discussed above. Figure 8 below should provide an illustration of the

presumable way the two now mutually exclusive functions co-existed and developed or ceased to

exist in early English.

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

850

900

950

1000

1050

1150

1250

1300

1350

1400

1450

1500

1550

1600

1650

1700

OE ME eModE

Auxiliary

verb

Main verb

Fig. 8 Verbal functions of can

38

It is quite clear that can-V, illustrated by (1) and (2) further in the thesis, largely predominates

can-mod, (3) and (4), within the whole OE era. There is even an increase of 5.34% possible to

observe in the eleventh century, which then culminates within the latter half of the twelfth century,

forming a precise three-quarter proportion of all the instances. In terms of auxiliarization, this

situation, by the end of the twelfth century, does not seem to indicate any state of progressing as

regards can being gradually reinforced as a grammatical item. A sudden change, however, emerges

in early Middle English and only 22.22% of the sample contain instances of can-V in the latter

half of the thirteenth century. The auxiliary function of can now occupies a vast majority of the

sample, and even though it slightly decreases after 1350, never again does the can-V function

surpass it. Focusing on the sample from the sixteenth century, it evinces virtual disappearance of

can in its full-verb function, which closely correlates with Lightfoot’s concept, that from the

sixteenth century onwards, the pre-modals would no longer act as full verbs taking direct objects.

(1) [C1, ‘850’] Swa fæder ðenceð fægere his bearnum milde weorðan, swa us mihtig god,

þam þe hine lufiað, liðe weorðeð, forðan he ealle can ure þearfe. (…because he knows

entirely your need.)

(2) [C1, ‘850’] Soð ic eow secge, Ne can ic eow. (I am telling you the truth. I do not know

you.)

(3) [C1, ‘850’] …ne bið sio unrihtwisnes no on Gode, ac sio ungleawnes bið on ðe selfum,

þæt þu hit ne canst on riht gecnawan. (…that you cannot/are not able to recognize it

rightly.)

(4) [C1, ‘1050’]...þam þurh wisdom woruld ealle con behabban on hreþre, hycgende

mon...(…that through wisdom one can bear the whole world in his heart….)

Secondly, the sentential positions of can have been examined in order to identify when can

definitely left the ‘end’ slot. On this subject, Lightfoot suggested that all main verbs apart from

those now regarded as epistemics became liable to V-fronting as early as in early Middle English.

By then, V-fronting had been obligatory only in matrix clauses, but elsewhere optional. Moreover,

V-fronting is further believed to have caused differentiation between root and epistemic modals.

The latter are then supposed to have been quite resistant to V-fronting, so that a new rule had to

be established in order that they would eventually conform (Lightfoot 107). Since can has never

been epistemic, in the research, there were hence expected to emerge rarely any instances in the

‘end’ position at least in late Middle English opening itself by 1300, if adhering to Lightfoot’s

conception.

Before the findings are presented, one note ought to be mentioned on the sample. Often there

were found instances of ellipsis, such as (5), (6) and (7). They have not been analysed as appearing

in the ‘end’ position, but in the ‘medial’, which is a common practice in those cases when only the

operator, sometimes with other components of the verb phrase, is retained.

39

(5) [C2, 1400] And therefore deere & benygne lady / we preye ȝow & beseke ȝow as mekely

as we cunne / And moun / that it like vnto ȝoure greete goodnesse / to fulfylle in deede

ȝoure good / (…we pray you and beseach you as meekly as we can.)

(6) [C2, 1400] He wolde be-reue out of þis world þe sunne / ffor who can teche & werke as

we cunne / And þat is not of lytyme quod he / But sithe þat elye was or elyse / (…for

who can teach and work as we can.)

(7) [C1, 1000] And þæt þu scealt deopþanclum geþance asmeagan, þæt þu þæt god gefylle,

þe þu canst, þe læs þe god upbrede þone godspellican cwide. (To feel the god, you

can….)

Furthermore, can in both its functions has been observed separately in the research in order to

make explicit whether or not there could have been any notable divergences in the distributions of

their positions. The findings are illustrated by Figures 9 and 10 for can-mod and can-V,

respectively.

Before discussing the ‘end’ position, the focus will be drawn to the ‘initial’ one recognized in

101 occurrences (14.45%). This rather lower representation may be explained as follows. Written

texts are in general sparse in questions inasmuch as their primary purpose is to convey facts. In the

sample, out of the 699 instances, the number of questions, such as (8) and (9), was solely 59

9,4

%

11

,1%

15

,3%

10

,3%

19

,4%

0,0

%

5,6

% 15

,0%

13

,0%

10

,0%

11

,4%

7,7

%

23

,7%

10

,0%

35

,1%

2,3

%

37

,5%

66

,7%

28

,2%

27

,6% 4

5,2

%

12

,5%

44

,4%

13

,8%

5,6

%

2,0

%

2,3

%

0,0

%

1,3

%

0,0

%

0,0

%

0,0

%

53

,1%

22

,2%

56

,5%

62

,1%

35

,5%

87

,5%

50

,0%

71

,3%

81

,5%

88

,0%

86

,4%

92

,3%

75

,0% 9

0,0

%

64

,9%

97

,7%

85

0

90

0

95

0

10

00

10

50

11

50

12

50

13

00

13

50

14

00

14

50

15

00

15

50

16

00

16

50

17

00

I

E

M

Fig. 9 The sentence position of can-mod

14

,3%

12

,5%

13

,7%

11

,4% 22

,7%

0,0

%

0,0

%

0,0

%

4,3

%

20

,0% 3

3,3

%

38

,1%

75

,0%

29

,5%

25

,7%

45

,5%

16

,7%

75

,0%

33

,3%

4,3

% 10

,0%

0,0

%

47

,6%

12

,5%

56

,8%

62

,9%

31

,8%

83

,3%

25

,0%

66

,7%

91

,3%

70

,0%

66

,7%

85

0

90

0

95

0

10

00

10

50

11

50

12

50

13

00

13

50

14

00

14

50

I

E

M

Fig. 10 The sentence position of can-V

40

(8.44%). The other instances found in I were those evincing inversion, either incited by fronting a

negative item, (10) and (11), found in 33 fragments (4.72%), or by fronting another sentential

element recognized in 19 fragments (2.72%), see (12), (13).

(8) [C1, 950] La leof sege me humeta canst ðu nu ðu eart ebreisc grecisc gereord and

egyptisc. and eac ethiopisc? Matheus andwyrde. eal middaneard hæfde ane spræce ær

ðan þe seo dyrstignys asprang æfter Noes flode. (…do you know Hebrew, Greek, and

Egyptian?)

(9) [C1, 950] Scis domitare eos? Canst þu temian hig? (Can you tame him?)

(10) [C1, 1000] And þa <andswerade> pantaleon his fæder & he cwæð, Ne can nænig oðer

læce don þæne læcecræft þe <is> to don butan se þe hine me tæhte. (No other doctor

can heal you….)

(11) [C1, 950] Þa cwædon þa halgan, ne cunne we nanne God buton fæder and sunu and

þone halgan gast. (…we do not know any God but father, son and the holy ghost.)

(12) [C2, 1300] þat tok til ald mans words tent. / Quen noe sagh his trauail tint, / Of his

precheing þan con he stint; / for it es foli giue consail to / þe folk þat wil but foli do;

(Then he can cease his preaching.)

(13) [C3, 1550]…and Balades also he is a maker, and that can he as finely doe as Jacke

Raker. (And he can do that as finely as Jacke Raker.)

Finally, supposing the sample does not contain any serious deficiencies, which might have

arisen as a matter of incorrect translation or analysis, it is apparent that can in the ‘end’ position

(referred to as can-E onwards) decreased rapidly in both cases with no notable divergence. The

decrease followed by the ultimate elimination of can-E appears to have been a purely syntactic

problem, the result of V-fronting, as Lightfoot pointed out, provoked by the synthetic-to-analytic

transition. Although he himself never particularizes the development of individual modals, it

seems reasonable to assume, based on the findings presented in Figures 7 and 8, that can-E

gradually ceased to exist with the crucial transitory period ascertained to be the course of the

fifteenth century. This fact may be pronounced as fully corresponding with his overall assertion.

The only exemption is one fragment found after the fifteenth century analysed as can-E, such as

(14). This anomaly seems to be induced by a degree of emphasis; yet due to its otherwise zero

occurrence in the sample from early Modern English, it is not considered a significant argument

in order to deprecate Lighfoot’s conception.

(14) [C3, 1550]…Rulith all, nothing ther is that doo he can not" "Nothing," quoth I. (…there

is nothing that he cannot do.)

In this thesis, the last indicator of the syntactic change of can is modal co-existence.

Ungrammatical as this particular phenomenon may now seem, it definitely had its place in early

English. In the present research there have been found six instances in ‘1300’, one in ‘1350’, and

fifteen in ‘1450’. As regards the last sample, all fifteen fragments come from one source. The

numeric difference between particular periods is not to be taken into consideration for this fact

41

rather seems to be pointing to the author’s preference of an expression. Figure 11 below shall serve

as a visual illustration of this not very plentiful, but in syntactic measures by no means negligible,

structure of can-mod in co-occurrence with another modal.

The sentence arrangements of the fragments in question, some of which are adduced below,

are SXMV, SXMVO (15), SXMVOA (16), VSXMOO (17), SXMOV (20), XSMVO, XSOMV

(18), and OSXMV (19). In all of the instances, the other modal presumably taking up the role of

today’s operator is shall. To comment on the particular findings, sample ‘1300’ is the first one

here to evince modal co-occurrence. What it may refer to is the language already appearing in the

stage of complex transformation entailing restructuring of grammatical rules. Making a tentative

proposal, this may indicate that pre-modals were experiencing a type of syntactic testing for their

mutual compatibility after obligatory V-fronting had been implemented. This may be supported

by the fact that all these fragments are in accordance with the V-fronting principle. In other words,

never is can nor shall placed in E as at the earlier times, when SOVM was a frequent pattern for

can-mod in a subordinate clause. Unusual are here considered fragments (17) and (19), most likely

receiving emphatic fronting, and fragment (18), which is interpreted as pre-position achieving

focus on the verb.

(15) [C2, 1300]…bile wordis of flaterers, the whilk crist sall allto breke. In thaire ded. For

than thai sall noght cun say ill agayns rightwismen, ne goed of ill men. (For then, they

should not allow to speak ill against righteous men and well of ill men.)

(16) [C2, 1450]…we shall see who shall take theym from us / for we shall well conne shewe

this to the kyng Charlemagne. (For we will be able to show this to the king

Charlemagne.)

(17) [C2, 1450] I shall do this message' / 'It playse me well,' sayd the kyng, '& ryght grete

thanke I shall conne you for it / for ye neuer faylled me at a nede' / (“It pleases me very

much”, said the king, “and I shall be able to thank you greatly for it. For you have never

failed me in need.”)

(18) [C2, 1300] Behald þou þe þi liue a-boute! / þe barns þat o þe sal bred / Namar sal þou

þam cun rede. (Never shall you to him be allowed to read.)

(19) [C2, 1300]... se it [all] in þe trinite. / Of alkin men in heuen and hell, / Bath nam and

dede þai sal cun tell. (Of all kinds of men in heaven and hell, both mother and father

shall be able to tell.)

0,0

%

6,3

%

1,9

%

0,0

%

34

,1%

0,0

%

0,0

%

0,0

%

10

0,0

%

93

,8%

98

,1%

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65

,9% 1

00

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%

12

50

13

00

13

50

14

00

14

50

15

00

15

50

16

00

Co-occurrence

Non-

occurrence

Fig. 11 Co-occurrence of can-mod and another modal

42

(20) ... yours / Wherfore, I praye you, lete theym have agayne theyr marchandyse, and god

shall conne you thanke ' / (I pray you, let them have again their merchandise, and the

god will possibly thank you.)

Next, modal co-occurrence, in this case that of shall and can, was, according to Lightfoot,

another phenomenon eliminated by the sixteenth century at the latest. Moreover, on the basis of

the present research, this particular one may be described as only scarcely existing within the

Middle English period without any further extension. The findings here hence on no account

contravene this linguist’s standpoint, but rather show correspondence.

On the other hand, the observations of some syntactic aspects in the development of can,

though usually confirming Lightfoot’s concept, have not made clear whether the incitement for

auxiliarization may have, at the same time, resulted as a consequence of semantic changes. For it

is quite likely, especially in the case of the resolution of the natural ambiguity/oddity of modal co-

occurrence.

7.2 Semantic development

To recapitulate, Goossens argued against Lightfoot by claiming that semantic development

should also be regarded as an important factor in grammaticalization of modals. Here, a similar

semantic analysis to his has been performed, differing solely in one facet, that not only the tenth

and eleventh century, but the whole early English period has been researched. The discrete

variables observed were the type of modality, of adjacent full verb and of subjective role. The

findings interpreted below, therefore, may cast some light onto both the applicability of Goossens’

theory in a wider measure, and the legitimacy of his rejecting Lightfoot’s concept as presented in

6.1.2.

To turn to the subject of findings now, the three types of modal meaning, i.e. ability, possibility

and permission, have been examined with the aim of deciding to what degree their individual

development may have featured as a semantic initiator of auxiliarization.

Beforehand, a note is to be mentioned on detecting the particular modality type in the analysis

inasmuch as it is not always absolutely clear which of the meanings can expresses, especially in

the absence of co-text, which was the case also in these data. Below are presented some of the

instances, such as (21), (22) and (23), evaluated as ‘indeterminate’10, that is, their modality could

10 Coats applies the term ‘indeterminate‘ for such modal constructions the reading of which inclines to more than one

meaning (14).

43

not be unambiguously discerned despite the involvement of Palmer’s and Coats’ criteria as put

forward in 3.1.

(21) [C1, 950] Nu ge raþe gangaþ ond findaþ gen þa þe fyrngewritu þurh snyttro cræft

selest cunnen, æriht eower, þæt me ondsware þurh sidne sefan secgan cunnen. (…you

went and found out quickly that you can give wisdom through old scriptures….)

(22) [C1, 1250] / Mi disciple he may not ben for soþe. / I con no more to þe say / But, ȝif

þou seo þat þou wel may / (I can tell you no more.)

(23) [C2, 1250]...roude eorl of artoys, ant oþer monyon, / to come to paris. / þe barouns of

fraunce þider conne gon, / In to þe paleis þat paued is wiþ ston, / to iugge þe flemmisshe

to bernen a / (The French barons can thither go, into the palace that paved is with

stone….)

To comment on their nature, fragment (21) may be understood as expressing either ability,

You are able to give wisdom…., or possibility, It is now possible for you to give wisdom through

old scriptures. In this case the ‘permission’ meaning, as in You are now allowed to give wisdom….,

does not seem reasonable enough, since the co-text does not provide any indices of granting or

denying permission. As regards fragment (22), it is rather unclear whether the speaker points to

his absence of knowledge, which would imply ‘ability’ reading, or to someone/something

preventing him from conveying the information. Now the ‘possibility’ meaning appears the least

likely due to the fact that no surrounding reality is introduced which would explicitly impose a

difficulty on the potential act of saying. Lastly, fragment (23) can be interpreted either as

possibility, It is possible for the French barons to go…., or permission, The French barons are

allowed to go…. The ‘ability’ meaning, however, is not preferred here, for it would suggest that

the subject is capable of going, which is commonly not an activity one needs a particular skill or

knowledge to perform.

These three ambiguous categories, namely AB/POSS, AB/PER and POSS/PER, form a proportion

of 16.3% out of 448 here analysed modal structures. The remaining fragments were recognized as

to be displaying one, predominant, meaning. ‘Ability’ is illustrated by (24) and (25), ‘possibility’

by (26) and (27), and instance (28) along with (29) shall epitomize ‘permission’. The distribution

of the sample cleared from the indeterminate instances is shown in Figure 11.

(24) [C1, 950] Nescis uenare nisi cum retibus? Ne canst þu huntian buton mid nettum?

(Cannot you hunt without a net?)

(25) [C2, 1400] That of þi lif ȝit hastowe no suerte / I graunte þe lif if þou canst telle / What

þing is it þat wommen most desiren. / Be ware and kepe þi nekbone fro yre / (I grant

you will live if you can tell me what thing women most desire.)

(26) [C2, 1300] …quen he was dede sone an-nane / his saule forþ to hel con gane. / and alle

at deyed bi-twix and þan. / þat ihesus rase baþ god and man. / ne muȝ / (His soul thus

can go to hell.)

(27) [C1, 1000] Leofan men, understandað þæt ærest cristenra manna gehwylc ah ealra þinga

mæste ðearfe þæt he cunne Godes riht ongytan þurh lare & lage & gelyfan anrædlice on

44

God <ælmihtigne>, þe is waldend & wyrhta ealra gesceafta. (…that he can recognize

God through preaching.)

(28) [C3, 1500] can deserue no sentuary, and therefore he can not haue it. Forsoth he hath

founden…. (can deserve no sanctuary, and therefore he cannot have it.)

(29) [C3, 1550] who said: Judge. Nay, stay there, you cannot go away with that Speech

unanswered. (…you cannot go away with that speech unanswered.)

As expected, within the course of early English, the prevailing meaning of can-mod is that of

‘ability’, considered the original, for example by Palmer (150). Nevertheless, there still is an

apparent difference regarding its present and historical combinatory possibilities, as will be seen

below. Then, the meaning of ‘possibility’ seems to be already, though very scarcely, existing in

the tenth century, such as (30) and (31). Its development is then found progressing from the latter

half of the thirteenth century, and reaches maximum, or in other words, is fully established, in

early Modern English, after codifying modals in the grammar.

By no means less significant is here the development of ‘permission’. Even though there

obviously had been some indicators before, illustrated by (32), (33) and (34), it may be considered

common only since early Modern English. In this place, reference may also be made to the 1300’s

fragment (15) above, the reading of which is most likely also ‘denying permission’. That this type

of modality was not established in OE may be understood from fragment (33) where the permissive

force of can is presumably reinforced by may also expressing permission in one of its OE senses.

(30) [C1, 950] Þonne bið on hreþre under helm drepen biteran stræle him bebeorgan ne con

wom wundorbebodum wergan gastes. (…a sharp arrow cannot protect him…)

(31) [C1, 1000] Ac nu þincð þe wærra & mycele þe snotera se ðe can mid leasungan

wæwærðlice werian & mid unsoðe soð oferswiðan. (…that you can successfully

continue lying, and with untruth truth overcoming.)

(32) [C1, 950] Gangaþ nu snude, snyttro geþencaþ, weras wisfæste, wordes cræftige, þa ðe

eowre æ æðelum cræftige on ferhðsefan fyrmest hæbben, þa me soðlice secgan cunnon,

10

0,0

%

10

0,0

%

88

,5%

90

,5%

10

0,0

%

10

0,0

%

83

,3%

61

,7% 77

,8% 90

,6%

86

,1%

58

,3%

65

,2%

58

,8%

41

,4%

64

,1%

0,0

%

0,0

% 7,7

%

4,8

%

0,0

%

0,0

%

0,0

%

6,4

%

0,0

%

0,0

%

0,0

%

16

,7%

7,6

%

0,0

%

6,9

%

2,6

%

0,0

%

0,0

%

3,8

%

4,8

%

0,0

%

0,0

%

16

,7% 31

,9%

22

,2%

9,4

%

13

,9%

25

,0%

27

,3% 41

,2%

51

,7%

33

,3%

85

0

90

0

95

0

10

00

10

50

11

50

12

50

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13

50

14

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14

50

15

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15

50

16

00

16

50

17

00

AB PER POSS

Fig. 12 Distribution of the modal meaning of can

45

ondsware cyðan for <eowic> forð tacna gehwylces þe ic him to sece. (…you can tell

me the truth….)

(33) [C1, 1000] …forðam þe þær ys seo bliss and þæt wuldor, þæt nan eorðlic mann

ne can ne ne mæg mid his wordum areccan and asecgan þa wynsumnysse and blisse

þæs heofonlican lifes. (No one on Earth is allowed to offend the kindness and bliss of

the chaste lives of our brethren.)

(34) [C2, 1300] …þat tok til ald mans words tent. / Quen noe sagh his trauail tint, / Of his

precheing þan con he stint; / for it es foli giue consail to / þe folk þat wil but foli do;

(The queen now saw her travel plan. He can cease his preaching then.)

Then, one of the primary objectives in this thesis is to find possible connections between the

syntactic and semantic development of can. Most surprisingly, comparing the striking shift

between the proportions of can-V and can-mod, see Figure 8, and the sudden emergence of can

expressing neutral possibility, Figure 12, an apparent correlation may be observed in the second

half of the thirteenth century. It, hence, seems to be the case that can in this period both began to

function primarily as a modal verb and simultaneously developed the meaning of neutral

possibility. The reason why this arose may be the fact, as suggested by Lightfoot, that the grammar

began to differentiate between root and epistemic modals in early Middle English, as put forward

in 6.1.1. By that time, neutral possibility had been readily expressed by may and to some extent

also by mot. The latter was predominantly used to grant or deny permission, and less frequently,

it was the indicator of possibility arisen from permission. In Middle English it shaped for epistemic

possibility and later for marking solely necessity and obligation. (Warner 165-6, 176). Inevitably,

the shift of may and mot to epistemics must have eliminated their expressiveness of neutral

possibility, which however could not stay incommunicable. What most likely emerged to fill this

slot is can, presumably due to its continuing approximation to may, as also presented above.

Besides, the rise of the 'permission' meaning of can in the sixteenth century might be also

explained as a consequence of the shift of may. In Old English mot was the primary item to grant

permission. In the thirteenth century, this meaning was gradually transferred to may; and this was

completed by the fifteenth century. Nevertheless, by that time mot was already lost and its

'necessity/obligation' sense was taken over by must. May thus featured as the only item expressing

epistemic possibility and became much more frequent in this sense than in 'permission'. (Warner

180) Even though Warner does not clarify whether can compensated for this shift of may, it seems

reasonable, referring especially to the present findings, to assume that this was the case.

Moreover, the changes of some other semantic categories have been traced in order to find

out when and in what way exactly can began to relax the character of its arguments and

complementing verb. Therefore, the attention will be now turned to the same variables as those

recognized by Goossens as significant in terms of observing auxiliarization.

46

Firstly, the findings regarding the semantic role of the subject are discussed In fragments

where can has the function of the main verb, the subjective role is invariably Experiencer; hence,

there is no specific reason why this should be plotted on graph. On the other hand, the development

of this role in instances where can operates as a modal is more interesting. This process is

illustrated by Figure 13.

To provide a brief commentary on the categories beforehand, it has already been mentioned

in 6.2 that the not very numerous, but in terms of modal development significant, category 'Other'

involves subjects recognized as EXTERNAL CAUSER (35), INSTRUMENT (36) and RECIPIENT (37).

The existence of these instances along with those classified as THEME (38) and AFFECTED (39) here

features as a clear indicator of progressing semantic relaxation of the subject role. To explain, in

Old English the predominant roles of can were EXPERIENCER, such as (41), and AGENT of an

intellectual action, (41) (Goossens 123-4). Later there are rising instances with subjects in the role

of AGENT of a non-intellectual action, such as (42) and (43), which in Old English however still

had an intellectual insight, as also indicated by Goossens (124). Furthermore, even here are

instances, though rather late, such as the aforementioned fragments (30) and (33), confirming the

outset of general semantic relaxation of can.

(35) [C3, 1550].. No froste nor snow , no winde I trowe can hurte mee if I wolde , I am so

wrapt. (Neither frost nor snow and wind I meet can hurt me if I want.

(36) [C3, 1700] hair, and at any distance that an arrow cannot reach: they will shoot down

oranges.

(37) [C3, 1500] …is the sprete of truthe whome the worlde can not receave , because the

worlde seyth…. (…whome the world cannot receive….)

(38) [C2, 1350] ...er om. 6 is gadred & is gode. brusynge. 9 borne. 11 redes. whan--kitte om.

added: For that can not be bought of the Soudan by no maner of wyse. 12 and of that.

13 renneth & thyrleth. (For that cannot be bought from Soudan by any manner of

wisdom.)

0,00%

20,00%

40,00%

60,00%

80,00%

100,00%

850

900

950

1000

1050

1100

1150

1250

1300

1350

1400

1450

1500

1550

1600

1650

1700

Agent of an intellectual action Agent of a non-intellectual action

Experiencer Theme

Affected Other

Fig. 13 Semantic role of the subject

47

(39) [C1, 950] He is wundorlice healic and wid on ymbhwyrfte: se gæð under þas eorðan

ealswa deop swa bufan, ðeah ðe þa ungelæredan menn þæs gelyfan ne cunnon.

(…through you these illiterate men cannot allow that.)

(40) [C2, 1300] / Þe laws wele better mai he cun;[215—216) fehlen.] / His elders war of þe

alde state, / A / (He may know the laws much better.)

(41) [C1, 950] Men ne cunnon secgan to soðe <selerædende>, hæleð under heofenum, hwa

þæm hlæste onfeng. (Men cannot say truthfully….)

(42) [C1, 1000] And þa <andswerade> pantaleon his fæder & he cwæð, Ne can nænig oðer

læce don þæne læcecræft þe <is> to don butan se þe hine me tæhte. (No other doctor

can heal you….)

(43) [C1, 1000] …understandað þæt ælc cristen man ah micle þearfe þæt he his cristendomes

gescead wite, & þæt he cunne rihtne geleafan rihtlice understandan. (…that he can live

rightly in understanding.)

As expected, in consequence of its new function of the 'neutral possibility' marker, the early

Middle English can now began to influence considerably, beside the other categories as will be

seen further in the thesis, the semantic role of its subject. Therefore, from now onwards there may

be found fragments with subjects recognized as THEMEs, (44) and (45). Moreover, the subject now

could also express a NON-ANIMATE ENTITY, (46). The distribution of this category is presented in

Figure 14, which corresponds to the development of neutral possibility.

And later, more precisely from the sixteenth century, based on its gained modal meaning of

permission, a noteworthy rise may be also observed in the role of AFFECTED participant (47) and

(48). That is, the subject can now be recognized as an animate entity having been allowed, i.e.

affected, by some authority, rules or regulations to perform the action denoted by the verb.

(44) [C2, 1250] …vpon þe rode why nulle we taken hede? / His grene wounde so

grimly conne blede. (His green wound so grimly can bleed).

(45) [C2, 1550] affirmed by Tulli , sayenge , that friendship can nat be without vertue , ne

but in good (…that friendship cannot be without virtue….)

(46) [C2, 1300]...n þe knightes sleped fast / with him þai might not striue. / When he ros þe

erthe con quake, / þen hade þe Iews doute, / And ded men ros of þer graues / and ȝode

walk / ... (When he rises the Earth can quake….)

(47) [C3, 1550] felicitie with bodies death is finished , no man can doubte , Can this bring

felicitie , but. (No man is not allowed to doubt.)

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Animate Non-Animate

Fig. 14 Animateness of the subject

48

(48) [C3, 1700] astray like one of the Wicked? Quak. Thou canst not Err, therefore prepare

thy Vessel. (You cannot err….)

To summarize the category of the semantic roles of the subject with respect to the development

of can, it may be stated that there, logically, was observed a correspondence with the gradually

emerging modality meanings. That is, the Old English period evinced an absolute predominance

of the role EXPERIENCER due to the prevailing lexical meaning to know. Then, there were also

found the roles EXPERIENCER, AGENT of an intellectual action, and, less frequently, AGENT of a

non-intellectual action in instances where can operated as a modal. This may be explained by the

original meaning of can in modal constructions interpreted as to know how to. In early Middle

English, there emerged a considerable number of the role THEME, which can be well accounted for

by the new function of can, being now the 'neutral possibility' marker. The fact that can was in

this period a modal operating at all levels of neutral possibility may testify the by no means

negligible number of instances with non-animate subjects. And finally, with the rise of the

'permission' meaning in early Modern English, the subject now had to take up the semantic role of

the AFFECTED participant.

Reflecting on Goossens' proposal that in late Old English there already existed instances,

though very rarely, of can relaxing its combinations to other subjective roles than EXPERIENCER

and AGENT of an intellectual action, it has been proved, as regards the scope of this research, valid.

Lastly, full verbs complementing can have been scrutinized and categorized in order to

validate Goossens' claim that, originally, it was only verbs involving a degree of cognition that

could be adjacent to this modal. In this research, the analysis of all verbs found with can gave rise

to four major categories as presented in 6.3. Their temporal distribution is illustrated by Figure 15.

Fig. 15 Types of verb complementing can

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50

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Mental states and actions

Learnt mental skills

Learnt physical skills

Knowledge-unconditioned predicates

49

Regarding the graphic illustration, samples '1100' and '1150' have not been included due to the

absence of representative modal fragments. There was one for '1100', (49), and two for '1150', (50)

and (51). The last instance, (51), however, is very interesting, since it seems an undeniable instance

of KNOWLEDGE-UNCONDITIONED PREDICATES Yet their inclusion would distort the overall notion.

(49) [C2, 1100] Ne hlyst ðu no ungesceadwises monnes worda, forþam hæfð monig man

ðone unðeaw, þæt he ne con nyt sprecan & ne mæg þeah geswugian. (…that he cannot

speak….)

(50) [C2, 1150] More fluentis aque currunt mortalia queque. Ne mai ich noht alle þing tellen.

ne ich ne can here alre name nemnen. Ac alle woreld þing ben fleted…. (I cannot here

name all the names.)

(51) [C2, 1150].wored gif hie weren wel ioponen. Ac ich ne mai ne ich ne can þosse on

openi. Ac naþeles ich wille ew segge þat ich þronne understonde þur[h] þe mihte of

þe… (I cannot open those.)

Turning to the findings plotted on graph now, it is apparent that in Old English, a vast majority

of full verbs complementing can carried meanings associated with mental states (52) and actions

(53), or learnt mental skills (54). This observation closely correlates to those of other linguists',

namely to Goossens', see 6.1.2, or Warner's, 3.2. However, more important, as regards the semantic

development, are here the minority of verbs with substantially lesser or none mental connotation;

in other words, categories LEARNT PHYSICAL SKILLS, (55) and (56), and, primarily, KNOWLEDGE-

UNCONDITIONED PREDICATES, (57), in Old English traditionally expressed by may and mot.

Goossens finds only one example in his research fitting to the latter category (124). Here also was

found solely one OE fragment (57) without any intellectual precondition. Therefore, in terms of

the development of can towards today's state, the Old English period does not evince any more

significant indices for the change of its semantics.

(52) [C1, 850] Ac ðonne we slapað fæste, ðonne we nohwæðer ne hit witan nyllað ne hit

betan nyllað, ne furðum ne reccað hwæðer we hit ongieten, ðeah we hit

gecnawan cunnen. ( …that we can recognize it.)

(53) [C1, 950] And hu wylt ðu nu furðor embe þis smeagian, þonne ðu sylf ne canst embe

ðe sylfne soðlice smeagian? (You yourself cannot investigate.)

(54) [C1, 950] Ic can eow læran langsumne ræd. (I can teach you some tedious advice.)

(55) [C1, 950] …Þa ðe bet cunnon and magon sceolon gyman oðra manna. and mid heora

fultume. (…those who are well able and allowed to should take care of other men.)

(56) [C1, 950] Scis domitare eos? Canst þu temian hig? (Can you tame them?)

(57) [C1, 950] Ond he þa wæs mid gehate hine seolfne bindende, & þus cwæð: Nu se hæðna

ne con usse gife onfon, wuton we þam syllan & bringan, þe onfon con, ussum Drihtne

Hælendum Criste. (Now the pagans cannot give us a present.)

(58) [C2, 1250] …nis bote kare and wo, / And liuie in fulþe and in sunne? / Ac her beþ ioies

fele cunne;[W. & M. joies.] / Her beþ boþe shep and get. (If her bed feels joyous….)

(59) [C2, 1250] …wiþ-outen care in grete solace / he was went his wyfe sone fra / þe nedder

nerhande hir con ga. / and saide wommon tel me quy. / þat ȝe ete noȝt alle communely.

(…that no one can go/come here.)

50

On the other hand, in early Middle English there emerges a striking rise in the number of

instances of can complemented by verbs with no intellectual connotation, (58) and (59) above.

This suddenness may be well accounted for by the aforementioned shift of may and mot to

epistemics. Logically, can now taking up the role of the 'neutral possibility' marker must

consequently have relaxed its combinatory possibilities. Furthermore, in the same period, it also

began to operate predominantly as an auxiliary in modal constructions, rather than as a main verb,

which never was the case in Old English as presented in Figure 7. It thus appears reasonable to

conclude that its semantic relaxation led to considerable reduction in its existence as a full verb.

With this in mind, a presumption had been made that the second argument of can-V might have

been consequently restricted in its semantics regarding the combinatory possibilities. Therefore,

further investigation has been carried out, and what has been found out is that there is in general

no notable change in the character of the second argument, see Figure 16.

As apparent, the same categories as in Old English commonly occur within the course of

Middle English. It thus may be deduced that can-V did not change its combinatory possibilities;

that is, it did not begin to restrict the character of its complementation. Still, in a majority of

instances can now operated as a modal; therefore, as a consequence, there must have arisen a

deficiency in means of expression in those instances where can earlier had carried the meaning to

know. In this aspect, it was most probably substituted by cnawan11. Moreover, there was another

means, indeed, to express this lexical meaning, which is witan, inasmuch as Warner asserts that

"in Chaucer's works and in the Wyclifite Sermons it is the commonest verb of knowing, occurring

several times as frequently as know"12 (204).

11 Cnawan is an OE strong verb of Class VII translated as know and the predecessor of today's know (Campbell 319). 12 Here know is by Warner understood as the lexical verb originated from cnawan. For, referring to pre-modals in their

lexical meanings, Warner always uses their original form, which in this case would be any form of cunnan.

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abstract concept language person pronominalization skill

Fig. 16 Character of the second argument of can-V

51

In conclusion, to point out the most important observation, a notable semantic relaxation of

can was found in terms of its verbal complementation, frequently appearing from the second half

of the thirteenth century. This relaxation involved the inclusion of other complementing verbs than

solely those related to knowledge, which was far from typical in earlier instances.

Similarly to the previous category, Goossens' suggestion that in late Old English threre existed

indices of the future relaxation of verbal complements of can is found valid if '950' sample is taken

into consideration. Moreover, his suggestion may be expanded by another one, namely that the

thirteenth century, and especially its latter half, may be regarded as the final stage of this

development since all types of verbs could now be adjacent to this modal verb.

7.3 Evaluation of hypotheses

In this subchapter, the hypotheses stated in 6.1.3 are evaluated. Their evaluation is based on

the findings discussed above in the thesis.

As regards hypothesis H1, it was stated as follows: "syntactic changes of historical can, more

specifically, its loss of the direct object, the fixing of the word order by avoiding the ‘end’ position

and the non-occurrence with another modal, are in accordance with Lightfoot’s concept; therefore,

regarded as extensively increasing in the course of the sixteenth century as well as found already

existing and in gradual progress before". In order to evaluate H1, it ought to be separated into three

individual statements.

The first one concerns the loss of the direct object of can. Logically, constructions with direct

objects were found in all instances with can operating as the main verb, i.e. can-V. Their

distribution has been illustrated by Figure 8, from which it is apparent that can gradually ceased

to exist with the direct object in Middle English and the complete loss can be set, with respect to

this research, to the sixteenth century. Therefore, this statement proved valid.

The second statement deals with avoiding the 'end' position. In this regard, Figures 9 and 10

may be referred to. A steep decline of this earlier usual verbal position may be noticed primarily

in the fourteenth century. The fifteenth century then evinced only a few such instances, and there

was none found from the sixteenth century onwards. This second statement thus also proved valid.

The third and last one involves modal co-occurrence, here depicted in Figure 11. It has been

seen that this phenomenon was found only in Middle English after the introduction of the

obligatory V-fronting principle. However, there was no such instance found later, that is, from the

sixteenth century onwards. Therefore, also this third statement of H1 is considered valid. As

52

regards the overall evaluation of this hypothesis, it may be asserted that the research confirmed its

validity.

Secondly, H2 is more problematic. It has been formulated as "semantic changes of historical

can, more specifically, its increase in types of subjective roles and of adjacent full verbs, are not

temporally interdependent with changes in the syntactic structure, hence partially disclaiming

Goossens’ rejection of Lightfoot’s theory". Similarly to the previous strategy, also this hypothesis

has been separated into two following concerns.

The semantic types of subjective roles were illustrated in Figures 13 and 14. What has been

established is that there was practically a three-stage relaxation of these roles within the early

English development of can. Firstly, in late Old English the relaxation or, in other words, the

increase in types of subjective roles, was observed especially in the role of AGENT of a non-

intellectual action, which fully corresponds to Goossens' proposal. Then, in Middle English, within

the emergence of 'neutral possibility' meaning, in the thirteenth century, the subjects could now

take up another role, THEME. Moreover, first non-animate subjects were regularly appearing from

this period. The last major category, AFFECTED participant, consequently followed the

establishment of the 'permission' sense in the sixteenth century.

Next, the temporal arrangement of the types of verbs complementing can were plotted on graph

presented in Figure 15. Of prominent importance is the category KNOWLEDGE-UNCONDITIONED

PREDICATES, regularly appearing from the latter half of the thirteenth century. The involvement of

this category is considered the signal of the last stage of the development of the combinatory

possibilities of this modal. Even though Goossens' research was conducted as synchronic, studying

solely late Old English fragments, his conclusion that can had to gradually relax the restrictions

imposed on its complements may indeed be found relevant, since the present analysis confirmed

this proposal.

Furthermore, on the subject of testing H2, the most persuasive argument seems to be the

observation that there presumably existed relationship, or interdependence, between the syntactic

and semantic development of can. To recapitulate briefly, the latter half of the thirteenth century

was the period of the striking shift in verbal functions of can, see Figure 8, as well as of the sudden

emergence of the 'neutral possibility' meaning, Figure 12. It was also presented above that this

situation occurred on the grounds of the semantic shift of may and, to a lesser extent, also of mot.

It is thus assumed that if there had been no such a shift of may and mot, there hence would have

been no reason why can would eventually drop its meaning to know and develop its modal sense

instead, i.e. undergo auxiliarization. To bring this consideration even further, can might well have

53

ceased to exist in standard language in the same fashion as another preterite-present, witan, since

there had already existed cnawan in all periods of early English to express the meaning to know.

Therefore, the semantic changes of can are in this thesis considered a significant component of the

process of auxiliarization. Goossens' rejection of Lightfoot's purely syntactic concept is thus found

reasonable, and H2 has to be evaluated as invalid.

54

8 Conclusion

Beforehand, the initial assertion from the introductory section that the modal verbs have always

featured for many linguists as very attractive research material may be definitely considered well-

founded. For hardly any lexemes in English have undergone such a complex syntactic as well as

semantic shift as these secondary auxiliaries. Moreover, the general interest in them seems to have

risen dramatically on the publication of David Lightfoot's Principles of Diachronic Syntax in 1979,

in which he presented his seminal theory on their development in the English language. Obviously,

his highlighting that it was purely the syntactic changes inducing their lexical-to-grammatical

transformation could not remain unnoticed. From the number of studies carried out in order to

rebut his radicalism, interesting is that of Goossens' putting forward a reasonable proposal that the

semantic dimension in the process of auxiliarization cannot be by any means neglected. The

resolution of this purely-syntactic or syntactico-semantic dispute thus became one of the prime

objectives in this thesis. Nevertheless, since its scope had to be taken into consideration in the first

place, solely the modal verb can has been researched. The findings and conclusions stated in the

previous chapter hence cannot be applied to the whole class of the modal verbs unless further

research is conducted.

Then, the aim of this thesis was stated as tracing the syntactico-semantic development of can

within the course of the three major early English periods. In this regard, chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5

presented the relevant theoretical knowledge in conjunction with the previous findings with respect

to the contemporary and historical linguistics. Next, in 6.1.3, two hypotheses were formulated

based on Lightfoot's and Goossens' contradictory statements. In order to gather compelling

evidence, a syntactico-semantic analysis was performed on 699 historical fragments obtained from

three university corpora. The variables tested were described in depth in 6.2. However, were the

analysis to be repeated, the attention ought to be devoted predominantly to the choice of corpora,

which indeed is a demanding task regarding their scarcely free availability on the Internet. With

respect to the present research, solely the forms of the standard inflectional paradigm of can were

possible to be generated in the Old English corpus (C1), which then resulted into some periods,

see Figure 4, without a sufficient number of fragments. This deficiency, nevertheless, is not

considered significant in terms of the general reliability of the research.

Turning now to the findings, syntactically, the transformation of can was found evincing a

clear correlation with Lightfoot's proposal. That is, the original capability of can to take direct

objects, i.e. its operating as the main verb, decreased gradually within the Middle English period.

Then, even though some linguists point to its later, though very rare, occurrence, here this function

55

was no longer appearing from the sixteenth century onwards. Similarly, the 'end' sentential position

of can very common in Old English was far less frequent in Middle English, and in fact became

completely avoided also by the sixteenth century. Lastly, the modal co-existence was a sparse

phenomenon, here ascertained solely to the period of Middle English. The research furthermore

revealed that if can in its auxiliary function appeared with another modal, this was always

shall/should, both deontic and epistemic, with a substantial prevalence of the latter. To this extent,

Lightfoot's theory on auxiliarization could be fully accepted as conclusive.

The analysis of the semantic categories, nevertheless, brought out some remarkable findings.

Firstly, Goossens' synchronic investigation of the late Old-English can was in this thesis expanded

into a diachronic one. That is, his pointing to the first stage of the relaxation of its combinatory

possibilities was here described in full detail with respect to the three early English periods. Yet,

the essential observation undoubtedly involved the striking signalization of the syntactico-

semantic relationship in terms of the auxiliarization of can. This became quite evident in the latter

half of the thirteenth century when fundamental syntactic and semantic changes of can took place

simultaneously. Moreover, it seems reasonable to assume that the syntactic change, particularly,

the sudden inclination to the modal function, have arisen as a consequence of the semantic one, in

other words, as a consequence of can taking up the meaning of neutral possibility.

Therefore, Lightfoot's proposal so strongly declining the possibility of the syntactico-semantic

interdependency in auxiliarization could not be in this thesis confirmed inasmuch as the research

rather proved the opposite. On the other hand, the analysis revealed the semantic development of

can occurring in the same fashion as suggested by Goossens, and, in addition, there was found

a relationship between the syntactic and semantic categories. Hence, his concept is that which can

be directly supported.

Doubts nevertheless may still arise concerning Lightfoot, a renowned historical linguist, and,

seemingly, a pioneer of the diachronic modal development, excluding the semantic factors so

decidedly and provocatively. A question may be asked whether he might have intended, with the

help of his radicalism, to challenge other linguists to carry out more research into this issue.

Provided this was one of his serious aims, then, the high number of recent scholarly studies dealing

with modal development represent its complete achievement.

56

Works cited

Barber, Charles L. Early Modern English. London: Deutsch, 1976. Print.

Baugh, Albert C. A History of the English Language. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1957.

Print.

Bosworth, Joseph, and Thomas N. Toller. An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. London: Oxford U, 1972.

Web. 22 Jul 2014.

Brunner, Karl. An Outline of Middle English Grammar. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1963. Print.

Burrow, John A., and Thorlac Turville-Petre. A Book of Middle English. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.

Print.

Campbell, Alistair. Old English Grammar. Oxford: Clarendon, 1959. Print.

Coates, Jennifer. The Semantics of the Modal Auxiliaries. London: Croom Helm, 1983. Print.

Dušková, Libuše et al. Mluvnice současné angličtiny na pozadí češtiny. 4. vyd. Praha: Academia,

2012. Print.

Fischer, Olga. “The development of the modals in English: Radical versus gradual changes”.

English Modality in Context. Ed. David Hart. Bern: Peter Lang, 17-32. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.

Goossens, Louis. "Historical Development of Auxiliaries: The Auxiliarization of the English

Modals." Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs Ed. Martin Harris and Paolo

Ramat. Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter, 1987: 111-143. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.

Gorlach, Manfred. Introduction to Early Modern English. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991. Web.

3 Feb 2015.

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Lightfoot, David. Principles of Diachronic Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1979. Web. 25

Mar. 2014.

Mitchell, Bruce, and Fred C. Robinson. A Guide to Old English. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1992.

Print.

Palmer, Frank R. A Linguistic Study of the English Verb. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami,

1968. Print.

---. Modality and the English Modals. London: Longman, 1979. Print.

Partridge, Astley C. A Companion to Old and Middle English Studies. Totowa, N.J.: Barnes &

Noble, 1982. Print.

Pyles, Thomas. The Origins and Development of the English Language. 2nd Ed. New York:

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971. Print.

Quirk, Randolph, and Charles L. Wrenn. An Old English Grammar,. New York: Holt, Rinehart &

Winston, 1983. Print.

Quirk, Randolph. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman, 1985.

Print.

Warner, Anthony. English Auxiliaries: Structure and History. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993.

Print.

Wright, Joseph, and Elizabeth M. Wright. An Elementary Middle English Grammar. London: H.

Milford, Oxford UP, 1928. Print.

58

Corpora

Anthony Kroch, Beatrice Santorini, and Lauren Delfs. The Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early

Modern English. Pennsylvania: The University of Pennsylvania, 2004. Web. 2 Jul 2014.

Healey, Antonnete, John P. Wilkin, and Xin Xiang. The Dictionary of Old English Corpus.

Toronto: The University of Toronto, 2011. Web. 2 Jul 2014.

Mc Sparran, Frances, et al. The Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse. Michigan: The

University of Michigan, 2001. Web. 2 Jul 2014.

Online dictionaries

Barthram, Phil. Old English Translator. Web. 2 Jul 2014.

Bossworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Prague: Charles University, 2010. Web. 2 Jul 2014.

Middle English Dictionary. Michigan: The University of Michigan, 2001. Web. 2 Jul 2014.

59

List of figures

Fig. 1 Palmer's verbal categories ..................................................................................................... 3

Fig. 2 Quirk's verbal categories ....................................................................................................... 3

Fig. 3 Relations between modal meaning and form ........................................................................ 8

Fig. 4 Temporal distribution of the sample ................................................................................... 32

Fig. 5 Temporal distribution of grammatical forms ...................................................................... 33

Fig. 6 Most frequent sentence arrangements ................................................................................. 34

Fig. 7 Most numerous full verbs adjacent to can .......................................................................... 36

Fig. 8 Verbal functions of can ....................................................................................................... 37

Fig. 9 The sentence position of can-mod ...................................................................................... 39

Fig. 10 The sentence position of can-V ......................................................................................... 39

Fig. 11 Co-occurrence of can-mod and another modal ................................................................. 41

Fig. 12 Distribution of the modal meaning of can ........................................................................ 44

Fig. 13 Semantic role of the subject .............................................................................................. 46

Fig. 14 Animateness of the subject ............................................................................................... 47

Fig. 15 Types of verb complementing can .................................................................................... 48

Fig. 16 Character of the second argument of can-V ..................................................................... 50

List of tables

Tab. 1 Morphological classes of the auxiliary verbs ....................................................................... 6

Tab. 2 Strong and weak conjugation ............................................................................................. 18