Synchronic and Diachronic Perspectives on Modal Verbs and their Complements

Abstract

Modal verbs can combine with complements that do not contain a verbal element: They can combine with direct objects, embedded sentences, and adjectival, particle, and prepositional predicates. The hypothesis is that the distribution of these types of complements is a diagnostic for the presence of argument structure in different types of modal verbs. Modal verbs in a dynamic interpretation resemble main verbs in the sense that they have argument structure (Ross 1969, Klooster 1986, Brennan 1993, Barbiers 1995, Wurmbrand 1999, 2001, Eide 2005, among others); as such they can select for different types of complements (Chomsky 1965, Grimshaw 1979). Modal verbs in a deontic interpretation are functional elements in the sense that they do not have argument structure (Brennan 1993, Barbiers 1995, Bhatt 1998, Wurmbrand 1999, 2001, Eide 2005); they can only combine with complements that satisfy the EPP without needing to assign a thematic role to the subject; these are Verbal complements and Small Clauses. As adjectival, particle, and prepositional predicates are either structured as full Verbal Phrase with a silent infinitive GO (Van Riemsdijk 2002) or as Small Clause complements (Barbiers 1995), these are the only possible non-verbal complements with which deontics can combine. The main claims are supported by the results of a study on 16 Modern European languages: In the Modern European languages, dynamic modal verbs frequently combine with Nominal and Sentential Phrases, while deontic modal verbs only combine with Adjectival, Particle, and Prepositional Phrases. The loss of preterite-present verbs with non-verbal complements in the history of English further supports the main claims as both the time of the loss and the rate of the change (Kroch 1989) are different for preterite-presents with direct objects and for preterite-presents with prepositional and particle predicates.