A New Modal Cycle

Authors :: Elly van Gelderen
Source :: Nordlyd: Tromsø University Working Papers on Language & Linguistics, Vol 44, Iss 1 (2020), Nordlyd; Vol 44 No 1 (2020): Recent Advances in Germanic Syntax across Syntactic Domains; 3-17, Nordlyd; Årg 44 Nr 1 (2020): Recent Advances in Germanic Syntax across Syntactic Domains; 3-17
Publication Year :: 2020
Publisher :: UiT The Arctic University of Norway, 2020.
Abstract: A new set of modals is appearing in contemporary English. The epistemic modals with perfect have are forming a new class including mighta, coulda, woulda, shoulda, and musta, when they are used with an additional have and without a (present) perfect meaning. I look at their structure and examine possible determinacy violations when they (and the core modals) move to C. The data come from corpus and internet sources; the study is not a quantitative one because the change is not yet particularly frequent.