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5.2.3.2.Modal verbs

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This section discusses modal verbs like willen'want', moeten'must' and kunnen'may', which take a bare infinitival complement. It is a matter of debate whether modal verbs taking a bare infinitival complement should be classified as main or non-main verbs. Section 4.5, sub II, has discussed in greater detail why we diverge from most descriptive grammars in analyzing these modal verbs as main verbs, and in Subsection I we will briefly repeat some of these reasons.
Since bare infinitives can be used as heads of both bare infinitival clauses and bare-inf nominalizations, it is impossible to tell without further investigation whether constructions such as (614a) involve nominal or clausal complementation. At least, this holds for Dutch since (614b) shows that, contrary to their English counterparts, modal verbs like willen, moeten and kunnen can also take non-clausal complements.

Example 614

a.	Jan wil	een ijsje	kopen.
	Jan wants.to	an ice.cream	buy
	'Jan wants to buy an ice cream.'

b.	Jan wil	een ijsje.
	Jan wants	an ice.cream
	'Jan wants to have an ice cream.'

Subsection II therefore reviews the reasons for assuming that these modal verbs take bare infinitival complement clauses, and will also discuss whether these modal verbs can be complemented by bare-inf nominalizations, subsection III continues by providing a discussion of a number of semantic and syntactic properties of the modal verbs under discussion, which adopts as its point of departure the semantic classification of modality provided by Palmer (2001), with one non-trivial addition based on observations found in Klooster (1986) and Barbiers (1995).

I. Modal verbs are main verbs
II. Modal verbs take bare infinitival complement clauses
III. Types of modality

[+] I. Modal verbs are main verbs

The main reason for treating modal verbs like willen'want', moeten'must' and kunnen'may' as main verbs here is that they allow pronominalization of their complement; this is shown in the primed examples in (615).

Example 615

a.	Jan moet	dat boek	lezen.
	Jan has.to	that book	read
	'Jan has to read that book.'

a'.		Jan moet dat.
		Jan must that
		'Jan has to do that.'

b.	Jan wil	een ijsje	kopen.
	Jan wants.to	an ice.cream	buy
	'Jan wants to buy an ice cream.'

b'.	Jan wil	dat.
	Jan wants	that
	'Jan wants to do that.'

That modal verbs can function as main verbs is also clear from the fact illustrated in (616) and (617) that it is possible for these verbs to select non-clausal complements; in (616) the complement is nominal in nature and in (617) it has the form of an adjectival/adpositional complementive. We refer the reader to Section 4.5, sub II, for arguments showing that examples like these do not involve a bare infinitival complement with some phonetically empty verb corresponding to the verbs have, get, do, etc. in the English translations.

Example 616

a.	Jan wil	een ijsje	kopen.
	Jan wants.to	an ice.cream	buy
	'Jan wants to buy an ice cream.'

a'.	Jan wil	een ijsje.
	Jan wants	an ice.cream
	'Jan wants to have an ice cream.'

b.	Jan moet	zijn medicijnen	innemen.
	Jan must	his medicines	in-take
	'Jan must take his medicines.'

b'.	Jan moet	zijn medicijnen	nog.
	Jan must	his medicines	still
	'Jan should take his medicines.'

c.	Jan kan	alles	doen.
	Jan can	everything	do
	'Jan can do anything.'

c'.		Jan kan alles.
		Jan can everything
		'Jan can do anything.'

Example 617

a.	Deze fles	moet	leeg.
	this bottle	must	empty
	'This bottle must be emptied.'

b.	Die lampen	moeten	uit.
	those lamps	must	off
	'Those lights must be switched off.'

c.	Die boeken	kunnen	in de vuilnisbak.
	those books	may	into the dustbin
	'Those books may be thrown into the dustbin.'

The standard assumption that (pronominal) noun phrases must be assigned a thematic role (that is, be semantically licensed) by the verb, in tandem with our claim that non-main verbs are not able to do so, leads to the conclusion that modal verbs like moeten and willen are main verbs; see Section 4.5 for more detailed discussion.

[+] II. Modal verbs take bare infinitival complement clauses

The previous subsection has shown that modal verbs like willen'want', moeten'must' and kunnen'may' may take nominal complements. Since bare infinitives can be used as heads of both bare infinitival clauses and bare-inf nominalizations, it is therefore not a priori clear whether the primeless examples in (616) involve clausal or nominal complementation. This subsection therefore applies the tests developed in Section 5.2.3.1, repeated here as (618), in order to establish that modal verbs may indeed take bare infinitival complement clauses.

Example 618

		infinitival clause	nominalization
I	is part of the verbal complex	+	—
II	precedes/follows the governing verb	normally follows	precedes
III	triggers IPP-effect	+	—
IV	allows focus movement	—	+
V	may follow negative adverb niet'not'	+	—
VI	can be preceded by the article geen'no'	—	+

In the examples in (619) the first two tests are applied to examples with willen'want'. First, these examples show that the bare infinitives can be construed as part of the verbal complex, as is clear from the fact that, in clause-final position, willen is able to separate them from their dependents, respectively, the direct object een ijsje'an ice cream' and the adverbial modifier hard'loudly'. Second, they show that the bare infinitives may follow the modal willen in clause-final position. From this we may conclude that the modal verbs are indeed able to take bare infinitival complement clauses.

Example 619

a.	dat	Jan een ijsje	<kopen?>	wil <kopenV>.
	that	Jan an ice.cream	buy	wants
	'that Jan wants to buy an ice cream.'

b.	dat	Jan hard	<gillen?>	wilde <gillenV>.
	that	Jan loudly	scream	wanted
	'that Jan wanted to scream loudly.'

We marked the bare infinitives preceding the modal verbs in (619) with a question mark, since it remains to be seen whether they are indeed nominal in nature. If so, they should be able to also precede clause-final verbal sequences consisting of two or more verbs. The examples in (620) show, however, that this gives rise to a severely degraded result.

Example 620

a.	dat	Jan een ijsje	<*?kopenN>	zou	willen <kopenV>.
	that	Jan an ice.cream	buy	would	want
	'that Jan would like to buy an ice cream.'

b.	dat	Jan hard	<*?gillenN>	zou	willen <gillenV>.
	that	Jan loudly	scream	would	want
	'that Jan would like to scream loudly.'

The examples in (620) suggest that modal verbs do not comfortably take bare-inf nominalizations as their complement. This conclusion is also supported by the fact that the IPP-effect is obligatory (test III); the modal verb must surface as an infinitive in the perfect-tense constructions in the primeless examples in (621). The status of the primed examples is comparable to the status of the examples in (620) with the infinitive preceding the verbs in clause-final position.

Example 621

a.	dat	Jan een ijsje	had willen/*gewild	kopenV.
	that	Jan an ice.cream	had want/wanted	buy
	'that Jan had wanted to buy an ice cream.'

a'.	*?	dat	Jan een ijsje	kopenN	had gewild.
		that	Jan an ice.cream	buy	had wanted

b.	dat	Jan hard	had willen/*gewild	gillenV.
	that	Jan loudly	had want/wanted	scream
	'that Jan had wanted to scream loudly.'

b'.	*?	dat	Jan hard	gillenN	had gewild.
		that	Jan loudly	scream	had wanted

If modal verbs indeed resist bare-inf nominalizations as complements, we expect focus movement to be excluded (test IV). The examples in (622) show that it is not clear whether this is borne out; the examples are marked but it seems too strong a claim to say that they are unacceptable. Note that the perfect-tense constructions in the primed examples would become completely ungrammatical if we replace the past participle gewild by the infinitive willen.

Example 622

a.	?	dat	Jan een ijsje	kopenN	waarschijnlijk	wel	zou	willen.
		that	Jan an ice.cream	buy	probably	prt	would	want
		'that Jan would probably like to buy an ice cream.'

a'.	?	dat	Jan een ijsje	kopenN	waarschijnlijk	wel	had gewild.
		that	Jan an ice.cream	buy	probably	prt	had wanted

b.	?	dat	Jan hard	gillenN	waarschijnlijk	wel	zou	willen.
		that	Jan loudly	scream	probably	prt	would	want
		'that Jan would probably like to scream loudly.'

b'.	?	dat	Jan hard	schreeuwenN	waarschijnlijk	wel	had gewild.
		that	Jan loudly	scream	probably	prt	had wanted

The two negation tests again suggest that modal verbs do not easily take bare-inf nominalizations as their complement; the fact that the bare infinitive zingen cannot be preceded by the negative article geen'no' in (623b) suggests that it must be interpreted as verbal.

Example 623

a.	dat	Jan niet	wil	zingen.
	that	Jan not	wants	sing
	'that Jan doesnʼt want to sing.'

b.	dat	Jan niet/*geen	zingen	wil.
	that	Jan not/no	sing	wants
	'that Jan doesnʼt want to sing.'

The examples above have shown that modal infinitives normally do not take bare-inf nominalizations as their complement. Possible exceptions are cases such as (622), in which the bare infinitive is not adjacent to the verb sequence in clause-final position as the result of focus movement. The same thing may in fact hold for cases in which the infinitive is topicalized, as is can be inferred from the fact that the IPP-effect does not apply in the perfect-tense constructions in the primed examples of (624). We will return to this issue in Section 11.3.3, sub VIC.

Example 624

a.		Een ijsje kopen	zou	Jan wel	willen.
		an ice.cream buy	would	Jan prt	want

a'.		Een ijsje kopen	had	Jan wel	gewild/*willen.
		an ice.cream buy	had	Jan prt	wanted/want

b.		Hard gillen	zou	Jan	wel	willen.
		loudly scream	would	Jan	prt	want

b'.		Hard gillen	has	Jan	wel	gewild/*willen.
		loudly scream	had	Jan	prt	wanted/want

[+] III. Types of modality

Palmer (2001) provides a semantic classification of modality based on cross-linguistic research. Following his classification, we can divide the Dutch modal verbs taking a bare infinitival complement as in (625). As Palmer also noted for modality markers in other languages, Dutch modal verbs are often ambiguous: the verbs moeten'must/be obliged', kunnen'may/be able' and zullen'will/shall', for example, can be used to express propositional or event modality. Observe that the modal verbs given in (625) are just the ones that are prototypically associated with the type of modality in question; they may, however, also have less prototypical uses, which we will discuss as we go along.

Example 625

a.		Epistemic propositional modality:
		a. Deductive: moeten'must'
		b. Speculative: kunnen'may'
		c. Assumptive: zullen'will'

a'.		Evidential propositional modality:
		a. reported: —
		b. Sensory: —

b.		Deontic event modality:
		a. Permissive: mogen'may/be allowed'
		b. Obligative: moeten'must/be obliged'
		c. Commisive: zullen'shall'

b'.		Dynamic event modality:
		a. Ability: kunnen'can/be able'
		b. Volitive: willen'will/want'

The schema in (625) shows that modal verbs taking a bare infinitival clause cannot be used to express evidential modality. The discussion of the different types of modality below will show that this does not necessarily mean that there are no specialized verbs that can have such a function, but only that they do not belong to (or are normally not considered part of) the set of verbs under discussion here; we return to this in Subsection A2.
The examples in (626) and (627) below illustrate the basic distinction between propositional and event modality. In (626a), the modal verbs express propositional modality in the sense that they provide the speaker's evaluation of the factual status of the proposition be at home(Marie). This is clear from the fact that examples like these are frequently paraphrased in the linguistic literature as in (626b), where the modal predicate V mod wel zo zijn'V be the case' in the main clause is clearly predicated of the embedded finite clause that functions as the logical subject of the main clause (via the anticipatory subject pronoun het'it', which is indicated by subscripts).

Example 626

a.	Marie moet/kan/zal	nu	wel	thuis	zijn.	propositional modality
	Marie must/may/will	now	prt	at.home	be
	'Marie must/may/will be at home now.'

b.	Heti	moet/kan/zal	wel	zo	zijn	[dat	Marie nu	thuis	is]i.
	it	must/may/will	prt	the.case	be	that	Marie now	at.home	is
	'It must/may/will be the case that Marie is at home now.'

In (627a), the modal verbs express event modality. The speaker is not so much interested in the factual status of the proposition read (Marie, the book), which is typically not (yet) actualized at speech time, but in the moving force that is involved in the potential realization of the eventuality. This is clear from the fact that examples like these are generally paraphrased as in (627b), in which the predicate in the main clause is not predicated of the embedded finite clause but of the agent of the proposition expressed by the embedded clause (which is indicated by coindexing of the subject of the main clause and the implied PRO-subject of the embedded clause).

Example 627

a.	Marie moet/mag/zal	het boek	binnenkort	lezen.	event modality
	Marie must/may/will	the book	soon	read
	'Marie must/may/shall read the book soon.'

b.	Mariei	is verplicht/in staat	[om PROi	het boek	binnenkort	te lezen].
	Marie	is obliged/in able	comp	the book	soon	to read
	'Marie is obliged/able to read the book soon.'

Further subdivisions of these two main types of modality will be discussed in the following subsections, Subsection A on propositional modality is relatively brief because the semantics of epistemic modality is also extensively discussed in Section 1.5.2 and evidential modality is normally (tacitly and perhaps wrongly) assumed not to be expressed by modal verbs in Dutch, Subsection B on event modality shows that Palmer's distinction between dynamic and deontic modality is not adequate enough, and that deontic modality in fact refers to two different types of modality with different semantic and syntactic properties. This will lead to a revision of the classification in (625) as in (628), Subsection C concludes by providing a binary feature analysis of these four types of modality.

Example 628

Epistemic (propositional modality type I)

Directed deontic (event modality type Ia)

Non-directed deontic (event modality type Ib)

Dynamic (event modality type II)

[+] A. Propositional modality

Propositional modality is related to the speaker's evaluation of the factual status of the proposition expressed by the projection of the main verb embedded under the modal verb. According to Palmer (2001), judgments may be of two different kinds: there are epistemic and evidential judgments, which are concerned with, respectively, the truth value of the proposition and the evidence that is available for the truth of the proposition.

[+] 1. Epistemic modality

If modal verbs are used to express epistemic judgments, they indicate the likelihood of the actual occurrence of a specific eventuality. Although we will not address this issue here, the notion of actual occurrence should be understood as "actual occurrence within the present/past-tense interval"; see Section 1.5.2 for detailed discussion. This subsection focuses on the fact that Palmer distinguishes three types of epistemic judgments, which he refers to as speculative, deductive and assumptive, and which are prototypically expressed in Dutch by, respectively, kunnen'may', moeten'must' and zullen'will'.

Example 629

a.		Marie kan	nu	thuis	zijn.	speculative
		Marie may	now	at.home	be

b.		Marie moet	nu	thuis	zijn.	deductive
		Marie must	now	at.home	be

c.		Marie zal	nu	thuis	zijn.	assumptive
		Marie will	now	at.home	be

By uttering sentences such as (629a-c), the speaker provides three different epistemic judgments about (his commitment to the truth of) the proposition be at home (Marie), as expressed by the lexical projection of the embedded main verb embedded under the modal verb. The use of kunnen'may' in (629a) presents the proposition as a possible conclusion: the speaker is uncertain whether the proposition is true, but on the basis of the information available to him he is not able to exclude it. The use of moeten'must' in (629b) presents the proposition as the only possible conclusion: on the basis of the information available the speaker concludes that the proposition is true. The use of zullen'will' in (629c) presents the proposition as a reasonable conclusion on the basis of the available evidence. The type of evidence on which the speakers evaluation is based is not important; it may consist of any information available to the speaker, including experience and generally accepted knowledge as in Het is vier uur; Marie kan/moet/zal nu thuis zijn'It is four o'clock; Marie may/must/will be at home now'.
It is not immediately clear whether the three subtypes of epistemic modality in (629) are exhaustive. The slightly different constructions with mogen and willen in (630), for example, may be instantiations of epistemic modality but also have some additional meaning aspects (which may partly be attributed to the particles dan and nog wel eens). For example, the clause with the verb mogen in the first conjunct of (630a) is assumptive in that it indicates that the speaker accepts that the proposition Jan is smart is true, but the central meaning aspect of the sentence as a whole is concessive and somewhat depreciatory in nature; the second conjunct asserts the main message that Jan is not very clever with his hand; see also Haeseryn et al.(1997:1618). Similarly, the construction with the verb willen in (630b) seems speculative in nature but the main message of the construction as a whole is that the lamp has the tendency to topple over.

Example 630

a.	Jan mag	dan	erg slim	zijn,	maar	hij	is	niet	handig.
	Jan may	prt	very smart	be	but	he	is	not	deft
	'Jan may well be very smart, but he isnʼt clever with his hands.'

b.	Die lamp	wil	nog	wel	eens	omvallen.
	that lamp	wants	prt	prt	occasionally	prt.-fall
	'That lamp has the tendency to topple over.'

Let us return to the judgments concerning the truth of the proposition be at home (Marie). It is clear from the paraphrases of (629) in (631) that the truth value of the embedded proposition is being evaluated epistemically: in the paraphrases the epistemic judgment and the proposition are expressed by different clauses; the latter is now expressed as a finite embedded clause that functions as the logical subject of the epistemic predicate in the main clause.

Example 631

a.	Heti	kan	zo	zijn	[dat	Marie nu	thuis	is]i.
	it	may	the.case	be	that	Marie now	at.home	is
	'It may be the case that Marie is at home now.'

b.	Heti	moet	zo	zijn	[dat	Marie nu	thuis	is]i.
	it	must	the.case	be	that	Marie now	at.home	is
	'It must be the case that Marie is at home now.'

c.	Heti	zal	zo	zijn	[dat	Marie nu	thuis	is]i.
	it	will	the.case	be	that	Marie now	at.home	is
	'It will be the case that Marie is at home now.'

That we are dealing with special cases of epistemic modality in (630) might be supported by the fact that these examples can be given similar paraphrases as the examples in (629), as is shown by the examples in (632).

Example 632

Heti

mag

dan

zijn

[dat

Jan erg slim

is]i,

maar

hij

niet

handig.

may

prt

the.case

that

Jan very smart

but

not

deft

'It may well be that Jan is very smart, but he isnʼt clever with his hands.'

b.	Heti	wil	nog	wel eens	zo	zijn	[dat	die lamp	omvalt]i.
	it	wants	prt	prtoccasionally	the.case	be	that	that lamp	prt.-fall
	'That lamp has the tendency to topple over.'

Note in passing that we have used the predicate V mod wel zo zijn'V well be the case' in (631) and (632), but that the modal verb kunnen'may' can also function autonomously as the epistemic predicate: cf. Het kan dat Marie nu thuis is'It may be that Marie is at home now'. This autonomous use seems less common with moeten, mogen and willen, and virtually impossible with zullen.
That epistemic modal verbs are predicated of a propositional complement is also clear from the (b)-examples in (633); the modal verbs are predicated of the demonstrative pronoun dat'that', which is interpreted as referring to the proposition expressed by Marie is nu thuis'Marie is at home now'.

Example 633

a.	Wat	denk	je:	is Marie nu	thuis?
	what	think	you	is Marie now	at.home
	'What do you think: Is Marie at home at this moment?'

b.	Ja,	dat	kan/moet	wel.
	yes,	that	may/must	prt
	'Yes, that may/must be so.'

b'.	Ja,	dat	zal	wel.
	yes,	that	will	prt
	'Yes, that will be so.'

The (b)-examples in (633) also unambiguously show that epistemic modal verbs are monadic; they take just a single propositional argument. This implies that the nominative subject Marie in (629) cannot be selected by the modal verb. This, in turn, implies that this noun phrase is licensed by the main verb embedded under the modal verb and that it is subsequently promoted to the subject position of the entire clause. This so-called subject raising analysis is schematically given in (634) for the verb moeten; we will see in Subsection B that epistemic modal verbs crucially differ in this respect from modal verbs expressing dynamic and directed (but not non-directed) deontic modality.

Example 634

——

moet [VP Marie

nu wel thuis zijn]

Mariei

moet [VPti

nu wel thuis zijn].

That the nominative subject of the clause is selected by the embedded main verb is also supported by the fact that the subject of the clause can be part of an idiomatic construction such as (635a). If the subject was selected by the modal verb, the availability of this idiomatic reading would be quite surprising because an idiom is stored as a unit in the lexicon.

Example 635

a.	De beer	is los.
	the boar	is loose
	'The fatʼs in the fire.'

b.	De beer	moet/kan/zal	nu	wel	los	zijn.
	the boar	must/may/will	now	prt	loose	be
	'The fat must/may/will be in the fire by now.'

[+] 2. Evidential (reported and sensory) modality

Evidentiality does not pertain to the truth of the proposition, but to the evidence that supports it. Palmer (2001; Section 2.2) distinguishes two types of evidence. The first type involves reported evidence, and includes evidence based on second and third-hand reports, hearsay, etc. Dutch does not seem to have special modal verbs to express this type of evidential modality with, perhaps, one exception: the past-tense form of zullen'will' can be used to express that the speaker does not commit himself to the proposition but bases himself on some source of the information, which generally remains unidentified but which can, in principle, be made explicit by means of an adverbial volgens-PP.

Example 636

a.	Hij	zou	steenrijk	zijn.
	he	would	immensely.rich	be
	'Heʼs said to be immensely rich.'

b.	Hij	zou	volgens Peter/welingelichte kringen	steenrijk	zijn.
	he	would	according.to Peter/informed circles	immensely.rich	be
	'According to Peter/informed circles, heʼs immensely rich.'

Note in passing that the options in Dutch are more limited than in German, which can use the present as well as the past tense of the verb sollen and also of the verb wollen'will' to express evidential modality of this type; see Palmer (2001; Section 2.2.2) and Erb (2001:82) for discussion and examples. It should also be stated that the fact that Dutch does not have specialized modal verbs to express evidentiality of this kind does not mean that it has no means to express it: verbs of communication like zeggen'to say' are, of course, capable of performing this function.
Palmer refers to the second type of evidential modality as sensory, and this pertains to evidence obtained by means of the senses. It may be claimed that this type of modality is expressed in Dutch by means of the perception verbs when they take a bare infinitival clause. Example (637a), for instance, expresses that the speaker has direct, auditory, evidence that the proposition Jan vertrok'Jan has left' is true. In this respect (637a) crucially differs from (637b), which indicates that the speaker does not have any direct evidence to support the truth of the proposition Jan vertrok'Jan has left'; he may have heard something from which he concludes that the proposition is true, or he may have been told so by some other person.

Example 637

a.		Ik	hoorde	[Jan vertrekken].
		I	heard	Jan leave

b.		Ik	hoorde	[dat	Jan vertrok].
		I	heard	that	Jan left

There are several facts supporting the idea that perception verbs may function as markers of evidential/sensory modality. First, perception verbs are like the unequivocal modals moeten, kunnen and zullen in that they take bare infinitivals as their complement, albeit that these infinitival complements may contain an (optional) overt subject. Secondly, it seems that the verbs zien'to see' and horen'to hear' are the ones that most frequently occur with a bare infinitival, which is in line with the fact that, cross-linguistically, sensory evidential modality is also most frequently expressed by markers pertaining to visual and auditory stimuli. Thirdly, it may account for the acceptability of examples like (638b&c) with the verb vinden'to consider': like constructions with perception verbs, the vinden-construction takes a bare infinitival complement typically referring to an eventuality that eventuality that can be perceived by means of the senses, while expressing further that the truth assignment to the proposition denoted by the bare infinitival clause is based on the (subjective) sensory perception of the subject of the clause.

Example 638

a.	Ik	vind	[Els goed	dansen en zingen],	(maar	hij niet).	vision/hearing
	I	consider	Els well	dance and sing	but	he not
	'I think that Els is dancing and singing well (but he doesnʼt).'

b.	Els vindt	[die soep	lekker	ruiken/smaken]	(maar ik niet).	smell/taste
	Els considers	that soup	nicely	smell/taste	but I not
	'Els thinks that the soup smells/tastes nice (but I donʼt).'

c.	Ik	vind	[die trui	naar	prikken]	(maar hij niet).	touch
	I	consider	that sweater	unpleasantly	prickle	but he not
	'I think that this sweater is unpleasantly prickly (but he doesnʼt).'

By assuming that Dutch has a set of modal verbs expressing sensory evidentiality, we avoid the need of postulating a separate class of verbs consisting of the verb vinden'to consider' only which has properties virtually identical to those of the class of perception verbs (one noticeable difference being that the subject of the bare infinitival complement clause of vinden cannot be omitted). However, given that the perception verbs are normally not treated as a subtype of modal verbs, we will not pursue this option here, but discuss them in their own right in Section 5.2.3.3.
Finally, it is to be noted that Dutch verbs like blijken'to turn out', lijken'to appear', and schijnen'to seem' in (639) are evidential in the sense that they can be used to indicate whether there is direct evidence in favor of the truth of the proposition, whether there are identifiable individuals that can be held responsible for the truth of the proposition, or whether we are dealing with hearsay/rumors; see Vliegen (2011). Since blijken, lijken and schijnen do not select bare infinitival complements they are not discussed here but in Section 5.2.2.2.

Example 639

a.	Uit deze feiten	blijkt	[dat	Jan de dader	is].	direct evidence
	from these facts	turns.out	that	Jan the perpetrator	is
	'These facts clearly show that Jan is the perpetrator.'

b.	Het	lijkt	mij/haar	[dat	Jan de dader	is].	identifiable source
	it	appears	me/her	that	Jan the perpetrator	is
	'It appears to the me/her that Jan is the perpetrator.'

c.	Het	schijnt	[dat	Jan de dader	is].	hearsay/rumors
	it	seems	that	Jan the perpetrator	is
	'It seems that Jan is the perpetrator.'

[+] B. Event modality

Event modality is concerned with the moving force involved in the (potential) realization of the eventuality denoted by the lexical projection of the main verb embedded under the modal verb. The moving force may be internal to the person referred to by the subject of the full construction (ability or volition): Palmer refers to this type as dynamic modality, but a more telling name might be dispositional modality. The moving force may also be external to the person referred to by the subject of the full construction (obligation or permission), in which case we are dealing with deontic modality. In both these cases the moving force is directed towards the subject of the sentence. Klooster (1986) and Barbiers (1995) have shown, however, that there is a second type of deontic modality in which the moving force is not directed towards the subject at all; in order to distinguish these two types of deontic modality we will make a distinction between directed and non-directed deontic modality, where (non-)directed should be interpreted as "(not) directed towards the subject of the sentence". We thus distinguish the three types of event modality illustrated in (640), which will be discussed in some more detail in the following subsections.

Example 640

a.	Jan wil	Marie bezoeken.	dynamic/dispositional modality
	Jan wants	Marie visit
	'Jan wants to visit Marie.'

b.	Jan moet	van zijn vader	het hek	verven.	directed deontic
	Jan has.to	of his father	the gate	pain
	'Jan has to paint the gate; his father asked him to do so.'

c.	Jan moet	meer	hulp	krijgen.	non-directed deontic
	Jan has.to	more	help	get
	'Jan has to receive more help.'

[+] 1. Dynamic/dispositional modality

Dynamic/dispositional modality describes some moving force internal to the nominative subject of the construction as a whole that favors the realization of the potential event denoted by the main verb embedded under the modal verb. Two verbs that are prototypically used in this modal function are kunnen'to be able' and willen'to want', which express ability and volition, respectively.

Example 641

a.	Jan kan	dat boek	lezen.	ability
	Jan is.able	that book	read
	'Jan can read that book'

b.	Jan wil	dat boek	lezen.	volition
	Jan wants	that book	read
	'Jan wants to read that book.'

That the modal verbs in (641) function as main verbs is quite clear, as we have seen earlier, from the fact illustrated in (642) that the bare infinitival clause can be pronominalized. These examples also show that the subject of the sentence is not part of the infinitival clause, which shows that dynamic/dispositional verbs differ from epistemic modal verbs in that they are not monadic but dyadic predicates.

Example 642

a.	Jan kan	dat.
	Jan is.able	that
	'Jan can do that.'

b.	Jan wil	dat.
	Jan wants	that
	'Jan wants to do that.'

In order to account for the fact that the nominative subject of the construction as a whole is also construed as the subject of the infinitival clause, Klooster (1986) proposed a control analysis of constructions of this type: the external argument of the modal verb functions as the controller of the implied subject PRO of the embedded infinitival clause. This is schematically represented in (643), in which coindexing indicates coreference.

Example 643

a.		Jani	kan [PROi	dat boek	lezen].
		Jan	is.able	that book	read

b.		Jani	wil [PROi	dat boek	lezen].
		Jan	wants	that book	read