On the grammaticalization of inferential evidential meaning: English "seem" and German "scheinen"

This paper provides an account of inferential evidential meaning in English and German, realized by seem and scheinen, respectively. The focus is on the grammaticalization of these verbs into semi-auxiliaries that take infinitive complements, a process localized mainly to the seventeenth and eightee...

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Main Author: Whitt, Richard J.
Format: Article
Published: University of California, Berkeley 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29336/
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author Whitt, Richard J.
author_facet Whitt, Richard J.
author_sort Whitt, Richard J.
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description This paper provides an account of inferential evidential meaning in English and German, realized by seem and scheinen, respectively. The focus is on the grammaticalization of these verbs into semi-auxiliaries that take infinitive complements, a process localized mainly to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by the current study. Uses involving complement clauses and parentheticals are also investigated. A number of diachronic corpora are consulted for data, thus painting a clearer picture of the timing of this grammaticalization scenario. Results are discussed briefly in a cross-linguistic perspective.
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spelling nottingham-293362020-05-04T20:12:07Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29336/ On the grammaticalization of inferential evidential meaning: English "seem" and German "scheinen" Whitt, Richard J. This paper provides an account of inferential evidential meaning in English and German, realized by seem and scheinen, respectively. The focus is on the grammaticalization of these verbs into semi-auxiliaries that take infinitive complements, a process localized mainly to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by the current study. Uses involving complement clauses and parentheticals are also investigated. A number of diachronic corpora are consulted for data, thus painting a clearer picture of the timing of this grammaticalization scenario. Results are discussed briefly in a cross-linguistic perspective. University of California, Berkeley 2015 Article PeerReviewed Whitt, Richard J. (2015) On the grammaticalization of inferential evidential meaning: English "seem" and German "scheinen". Interdisciplinary Journal for Germanic Linguistics and Semiotic Analysis, 20 (2). ISSN 1087-5557 (In Press) Evidentiality Grammaticalization English German
spellingShingle Evidentiality
Grammaticalization
English
German
Whitt, Richard J.
On the grammaticalization of inferential evidential meaning: English "seem" and German "scheinen"
title On the grammaticalization of inferential evidential meaning: English "seem" and German "scheinen"
title_full On the grammaticalization of inferential evidential meaning: English "seem" and German "scheinen"
title_fullStr On the grammaticalization of inferential evidential meaning: English "seem" and German "scheinen"
title_full_unstemmed On the grammaticalization of inferential evidential meaning: English "seem" and German "scheinen"
title_short On the grammaticalization of inferential evidential meaning: English "seem" and German "scheinen"
title_sort on the grammaticalization of inferential evidential meaning: english "seem" and german "scheinen"
topic Evidentiality
Grammaticalization
English
German
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29336/