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Scope and the development of epistemic modality: evidence from ought to

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Rachel Nordlinger  and
Elizabeth Closs Traugott
Rachel Nordlinger
Affiliation:
Linguistics DepartmentStanford UniversityStanford, CA 94305–2150USArachel@csli.stanford.edutraugott@csli.stanford.edu
Elizabeth Closs Traugott
Affiliation:
Linguistics DepartmentStanford UniversityStanford, CA 94305–2150USArachel@csli.stanford.edutraugott@csli.stanford.edu
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Extract

Discussions of modality (e.g. Bybee, Perkins & Pagliuca, 1994; Coates, 1983; Lyons, 1977; Palmer, 1986; Traugott, 1989) typically center around two issues: deonticity vs. epistemicity, and degree of subjectivity. Using diachronic evidence from the quasi-modal ought to, this paper argues for the need to recognize a third, crosscutting these two: narrow vs. wide scope. We argue that the epistemic use of ought to developed out of a wide-scope deontic construction, in which the modal was used with deontic meaning, but with propositional scope (contra Bybee, 1988). Rather than attributing an obligation to the subject (i.e. having narrow scope), the modal in this construction makes an assertion about the proposition as a whole, like an epistemic. However, such ought to constructions are found some four hundred years before the first epistemic examples, and thus can be shown to be distinct from epistemic uses (contra Gamon, 1994).

Type
Articles
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , November 1997 , pp. 295 - 317
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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