Caers, Wim

Nuyts, Jan

Abstract: Modal auxiliaries in Present Day Dutch are going through a process of \u2018re-autonomization\u2019, i.e. they are increasingly used without a main verb elsewhere in the clause, in ways which are not possible in other Germanic languages. Many Germanic languages do allow omission of the main verb when a modal is combined with a directional phrase in the clause. This paper investigates whether the latter phenomenon may have been the cause of the former process in Dutch. A diachronic corpus study of the Dutch modals shows that the answer is negative. The paper offers an alternative suggestion as to how the re-autonomization trend may have emerged

Directionals and re-autonomization in Dutch modals

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