Although I do not intend to deal specifically with the so-called "quasi-modals", I will briefly mention them here. Quasi-modals are said to have arisen to suppletively fill the gaps in the nonfinite paradigms of the modals/pre-modals, and also to have allowed for unambiguous expression of deontic senses after the pre-modals began to be used epistemically. Have to, be going to, and be able to are among the earliest attestations; deontic be to was also apparently a common construction in OE impersonals (Nagle, p.98).
Numerous other quasi-modal constructions with have and be were common throughout ME, including had better, had rather, have got to, etc. (see Plank, p.338-339 for discussion).
There is much debate about the specific origins of periphrastic constructions with
do, but that is a different thesis entirely. Do was not used periphrastically until the thirteenth century, when it was found mainly in verse. In the following centuries, it gained
popularity in prose as well, and there was a period of "robust" empty do usage in the
fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. During this time, it was used as a tense carrier,
sometimes even with a modal (118, 119, from Lightfoot 1991, p.151). After this time it
became essentially restricted to its present contexts.
Before 1500, periphrastic do is recorded with some nonfinite parts (see Visser �1414 for examples). From early on, it could occur with impersonal verbs or with a pleonastic subject. It is interesting to note that one of the many types of do, "vicarious do", which was used to substitute for V or VP material, only very rarely substituted for any pre-modal.
The increased periphrastic use of do contributed to the general rise in the frequency of periphrastic constructions in the sixteenth century. The ailing inflectional system has been blamed for this. Roberts (1985, p.41) mentions, for example, that in ME the subjunctive in each of its major uses (conditional clauses, purpose clauses, etc.) could be replaced by a periphrastic modal expression.
Most of these phenomena will be discussed further in Chapter 3, as they pertain to the specific theories.
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