Null Modals in Germanic (and Romance)

Abstract. This paper contains a detailed description and proposes a theoretical account of constructions in Germanic and Romance adult registers in which an inflected verb form is absent in an obligatorily matrix context. These structures contain an infinitival verb form only, tend to be employed as exclamative clause types and are consequently referred to as "Infinitival Excla ma lives". The proposal revolves around a phonetically unrealized modal element facilitating the irrealis mood construed with Infinitival Exclamatives. This null modal is the morpheme corresponding to modal auxiliaries for whose quasi-independence there is plenty of independent evidence. Cross-linguistic differences between English, German and Spanish are investigated.