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Article published In: Today’s Innovations, Tomorrow’s Conventions: Usage-based approaches to incipient developments in English
Edited by David Lorenz and David Tizón-Couto
[Functions of Language 32:1] 2025
► pp. 105–130

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Emerging inferentials in English?

A study of the evolving uses of the present perfect and have to

ORCiD logo with link | Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3
Published online: 4 March 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.23017.mel
Abstract
This paper investigates the evolution of the present perfect and have to in English to assess whether these forms may be considered emerging inferentials. Combining quantitative and qualitative analyses in diachrony and synchrony, it argues that the two forms may show incipient signs of the grammaticalization of inferential evidentiality. The present perfect is already fully grammaticalized in its morphology, and highly frequent. Inferential evidentiality is not part of its meaning, but a slightly rising implicature. The semi-auxiliary have to is less grammaticalized morphologically, but possesses a distinct function that is traditionally called ‘epistemic’, but is rather ‘logical inferential’. This function is still infrequent, but has been rising steadily in the past decades. Whether these changes will lead to a fully-developed evidential paradigm is unpredictable, but this study confirms that evidentiality is a necessary notion to describe English grammar and its evolution accurately.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.State of the art
    • 2.1A definition of inferential evidentiality
    • 2.2The grammaticalization of inferential evidentiality
    • 2.3The inferential uses of the English present perfect and have to
  • 3.Two case studies: The present perfect and have to as emerging inferentials?
    • 3.1Inferential evidentiality and the present perfect
      • 3.1.1A semantic analysis
      • 3.1.2Is the present perfect an emerging inferential?
    • 3.2Inferential evidentiality and the semi-auxiliary have to in English
      • 3.2.1A semantic analysis
      • 3.2.2Is have to an emerging inferential?
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
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