From certainty to doubt

This paper explains the evolution of the modal markervoirein French, following an argumentative and pragmatic approach. Until the 16th century,voirecan mark a confirmation in a dialogue. It can also appear inside a sentential structure. In both cases,voireis strongly assertive. This assertive value disappears in the course of the 17th century, and intra-sententialvoire1 will give way tovoire2, characteristic of Modern French.Voireis found nowadays inside a sentential structure, and it has a semantic value close to the Modern Frenchmêmeor Englisheven. But withvoire2, the degree of adhesion by the speaker to his utterance has diminished. The weakening of the primary assertive value has resulted in an entirely different marker.