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Modality, evidentiality and (inter)subjectivity

What attitudes and sources reveal about the Spanish modals tener que and haber de

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Abstract
This paper examines the epistemic-evidential meanings of the Spanish modals tener que ‘have to’ and haber de ‘must’ using data from the Corpus del Español. These verbs are regarded as near-synonyms, related to the notion of speaker commitment, and, when differentiating between them, previous studies frequently resort to register variation (e.g., RAE-ASALE. (2009): Nueva gramática de la lengua española. Madrid: Espasa Libros.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, Blas Arroyo, J. L. & Vellón, J. (2014): The refuge of a dying variant within the grammar: patterns of change and continuity in the Spanish verbal periphrasis haber de + infinitive over the past two centuries. Language Variation and Change, 27, 1, pp. 89–116. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). However, the results in the present study reveal that the dimension of (inter)subjectivity better accounts for the differences between the verbs: whereas haber de is used for intersubjective as well as subjective and non-subjective meanings, tener que is highly specialized for subjective uses. The semantic-pragmatic restriction of tener que makes it unidiomatic or pragmatically unsuitable as a substitute for haber de in many contexts. Hence, in this line of argumentation, haber de has found a true niche in epistemic-evidential contexts.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.The relation between evidentiality, epistemic modality and (inter)subjectivity
  • 2.Previous accounts of tener que and haber de
  • 3.Data and method
  • 4.Epistemic-evidential functions of tener que and haber de
    • 4.1Quantitative results
    • 4.2Contextual triggers for tener que and haber de
    • 4.3The distribution of haber de and tener que in terms of communicative damage and reliability
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowlwdgements
  • Notes
  • Author queries
  • References
References (49)
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