To dare to or not to

This article revisits the alleged unidirectionality of grammaticalization, focusing on the marginal modal dare, which previous research has discussed as a potential counterexample. Being in its origin a member of the inhomogeneous group of modal auxiliaries, dare has since Early Modern English times developed certain full verb characteristics that would assign it a place near the lexical end of the grammaticalization scale. This study provides detailed corpus data, yielding a complex picture that defies an easy localization of dare on the lexical – grammatical scale: different verb forms of dare have to be distinguished, which appear to occupy different stages of evolution or even tend to drift into opposite directions. The results furthermore point to cross-cutting influences on the marking of dependent infinitives (rhythm, grammatical complexity).