Cover not available
Part of
Evidentiality Revisited: Cognitive grammar, functional and discourse-pragmatic perspectives
Edited by Juana I. Marín-Arrese, Gerda Haßler and Marta Carretero
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 271] 2017
► pp. 149–169

Chapter 6
A synchronic and diachronic study of the Dutch Auxiliary “Zou(den)”

| University of Münster/University of Antwerp
This contribution presents the results of a corpus based investigation of the Dutch auxiliary zou(den). The synchronic and diachronic study demonstrates that the auxiliary can express nine meanings since the oldest language stages, and that its meaning has specialized to hypotheticality. Furthermore, the paper focuses on the evidential function and discusses some grammatical and contextual features that support an evidential interpretation. It is highly probable that linguistic features such as a source reference and the grammatical construction have contributed to the evolution of an evidential meaning.
Keywords: modal auxiliaries, evidentiality, semantic change, Dutch
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Modal auxiliaries and the framework
  • 3.Methodology
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1The meaning categories
    • 4.2The semantic development of zou(den)
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1 Zou(den) as an evidential marker
    • 5.2The presence of source references
    • 5.3Grammatical and semantic features of evidential zou(den)
    • 5.4The evolution of the evidential meaning
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 21 March 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.271.07har
References (44)
References
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2004. Evidentiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Broekhuis, Hans, and Norbert Corver. 2015. Syntax of Dutch. Verb and Verb Phrases. Volume II. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Byloo, Pieter, and Jan Nuyts. 2014. “Meaning Change in the Dutch Core Modals: (Inter)subjectification in a Grammatical Paradigm.” Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 46: 85–116. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colleman, Timothy, and Dirk Noël. 2012. “The Dutch Evidential NCI. A Case of Constructional Attrition.” Journal of Historical Pragmatics 13 (1): 1–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1985. Tense. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Haan, Ferdinand. 2000. “Evidentiality in Dutch.” Proceedings of the 25th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 74–85.Google Scholar
Ebeling, Carl L. 1962. “A Semantic Analysis of the Dutch Tenses.” Lingua 11: 86–99. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Engels, Gerard. 1895. Over het gebruik van den conjunctief en de casus bij Maerlant, een bijdrage tot de Middelnederlandsche Syntaxis. Groningen: Scholtens & Zoon.Google Scholar
Grondelaers, Stefan, Katrien Deygers, Hilde Van Aken, Vicky Van Den Heede, and Dirk Speelman. 2000. “Het CONDIV-corpus geschreven Nederlands.” Nederlandse Taalkunde 5: 356–363.Google Scholar
Haeseryn, Walter, Kirsten Romijn, Guido Geerts, Jaap de Rooij, and Maarten C. van den Toorn. 1997. Algemene Nederlandse Spraakkunst. Second, completely revised edition. Groningen/Deurne: Martinus Nijhoff uitgevers/Wolters Plantyn.Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A.K., and Christian M. Matthiessen. 2014. Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar. Fourth edition. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Harmes, Ingeborg. 2014. “Wat zou het? Een synchrone en diachrone analyse van zou(den).” In Patroon en argument. Een dubbelfeestbundel bij het emeritaat van William Van Belle en Joop van der Horst, ed. by Freek Van de Velde, Hans Smessaert, Frank Van Eynde, and Sara Verbrugge, 365–378. Leuven: Universitaire Pers Leuven.Google Scholar
Hengeveld, Kees. 1989. “Layers and operators in Functional Grammar.” Journal of Linguistics 25 (1): 127–157. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hengeveld, Kees, and John Lachlan Mackenzie. 2008. Functional Discourse Grammar. A Typologically-Based Theory of Language Structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Janssen, Theo A.M. 1989. “Die Hilfsverben ndl. zullen und dt. werden: modal oder temporal?” In Tempus – Aspekt – Modus: die lexikalischen und grammatischen Formen in den germanischen Sprachen, ed. by Werner Abraham, and Theo Janssen, 65–82. Tübingen: Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kirsner, Robert S. 1969. “The Role of “Zullen” in the Grammar of Modern Standard Dutch.” Lingua 24 (2): 101–154.Google Scholar
Marín-Arrese, Juana I. (this volume). “Multifunctionality of evidential expressions in discourse: Evidence from cross-linguistic case studies.”
Mortelmans, Tanja. 2009. “Erscheinungsformen der indirekten Rede im Niederländischen und Deutschen: zou-, soll(te)- und der Konjunktiv I.” In Modalität: Epistemik und Evidentialität bei Modalverb, Adverb, Modalpartikel und Modus, ed. by Werner, Abraham, and Elisabeth Leiss, 171–187. Studien zur deutschen Grammatik, 77. Tübingen: Stauffenburg-Verlag.Google Scholar
. (this volume). “Seem-type Verbs in Dutch and German: lijken, schijnen & scheinen.”
Mortelmans, Tanja, and Jeroen Vanderbiesen. 2011. “Dies will ein Parlamentarier ‘aus zuverlässiger Quelle’ erfahren haben. Reportives wollen zwischen sollen und dem Konjunktiv I der indirekten Rede.”. In Modalität und Evidentialität – Modality and evidentiality, ed. by Gabriele Diewald, and Elena Smirnova, 69–88. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag.Google Scholar
Nederlandse Taalunie. 2004. Corpus Gesproken Nederlands, Version 2.0. Leiden: TST-Centrale INL.Google Scholar
Nuyts, Jan. 2001. Epistemic Modality, Language, and Conceptualization. A Cognitive-pragmatic Perspective. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004. Over de (beperkte) combineerbaarheid van deontische, epistemische en evidentiële uitdrukkingen in het Nederlands. Wilrijk: Antwerp Papers in Linguistics 108.Google Scholar
2005. “The Modal Confusion: On Terminology and the Concepts behind it.” In Modality: Studies in Form and Function, ed. by Alex Klinge, and Henrik H. Müller, 5–38. London: Equinox.Google Scholar
2007. “Kunnen diachroon.” Taal en Tongval 59: 118–148.Google Scholar
2008. “Qualificational Meanings, Illocutionary Signals, and the Cognitive Planning of Language Use.” Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 6: 185–207. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013. “De-auxiliarization without De-modalization in the Dutch Core Modals: A Case of Collective Degrammaticalization?” Language Sciences 36: 124–133. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(this volume). “Evidentiality reconsidered.”
Nuyts, Jan, and Pieter Byloo. 2015. “Competing Modals: Beyond (inter)Subjectification.” Diachronica 32 (1): 34–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nuyts, Jan, Pieter Byloo, and Janneke Diepeveen. 2010. “On Deontic Modality, Directivity, and Mood: The Case of Dutch mogen and moeten .” Journal of Pragmatics 42: 16–34. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Oxford English Dictionary (OED). 1989. 2. Ed. Complete text reproduced micrographically. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991.Google Scholar
Roels, Linde, Tanja Mortelmans, and Johan van der Auwera. 2007. “Dutch Equivalents of the German Past Conjunctive: Zou + Infinitive and the Modal Preterit.” In Tense, Mood and Aspect: Theoretical and Descriptive Issues, ed. by Louis de Saussure, Jacques Moeschler, and Genoveva Puskas, 177–196. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Smirnova, Elena, and Gabriele Diewald. 2013. “Kategorien der Redewiedergabe im Deutschen: Konjunktiv I versus sollen.” Zeitschrift für Germanistische Linguistik 41 (3): 443–471. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stoett, Frederik A. 1889/1977. Middelnederlandsche spraakkunst. Syntaxis. Third, revised edition. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1989. “On the Rise of Epistemic Meanings in English: an Example of Subjectification in Semantic Change.” Language 65: 31–55. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1992. “Syntax.” In The Cambridge History of the English Language. Volume 1. The Beginnings to 1066, ed. by Hogg, Richard M., 168–289. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs, and Richard B. Dasher. 2001. Regularity in Semantic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vanderbiesen, Jeroen. 2015. “The Grounding Functions of German Reportives and Quotatives.” Studies van de BKL = Travaux du CBL = Papers of the LSB 9: 16–39.Google Scholar
Verkuyl, Henk J., and Hans Broekhuis. 2013. “Temporaliteit en Modaliteit.” Nederlandse Taalkunde 18 (3): 306–323. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Verstraete, Jean-Christophe, 2001. “Subjective and objective modality: Interpersonal and ideational functions in the English modal auxiliary system.” Journal of Pragmatics 33, 1505–1528. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek (VMNW). 1999. Leiden: INL. URL: [URL]/
Warner, Anthony. 1993. English Auxiliaries: Structure and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wiemer, Björn. 2010. “Hearsay in European Languages: Towards an Integrative Account of Grammatical and Lexical Marking.” In Linguistic Realization of Evidentiality in European Languages, ed. by Gabriele Diewald, and Elena Smirnova, 59–130. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal (WNT). 2007. Leiden: INL. URL: [URL]/
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Mortelmans, Tanja
2024. Frequency differences in reportative exceptionality and how to account for them. Studies in Language 48:3 ► pp. 682 ff. DOI logo
Nuyts, Jan
2024. On the link between grammaticalization and subjectification. Studies in Language 48:3 ► pp. 608 ff. DOI logo
Coussé, Evie & Gerlof Bouma
2022. Semantic scope restrictions in complex verb constructions in Dutch. Linguistics 60:1 ► pp. 123 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.