Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Why are English modals this way now?

 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room Post Reply
9 messages over 2 pages: 1
tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4692 days ago

5310 posts - 9399 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish

 
 Message 9 of 9
02 January 2014 at 12:48am | IP Logged 
Papashaw1 wrote:
Or the relative lack of complexity? All those things I listed above
can't be done in English but can be done in other
Germanic languages. Dutch also lost their equivalent of tharf, I think English has
expanded the number of pseudo
modals (supposed to, about to, have to, be able to, want to, had better/best/rather) when
compared to other
Germanic languages.


Tharf survived as "durven" in Dutch, but it underwent semantic drift and now means "to
dare". For to be able to Dutch uses "kunnen" and for be allowed to we use "mogen"
(cognate to English "may").


2 persons have voted this message useful



This discussion contains 9 messages over 2 pages: << Prev 1

If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.0938 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.