The Semantic Predecessors of Need in the History of English (c750-1710) (Publications of the Philological Society). Dieser Artikel ist nicht verfügbar.The Semantic Predecessors of Need in the History of English (c750-1710) (Publications of the Philological Society)

In the history of English at least five verbs have been found to mean ‘need’: þurfan, beþurfan, need, behove and mister. By adopting a corpus-based approach, this book studies all of them diachronically, from the origins of the language (c.750) to the end of the early Modern English period (1710).

• Offers a detailed analysis of the meaning of these five verbs which have been found to mean ‘need’, filling a gap in the literature on modality and shedding new light on grammaticalization theory
• Spans the period c.750 to 1710, adopting a corpus-based approach to study the verbs diachronically
• Explores the evolution of necessity meanings in English, identifying regular semantic changes and challenging some well-established statements
• Provides a detailed grammaticalization analysis, paying attention to the different Present-Day-English modal classes, including marginal and emerging modals

Lucía Loureiro-Porto teaches grammar and linguistic variation within the Department of Spanish, Modern Languages and Latin at the Universitat de les Illes Balears (Balearic Islands, Spain). She has previously held teaching and research positions at Reed College, Portland, and at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. Her main research interests are the study of grammaticalization processes in the history of English, English historical syntax and semantics, and sociolinguistic variation from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective.