De ĐURFAN à NEED : histoire d’une disparition

In Old and Middle English, ĐURFAN is part of the preterite-present verb class. These verbs are considered the ancestors of the Contemporary English modal verbs. ĐURFAN expresses need and necessity. We could then claim that it is the perfect candidate to express modality and be part of the class of m...

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Main Author: Céline Roméro
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Presses Universitaires du Midi 2007-12-01
Series:Anglophonia
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/acs/12256
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author Céline Roméro
author_facet Céline Roméro
author_sort Céline Roméro
collection DOAJ
description In Old and Middle English, ĐURFAN is part of the preterite-present verb class. These verbs are considered the ancestors of the Contemporary English modal verbs. ĐURFAN expresses need and necessity. We could then claim that it is the perfect candidate to express modality and be part of the class of modal verbs. Yet, it is not this morphological form that we find today. It is NEED we are now dealing with as a modal verb. This latter form is very close to the forms of NIEDAN / NEODIAN and NEDEN we find in Old and Middle English. This paper aims to show why ĐURFAN disappeared in Contemporary English and why NEED emerged, whereas those two forms coexisted in Old and Middle English. Our hypothesis is that ĐURFAN / ĐURFEN indeed disappeared but that the verb NEED (which replaced them) has the same syntactic and semantic characteristics as ĐURFAN, as well as the lexical characteristics it already possessed in Old and Middle English.
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spelling doaj-art-702ed982637a420d999622679953ad4a2025-01-30T12:33:21ZengPresses Universitaires du MidiAnglophonia1278-33312427-04662007-12-011117920410.4000/anglophonia.825De ĐURFAN à NEED : histoire d’une disparitionCéline RoméroIn Old and Middle English, ĐURFAN is part of the preterite-present verb class. These verbs are considered the ancestors of the Contemporary English modal verbs. ĐURFAN expresses need and necessity. We could then claim that it is the perfect candidate to express modality and be part of the class of modal verbs. Yet, it is not this morphological form that we find today. It is NEED we are now dealing with as a modal verb. This latter form is very close to the forms of NIEDAN / NEODIAN and NEDEN we find in Old and Middle English. This paper aims to show why ĐURFAN disappeared in Contemporary English and why NEED emerged, whereas those two forms coexisted in Old and Middle English. Our hypothesis is that ĐURFAN / ĐURFEN indeed disappeared but that the verb NEED (which replaced them) has the same syntactic and semantic characteristics as ĐURFAN, as well as the lexical characteristics it already possessed in Old and Middle English.https://journals.openedition.org/acs/12256modalitymodal verbssyntaxNEEDnecessityOld English
spellingShingle Céline Roméro
De ĐURFAN à NEED : histoire d’une disparition
Anglophonia
modality
modal verbs
syntax
NEED
necessity
Old English
title De ĐURFAN à NEED : histoire d’une disparition
title_full De ĐURFAN à NEED : histoire d’une disparition
title_fullStr De ĐURFAN à NEED : histoire d’une disparition
title_full_unstemmed De ĐURFAN à NEED : histoire d’une disparition
title_short De ĐURFAN à NEED : histoire d’une disparition
title_sort de durfan a need histoire d une disparition
topic modality
modal verbs
syntax
NEED
necessity
Old English
url https://journals.openedition.org/acs/12256
work_keys_str_mv AT celineromero deđurfananeedhistoiredunedisparition