A world of possibilities. Modal pathways on the extra-long period: the diachrony of modality in the Latin language

There has been much lively discussion about the diachrony of modality since the 1980s (Ziegeler 2016). The investigation conducted on modal verbs in the Germanic languages, especially English, has shown beyond any doubt that languages with a good amount of available written history are fundamental in reconstructing the diachronic pathways of modality and support the panchronic approach adopted for less well-documented or less studied languages (e.g. Bybee - Perkins - Pagliuca 1994). Nevertheless, diachronic research needs to open to other lexical markers (cf. Van linden 2012 for English modal adjectives) as well as to other possible benchmarks of comparison by taking advantage of well-documented languages. The main aim of my project is to perform the first large-scope analysis of modalisation paths in Latin, a language whose documented history spans over many centuries and offers a wide-ranging variety of written sources. In contrast with mainstream research on lexical markers expressing modality, my project focuses not only on verbs (e.g. possum ‘have power, be able’) but also on adjectives (e.g. the adjectives in -bilis), nouns (e.g. necessitas ‘unavoidableness’) and adverbs (e.g. sentence adverbs such as quidem ‘undoubtedly’) offering a comprehensive approach to the Latin lexical modal system. Since the diachronic study of lexical modality is an emerging field of contemporary linguistic research, the absence of monograph-length studies on the evolution of the Latin lexical modal system and the inadequacy of most Latin dictionaries in tracing the polysemy of modal forms are by no way surprising. The only feasible way to reconstruct modal pathways and concurrence mechanisms among modal forms in the history of Latin is therefore to adopt a corpus-based approach. In order to gain a broad overview of the evolution of modality based on a thorough description of modal readings and uses at the synchronic level, a corpus of texts chosen according to sociolinguistic criteria is mandatory. The relevant passages will be analysed and then annotated using the XML-TEI language: dedicated annotation schemes will be developed. Teamwork will allow not only the collection of a valuable amount of data, but also the interaction of interdisciplinary competences. The ideal team is composed of a principal investigator with the function of coordinator, a doctoral student in Latin linguistics and an expert in Computational Linguistics at post-doctoral level. Our main tasks will be the analysis and annotation of the corpus as well as the dissemination and updating of data and results through an online database. This effort will make a huge amount of data on lexical modal markers and their uses manageable. We will glean first-hand material from this data for collaborative and/or personal research. The last year of the grant will focus on the preparation of a cutting-edge monograph, opening new perspectives for describing and explaining the diachronic paths of modality. The PhD candidate will present his/her thesis. The online database, working on annotation schemes elaborated to guarantee maximum interoperability, will permit discussion at international level with teams working on modality in other languages. It will be released as an open access resource by the end of the project. In the investigation of pre-modal and post-modal meanings, Indo-Europeanists and Romance linguists will be privileged interlocutors. The results will be also disseminated through a two-fold event: a convention and an exhibition. On the one hand, through the exhibition, linguists, literature specialists of various languages, philosophers and cognitive scientists will present the views of their discipline on modality and possible worlds in an interdisciplinary frame to a non-scientific public. On the other hand, the team will have the possibility to present and discuss its achievements to the scientific community through a conference. Once completed, this project will therefore offer a model for analysing the diachrony of modality in other languages.