Deontic necessity of mot

That the appearance of the meaning of deontic necessity in the case of mot is a cause of some bewilderment toward the end of Old English may be gathered from the following two examples:

(3.4.24) Eala, swær is seo byrðen, þe Godes bydel beran oh! heavy is that burden, that God’s messenger bear sceall,

shall

‘Oh! heavy is the burden that God’s messenger has to bear’

(COINSPOL 51) (3.4.25) Eala, eala, ... swær is seo byrðen þe Godes bydel

oh, oh, heavy is the burden that God’s messenger beran mot

bear must

‘Oh! heavy is the burden that God’s messenger has to bear’

(COWULF4 61) The two versions of the same sentence, both written in the eleventh century, have the same meaning of deontic necessity reinforced by the two different verbs. Whilst the author of the Institutes of Polity prefers a more conservative form sceall, in Wulfstan’s Homilies we find mot. This indicates that, at the beginning of the eleventh century, according to SOLO (1977), mot joins sceal as a marker of dontic necessity and becomes capable of replacing it. A few examples presented below and intended as an illustration of the cline of the deontic necessity of mot will help pinpoint the details of the strength of the deontic necessity and specify how subjective the use of mot can be:

(3.4.26) Ac man mot on eornost motian wið his Drihten, se þe but man must on earnest argue with his Lord, this who

10 — Expressing...

wyle þæt we sprecon mid weorcum wið hine;

wants that we speak with deeds with him

‘but man needs argue on earnest with his Lord, he who wants us to talk to him with our deeds’

(COAELET4 970) (3.4.27) manna gehwylc, ... þonne mot he beon ærost ðinga

of-man each then must he be first of-things gemynegad 7 gewisod þæt he cunne hu he of warned and instructed that he knows how he from hæþendome mæge to cristendome ... cuman

heathendom may to Christendom ... come

‘Each man must be first warned and instructed so that he should know how he may come from heathendom to Christendom’

(COWULF3 2) (3.4.28) And gyf man gehadodne mid fæhþe belecge 7

and if man one-in-holy-orders with feud charge and secge, þæt he wære dædbana [...] ladige mid his say, that he were one-who-murders clear-himself with his magum, þe fæhðe moton mid beran

kinsmen, who feud must with bear

‘and if man charges a man in holy orders with enmity and says that he wanted to kill him [...] let the charged one clear himself with his kinsmen, who must bear the feud with him’

(COLAW3 5.2) (3.4.29) Leofan men, we motan swyðe wærlice on ælce wisan

beloved men, we must very cautiously on each manner us healdan gyf we us sculan wið deofol gescyldan, us hold if we us shall against devil shield

‘Beloved men, we must act very cautiously in each way if we should protect ourselves from the devil’

(COWULF3 114) (3.4.30) Hwæt þonne hæbbe hæleþa ænig, guma æt þæm gilpe, gif what then have mortal any, man at the glory, if hine gegripan mot se eca deað æfter þissum him grip must the everlasting death after this worulde?

world

‘But what profit does a mortal possess in this world’s glory, if he must be gripped by the everlasting death after this life?

(COMETBOE 11.1) First of all, it cannot escape anyone’s notice that in the sample the obligee in the subject position never takes the second person pronoun. As a result, no example is utterly performative. Nor do I find any uncontroversial directives.

Examples (3.4.26) and (3.4.27) are the best candidates as the necessity, in some part at least, seems to stem from the speaker. On the other hand, the necessity in both utterances takes the Christian ethics as a background, which makes it impossible to say to what extent the speaker is an actual source of the necessity and to what extent he merely states that the necessity is binding on the Agonist. Note that in both cases the necessity has a rule-like character due to the generic subject. A generic subject is a common theme inherent to 19 out of the 21 deontic necessity examples. Mot is then used to report third-party-generated necessity whose target is a more or less specified group of people. The necessity in (3.4.27) seems weaker than that in (3.4.26) on account of a passive structure being employed in the former. As shown in Table 22, mot of deontic necessity, when compared with the remaining occurrences of the verb, boasts a higher proportion of main verb complements which are other than active verbs (6 out of 21 take non-activity/passive verb complements). This is a factor which weakens the overall force of the necessity of mot.

The other examples, (3.4.28) through (3.4.30) as well as (3.4.25), rank among deontic statements, the speakers find it appropriate to report that a state of necessity exists, thereby considerably diminishing the subjectivity of these examples. (3.4.28) is an excerpt from a code of law where the speaker’s authority may be a factor, yet subjectivity and the speaker’s involvement are clearly ruled out. Still, the best paraphrase for this use of mot seems ‘it is obligatory/absolutely essential that.’ In (3.4.25) God is the Antagonist whose order/recommendation is shown to affect God’s messenger. Here mot is seen to overlap with sceal (cf. (3.4.24)) in that both can serve to express weaker deontic necessity. (3.4.29) is an example of what COATES (1983: 35) calls pseudo-exhortation, the speaker including himself among the Agonists, which yields we in the subject position. This type commonly finds its way to homilies (compare 3.2.4.3. and 3.3.4.1.) and is to be treated as an oratory technique although it is more subjective than, say, (3.4.28) which exemplifies a legal necessity. Mot in the last example, i.e. (3.4.30), which is taken from poetry, approximates to example (3.3.20) where the necessity conveyed by sceal is a force of inevitability. As noted with reference to (3.3.20), such examples are devoid of any subjectivity whatsoever. Nevertheless, two points are noteworthy in connection with (3.4.30): 1), (3.4.30) is another case of the encroachment of

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mot upon the meaning of sceal, which is critical to the process of displacing shall by must in the function of an exponent of deontic necessity in later English (cf. WARNER 1993; TRAUGOTT and DASHER 2005), 2) although no far-reaching conclusions are entitled to follow from just one example in the sample, it could be argued that, much as in the case of sceal (cf. 3.3.4.1), the cline of deontic necessity in its periphery verges on more general PE necessity.

A force of inevitability, as in (3.4.30), derives from no particular source and, therefore, could be described as part of a generally accepted state of affairs, which is, by definition, a preliminary condition of general PE necessity (cf. van der AUWERA and PLUNGIAN 1988: 80—81).

Having taken a look at the cline of the deontic necessity of mot, we follow the routine procedure and cast the examples discussed against the parameters indicating the gradience of the deontic necessity. The selection and order of the parameters does not diverge from those in the case of sceal (cf. 3.3.4.1) and will not be repeated here. The resultant matrix follows in Figure 18.

Seminal to the matrix of mot is a resemblance that it bears to that of agan (compare Figure 12), which is to be linked with the fact that both verbs are clearly beginners in Old English when it comes to expressing deontic necessity.

As is the case with agan, or even more obviously so, the cline of mot has an empty core. There are no strongly subjective cases with necessity leveled at the Agonist hidden under the second person pronoun. With the notable exception of (3.4.30), all the examples flock toward the skirt of the cline. Although the particular skirt examples vary in the details of their ability to respond to the features ranging from (c) to (g), the stability of the skirt pivots on features d), i.e. verb is agentive and (f), i.e. controller subject, being almost unwaveringly embraced. Also, the force of deontic necessity alternates between stronger and weaker, features (e) and (g) respectively, the latter being predominately the case. Such alternation, or, to be more precise, movement along a continuum from strong to weak necessity, can also be seen in the case of sceal, with a proviso that sceal shows preference for strong necessity (cf. 3.3.4.1). The

a b c d e f g h i

(3.4.26) – ? ? + – + + – –

(3.4.28) – – + + + + – – –

(3.4.27) – – ? – – + + – –

(3.4.29) – – ? + – + + – –

(3.4.25) – – – + – + + – –

(3.4.30) – – – + – ? – – +

strong necessity/subjectivity weak necessity/subjectivity

(core) (periphery)

Figure 18.Matrix to show gradience of deontic necessity of mot

already mentioned example (3.4.30) belongs in the periphery of the cline. It is, at the same time, the sole instance whose force of necessity is best described in terms of feature (i), i.e. paraphrasable by ‘it is inevitable that.’ Another aspect of exceptionality inherent to (3.4.30) is that the subject (death) is only to be treated as animate on account of it being personalized. In other words, the

“death” is ascribed human qualities and is therefore an agent in the sentence. It cannot go unnoticed in this context that mot in my sample is only attested with narrow scope (see feature (h) in Figure 18), another clue testifying to relatively short experience of mot with deontic necessity. Interestingly enough, wide scope which is operative with mot of permission and prohibition (see examples (3.4.11) and (3.4.22)) does not seem to be automatically projected upon mot of deontic necessity. TRAUGOTTand DASHER’S (2005: 126) comment on the subject is that “earlier ME examples of obligation mot- involve an obligee that is human or at least a body-part (e.g. heart, hand, metonymically used for some aspect of human cognition or behavior), but in the later ME period the deontic mot- is extended to contexts in which the obligee is inanimate.”

It has been brought up on a number of occasions (cf. TELLIER 1962; SOLO

1977; WARNER 1993; TRAUGOTT and DASHER 2005 among others) that the meaning of deontic necessity is a late OE development in the semantics of mot.

The matrix in Figure 18 supports the viability of the notion that deontic necessity is a novelty in the case of mot. There are no subjective core examples or wide scope examples, which emerge only after long-standing flirtation of a pre-modal with deontic necessity. Instead, the matrix presents us with densely populated skirt which is somewhat periphery-oriented by virtue of weaker necessity being abundantly represented. This picture perfectly matches my observation made above while commenting on the cline examples, that with mot we usually observe deontic necessity which the non-Antagonist speaker communicates to the Agonist, e.g. (3.4.26). The Agonist tends to be generic and the main verb complement demands that they be an agent.

The cline of necessity aside, I would like to underscore two infrequent uses of deontic necessity mot, which has a bearing on the holistic picture of mot as a pre-modal of deontic necessity. The first of them, illustrated in (3.4.31), is to be seen in a wider framework of redundant modality. Mot of deontic necessity joins the likes of sceal (cf. 3.3.5) and mot of permission (cf. 3.4.3.1) and of prohibition (cf. 3.4.3.2) in that it is capable of repeating the necessity which is already communicated in the main clause by means of the passive structure wæs beboden:

(3.4.31) Hym wæs beboden, on heora gehealdsumnyssum on Moyses them was ordered, on their keeping on Moses’

lage, þæt hy moston lufian heora agene frynd, and hatian law, that they must love their own friend, and hate

heora fynd;

their enemy

‘In the keeping of Moses’ law, they were ordered to love their friend and hate their enemy’

(COAELHOM 80) The other use of mot is linked with the juxtaposition of the verb with adverb nede(s)/nyde(s) meaning ‘necessarily,’ which in my sample appears once:

(3.4.32) ða gerædde seo cyng 7 his witan eallum þeodscipe then advised the king and his council all nation to þearfe. þeah hit him eallum lað wære. þæt man to advantage, though it to-them all loath were, that man nyde moste þam here gafol gyldan.

necessarily must the enemy tribute pay

‘Then advised the king and his council for the advantage of all the nation, though they were all loath to do it, that they must needs bribe the enemy with a tribute.’

(COCHROE4 1006.41) Apparently, nyde serves to enhance the deontic necessity conveyed by moste where the pre-modal by itself would be insufficient, which results in a modally harmonic combination in the sense of LYONS (1977: 807) or HOYE (1997).

According to MOLENCKI(2003), a factor behind the genesis of the construction may be that, as mot is developing the meaning of deontic necessity in late Old English, the presence of nede(s) helps disambiguate a necessity reading. As a matter of fact, the juxtaposition has been investigated at length by MOLENCKI

(2003) and TRAUGOTT and DASHER (2005). MOLENCKI (2003) probes into the history of must needs in English, especially into the emergence of the epistemic meaning of the structure, which is derived from the adverb in the late fourteenth century. Importantly, the construction remains harmonic in the sphere of epistemicity as mot follows nede(s) and develops the meaning of certainty. Subsequently, the structure becomes a fixed phrase until its demise in the nineteenth century. The point made by TRAUGOTT and DASHER (2005) concerns the role of nede(s) in the promotion of the past form most- to present tense use. Basing their study on the ME part of the Helsinki Corpus data, TRAUGOTT and DASHER (2005: 135) observe that after the year 1420 nede is coupled exclusively with most-. Working on the same data, MOLENCKI (2003:

75) says that “the ratio of mot(e) nedes vs. most(e) nedes is 10: 18.” The appearance of obligative nede(s) with past most- successfully blocks the assumption that a meaning of permission in the past is intended. Rather, one is

likely to interpret the sequence as implying a state of deontic necessity which, owing to the force of nede(s), holds in the present.

Finally, there are five instances of mot in my sample with an available epistemic reading, one of which follows in (3.4.33):

(3.4.33) [me mæig]... 7 raðe æfter ðam, gif hit mot one may and quickly after that, if it may gewiderian, mederan settan,

be-fine-weather, madder sow

‘One may quickly afterwards, if the weather may be fine, plant madder’

(COLAW4 12) It is commonly agreed that the OE pre-modals do not have any strong leaning toward epistemic meanings and, as a result, undisputable epistemic cases prove difficult to find (cf. GOOSSENS 1982; TRAUGOTT 1989; DENISON 1993; WARNER

1993). Cases, including (3.4.33), that are pointed to as exponents of epistemicity usually have a non-epistemic interpretation as well. TRAUGOTT and DASHER (2005: 130), while calling (3.4.33) one of a class of “impersonal constructions in which there is no controlling subject,” describe it as a convenient environment for the advent of epistemicity of mot. A development from root/PE possibility to epistemic possibility is predicted by BYBEE, PERKINS

and PAGLIUCA(1994), as shown in Figure 17. (3.4.33) follows this path, that is to say, if the hearer is unable to imagine any enabler responsible for causing the weather to be fine, they are likely to believe that the possibility of the fine weather follows as the speaker’s judgment, hence epistemic possibility.