Investigating the 
Semantic Development of 
Modal Markers: The Role 
of Context
Tomaž Potočnik and Matej Hriberšek*
INTRODUCTION
The variety of approaches in investigating the phenomena common-
ly subsumed under the term modality can at least partly be explained 
by the fact that modality, when compared to other grammatical ca-
tegories, is quite tricky to pinpoint in any given sentence. One can 
illustrate this with an example:
1) Erasmus, Convivium Religiosum 1067–9: In utroque cornu 
prominet pensile cubiculum […] unde spectare licet pomarium et 
aviculas nostras. ‘In each of the two corners, there is a closed balco-
ny […] where one may rest, and whence one can see the fruit garden 
and our little birds.’
When asked what the tense of the main verb prominet is, one re-
sponds without hesitation that it is in the present tense. This can 
immediately be proved morphologically with the expected ending 
for the 3rd person singular of the 2nd conjugation, ­et. In terms of as-
pect, the subject, pensile cubiculum, is clearly expressed in the nomi-
native, so this and the absence of any passive endings both show that 
one is dealing with an active sentence.
Let us proceed to the domain of modality. In 1), one can identify one 
modal marker, licet. What kind of modality does it express and how 
does one know this? These questions prove slightly more embarrass-
ing, for, except for the choice of the verb, there is nothing tangible 
* University College London, Gower Street, London, wc1e 6bt, tomaz.potoc-
nik.19@ucl.ac.uk; Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Aškerčeva 2, 1000, 
Ljubljana; matej.hribersek@ff.uni-lj.si.
doi: https://doi.org/10.4312/clotho.1.2.35–53
TOMAŽ POTOČNIK AND MATEJ HRIBERŠEK36
to work with – there is nothing a priori modal about licet. Digging 
into the relatively young field of modality, one learns that licet can 
express two kinds of modality, deontic and epistemic. The deontic 
one requires a person or an entity permitting or enabling the state of 
affairs. In our case, a connection with such a participant cannot be 
established, one must, therefore, conclude that the modal marker li­
cet expresses epistemic modality – more precisely, that of possibility. 
Indeed, it does, as demonstrated by the translation, which employs 
the more obvious epistemic modal can.
A second example, from the same period, shows another use of 
licet:
2) Erasmus of Rotterdam, Apotheosis Capnionis 46–7: 
Pompilius. Quid, si divinem? ‘What if I try to guess?’
Brassicanus. Licet. ‘Sure.’
The form licet in 2) has the value of a simple confirmation. Such use 
of licet is widely attested in the archaic period. Intuition tells us that 
the use is semantically related to the one in 1); pragmatically speak-
ing, modality seems to have disappeared from licet in the exchange 
in 2). The two examples show that modality is not discernible from 
the form of the modal marker and, as 2) shows, even the presence of 
a known modal marker does not guarantee modality.
Modality, while somewhat marked in the verbal complex, is not 
expressed morphologically in the same way as other categories, 
such as tense and aspect. For a historical linguist, this has practi-
cal consequences. While one can establish a detailed history of the 
semantic and morphological development of such forms as suffixes, 
propositions, or adverbs, with all the intermediate stages – insofar 
as sufficient textual evidence exists – in the case of modal forms 
the matter is more complicated. From the synchronic perspective, as 
well as the diachronic one, one quickly observes that for expressing 
various modal meanings and nuances, few forms are available alto-
gether. Moreover, beside the modal meanings, most of them, especi-
ally verbs, have a primary, concrete, pre-modal meaning. Compare 
the following:
3) Cicero, Fam. 3.5: Perpaucos dies, dum pecunia accipitur quae mihi 
ex publica permutatione debetur, commorabor. ‘I shall stay there for 
a very few days to get in some money due to me on an exchequer 
bill of exchange.’1
1 Translation by Evelyn S. Shuckburgh, modified.
INVESTIGATING THE SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT OF MODAL MARKERS 37
4) Cicero, Fam. 2.3: Ad quae si es, ut debes, paratus […]. ‘If you are 
prepared for that, as you must be […].’
Since the morphological analysis is of little help in investigating 
the synchronic variation and diachronic development of a morpho-
logically stable form, one needs to devise a tool, a proxy, to first 
efficiently describe the modal markers for Latin, and secondly, to 
reconstruct their development over centuries for which the textual 
resources are available. This article aims to demonstrate that, for 
Latin, a close investigation of immediate context may at least partly 
fulfill that role.
Chapter 2 presents a summary of leading theoretical positions 
in the domain of modality and defines the term paths of modality. 
Chapter 3 presents a model for studying the role of context in se-
mantic change. Chapter 4 applies it to one Latin modal construc-
tion and examines one possible so-called switch context. Chapter 5 
presents the implications and potential of this method for future 
research.
RESEARCH IN MODALITY AND LATIN MODALITY
Previous research
Despite some earlier efforts, such as Lyons’s,2 research on moda-
lity took off in the 1980s with Palmer3 in functional and typolog-
ical linguistics and Kratzer4 in formal semantics. The reasons for 
this relatively late surge in interest are probably due to the unclear 
character of modality. Compared to other categories, such as tense 
and aspect, modality is much harder to delineate, and it is there-
fore frequently unclear what the object of investigation should be. 
Rather than as a category, it is perhaps more useful to imagine it as 
a conceptual domain.5
Among the studies on Latin modality, it is necessary to men-
tion Bolkestein,6 who, in her thorough study, considers semantic 
and syntactic factors to explain differences in meaning in Latin 
expres sions of necessity.
2 Lyons, Semantics.
3 Palmer, Mood and Modality.
4 Kratzer, “What ‘Must’ and ‘Can’ Must and Can Mean.”
5 Narrog, Modality, Subjectivity, and Semantic Change, 1.
6 Bolkestein, Problems in the Description of Modal Verbs.
TOMAŽ POTOČNIK AND MATEJ HRIBERŠEK38
In their critical study, Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca7 have pro-
posed some diachronic paths of development of modal mean ings, 
propelled by specific common mechanisms of change. More im-
portantly, they adopted a viewpoint that served as a model for se-
veral researchers in recent decades and which is adopted for this 
article, namely that “generalizations are more effectively formula-
ted as generalizations about paths of develop ment than as genera-
lizations about synchronic states.”8
Van der Auwera and Plungian9 have outlined a semantic map, a 
geometric representation of cross-linguistically relevant synchro-
nic and diachronic relations between various modal meanings and 
uses. Relying on some aspects of their work, Magni10 has, in the 
domain of Latin, focused on grammatical markers characterized 
by the richness of meaning and usage. In her works on modality, 
she further develops the claim by Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca11 
that meanings and functions ascribed to modality and mood are 
better described in terms of diachronic sequences than synchronic 
re alities. Her approach, essential for this article, is based on the 
hypothesis that 1) semantic development is predictable, and 2) mul-
tiple uses of forms are not randomly distributed but are associated 
and located along predictable pathways.12
Concerning modality, several researchers underline the impor-
tance of subjectivity. Traugott and Dasher13 were the first to treat 
the domain of subjectivity diachronically. More recently, Narrog14 
provides a valuable synthesis of competing theories on modality 
and subjectivity and he proposes his model to study empirical data 
in the domain of modality and subjectivity. Fruyt, in her studies of 
grammaticalization in Latin,15 shows the importance of gramma-
ticalization in the studies of modality.
There is, furthermore, an ongoing project at the University of 
Lausanne to provide a comprehensive diachronic study of Latin 
modality under the leadership of Francesca Dell’Oro. This article 
is partially inspired by said project.
7 Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca, The Evolution of Grammar.
8 Ibid., 4.
9 Van der Auwera and Plungian, “Modality’s Semantic Map,” 79–124.
10 Magni, “Mood and Modality.”
11 See note 10.
12 Ibid., 265–66.
13 Traugott and Dasher, Regularity in Semantic Change.
14 Narrog, Modality, Subjectivity, and Semantic Change.
15 E.g., Fruyt, “Grammaticalization in Latin,” 661–864.
INVESTIGATING THE SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT OF MODAL MARKERS 39
What is modality?
Modality is not as easily defined as tense and aspect. The term mo-
dality describes a broad conceptual domain whose implications 
and functions have been investigated in both logic and linguistics. 
From a linguistic point of view, modality affects all areas of gram-
mar and interacts with other categories, such as negation, tense, 
and aspect. While, as shown in the introduction, it cannot be in-
vestigated on the level of morphology, it is usually16 marked – to-
gether with tense and aspect – somewhere in the verbal complex;17 
in fact, it is closely related to these two categories in that all three 
are concerned with the event or situation that is reported by the 
utterance: tense is concerned with the time of the event; aspect is 
concerned with the internal temporal constituency of the event; 
and “modality is concerned with the status of the proposition, that 
describes the event.”18 
According to one definition, espoused by some researchers – 
for example, Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca19 based on Palmer20 and 
Lyons21 – modal markers are the grammaticalization of a speaker’s 
attitudes and opinions. It has, however, recently been shown, that 
the notions of modality reach far beyond this definition. Indeed, it 
may be impossible to come up with a succinct characterization of 
the notion of modality.22 Instead, it has been suggested that moda-
lity is best viewed as a set of diachronically related functions and 
that the real understanding of modality would only emerge from 
the study of these diachronic relations.23
Understood in Palmer’s terms, the influences of modality do 
not relate only or even primarily to the verb, but to the whole sen-
tence. Consequently, it is challenging to decide what to include in 
investigations of modality. Various notions have been proposed for 
the study and delimitation of the domain of modality: attitudes 
16 But not always – think of adverbs such as eng. probably, lat. libenter, etc. This 
article, however, and the methodology it proposes, is mostly focused on the 
modality in the verbal complex.
17 Magni, “Mood and modality,” 193.
18 Palmer, Mood and Modality, 1.
19 Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca, The Evolution of Grammar, 176.
20 Palmer, Mood and Modality, 16.
21 Lyons, Semantics, 452.
22 Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca, Evolution of Grammar, 176.
23 See Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca, The Evolution of Grammar, 176–242, Magni, 
“Mood and Modality,” 193–275.
TOMAŽ POTOČNIK AND MATEJ HRIBERŠEK40
and opinions of the speaker, subjectivity, factuality, speech acts, 
as well as “a group of concepts that include possibility, necessity, 
permission, obligation, ability, and volition.”24
While little agreement exists regarding the definition of moda-
lity, a widely held view among linguists is that the notion of subjecti-
vity is of central importance.25 From this, it follows that a parti-
cipant’s subjective attitude can be applied either to the event itself 
or the proposition describing it. This leads to the critical division 
between event modality and propositional modality.26 Compare the 
following examples:
5) Dokončati moraš domačo nalogo. 
‘To-finish must-2nd pers.sg. homework-acc.’
6) Zdaj mora biti že doma. 
‘Now must-3rd pers.sing. to-be already home.’
The same verb, morati ‘to have to’ is employed in two different ways, 
representing a fundamental distinction in the domain of modality: 
deontic and epistemic.
The usage in 5), known as deontic modality, may be defined in 
terms of “permission” and “obligation”;27 however, this character-
ization might be too narrow and not appropriate for all cases. In 
more general terms, it might be defined as “an indication of the de-
gree of desirability for the state of affairs, expressed in the utterance, 
typi cally, but not necessarily, on behalf of the speaker.” As the word 
“degree” indicates, the desirability should be seen as situated on the 
scale, ranging from absolute necessity through intermediate stages 
to lesser desirability and undesirability.28
The example 6), on the other hand, is a case of epistemic modali-
ty, where the speaker expresses the estimation as to what degree the 
state of affairs expressed in the utterance holds for the world. One is 
again dealing with a scale from absolute certainty that the state of 
affairs is factual through intermediate stages to the negative side, i.e., 
that the state of affairs is certainly not factual or is untrue.29
24 Magni, “Mood and Modality,” 1–2.
25 See Magni, “Mood and Modality,” 194, Narrog, Modality, Subjectivity, and 
Semantic Change.
26 Palmer, Mood and Modality, 7–8.
27 Cf. e.g., Palmer Mood and Modality, 96–7.
28 Nuyts, “The Modal Confusion,” 9.
29 Ibid., 10.
INVESTIGATING THE SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT OF MODAL MARKERS 41
Pathways of Modality
The idea of pathways of modality emerges from the view mentioned 
above that modality is best studied as a series of diachronically 
related functions, first discussed by Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca.30 
According to this view, every modal form can be viewed as situated 
in a chain, “one giving rise to another.”31 This approach is based 
on the hypothesis that semantic development is predictable, that 
multiple uses of a single form are “not randomly distributed but 
are associated and located along certain pathways that reflect the 
evolution of grammatical meanings.”32 Although unidirectionality 
in semantic development and the related studies of grammaticali-
zation are to some extent controversial,33 it is widely held in studies 
of modality that deontic meanings are more basic than epistemic 
ones, the latter as a general rule appearing later than the former.34 
This hypothesis is crucial for the present article.
Let us consider the verb possum ‘I can.’ At the very beginning, 
it conveyed the simple idea of physical strength and capability, as 
illustrated by example 7):
7) Plautus, Truc. 812–13: Plus potest qui plus ualet. Vir erat, plus 
ualebat: uicit, quod petebat abstulit. ‘He can do the most, who is the 
strongest. He was a man, he was the strongest: he prevailed, what 
he wanted, he took with him.’
Now compare the following example with 7):
8) Plautus, Bacch. 580: Comesse panem tris pedes latum potes. ‘You 
can eat up a loaf three feet wide.’
Clearly, there is a difference between 7) and 8): possum in 8) re-
presents not the physical might, but the ability to do something. 
Possum has undergone a semantic shift from the specific meaning 
30 Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca, The Evolution of Grammar, 176–242.
31 Ibid., 17.
32 Magni, “Mood and Modality,” 212.
33 See e.g., Haspelmath, “Why is Grammaticalization Irreversible?” Ziegeler, 
“Redefining Unidirectionality,” etc.
34 See Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca, The Evolution of Grammar; Magni, “Modality’s 
Semantic Maps,” etc.
TOMAŽ POTOČNIK AND MATEJ HRIBERŠEK42
towards a more general one. In other words, it has moved along the 
predictable pathway mentioned above. Consider now the following 
pair of examples:
9) Plaut., Amph. 1.1: Animum aduorte. Nunc licet mi libere quiduis 
loqui. ‘Pay attention: now, I am permitted to say anything freely.’
10) Plaut. Amph. 1.3: Licet, prius tua opinione hic adero: bonum an­
imum habe. ‘Yes, I will be here earlier than you think. Cheer up.’
In the first case licet ‘it is permitted’ carries the meaning of per-
mission; in the second, it means no more than ‘ok then.’ Example 
10) is so far along the pathway of modality, that it has lost almost 
all original lexical meaning and has instead adopted a pragmatic 
function of confirmation.
In short, research in the development of modality has esta-
blished lines of development of modal expressions, the so-cal-
led pathways of modality. All the modal expressions, such as 
licet ‘it is permitted,’ oportet ‘it is necessary,’ debeo ‘I have to,’ 
and possum ‘I can’ move along these lines, as their meaning shi-
fts from a more specific to a more general one. They start from 
the so-called pre-modal stages, as in 7), and sometimes finish 
as grammaticalized expressions that have lost all traces of their 
original meaning, as in 10). It is now known that modal expres-
sions across languages follow similar paths and follow the same 
kinds of rules.
THE ROLE OF CONTEXT
In the literature on language change, one can frequently observe 
descriptions of an original state A, of a target state B, and specula-
tion about what has happened in between. The intermediate stages 
– or, to be more precise, the continuum between the two described 
states – frequently remain underrated.35 Granted, for many lan-
guages, primarily, if one studies their earlier stages, the data for 
this intervening period may only be missing. It is, therefore, all the 
more critical for the historically well-attested languages, Latin as 
a prime example, to fill that void. This article tries to identify one 
aspect of what happens on the way from A to B.
35 Heine, “On the Role of Context in Grammaticalization,” 83.
INVESTIGATING THE SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT OF MODAL MARKERS 43
As demonstrated by the examples 1) and 2) above, for a success-
ful study of semantic development of modal verbs, it is necessary to 
find a way that will make the change in the meaning of a formally 
unchanging word observable in the written texts that have come 
down to us. Heine36 observes that there are cross-linguistically 
predictable contexts that encourage the semantic change to take 
place. He proposes three critical types of contexts that need to be 
distinguished. These are:
Bridging contexts. – These contexts are what in the literature since 
Grice37 has been described as “inferences” or “implicatures.” They 
trigger a mechanism that adds to the existing meaning another 
mean ing, which offers a more plausible interpretation of the utte-
rance concerned. While the target meaning is the most likely inter-
pretation, the interpretation in terms of original meaning cannot 
be ruled out. A linguistic unit can be associated with one or more 
bridging contexts. Bridging contexts can give rise to conventional 
meanings, but not necessarily.
Switch contexts. – For a switch towards a new meaning, a bridging 
context is not enough. What is needed is a so-called switch context. 
Such contexts are incompatible with some salient property of the 
source meaning; an interpretation in terms of the source meaning 
is therefore ruled out. The target meaning is now the only possi-
ble interpretation. Meanings appearing in switch contexts have 
to be supported by a specific context (which is not the case for 
convention alizations, see below).
Conventionalizations. – Most context-induced meanings re main 
precisely that. They have usually been described as inferences, 
contextual meanings, or pragmatic meanings. However, some of 
them may develop some frequency of use: they no longer need to 
be supported by a specific context. They become the “usual,” “inhe-
rent,” “normal” meanings.38 A conventionalized meaning has the 
following properties:
– it can be used in a new context, other than the bridging and 
switch contexts;
36 Ibid., 83–101.
37 Grice, Logic and Conversation.
38 Cf. Hopper and Traugott, Grammaticalization, 73–4.
TOMAŽ POTOČNIK AND MATEJ HRIBERŠEK44
– while in the switch context the target meaning is incompa-
tible with the source meaning, conventionalized meanings can 
contradict it;
– this means that the source and the target meaning can co-oc-
cur side by side.
The above contexts, therefore, suggest a four-stage scenario: At 
stage I, there is a standard, source meaning. At stage II, specific 
contexts can give rise to another meaning, which is more likely 
than the source meaning. At stage III, a type of context which is 
incompatible with the source semantics appears. At the final stage, 
stage IV, the new meaning, triggered by the switch contexts, has 
developed a sufficient frequency to stand alone and to become the 
new usual meaning. The new meaning can co-exist with the sou-
rce meaning. As the authors hope to demonstrate in the following 
chapter, Heine’s four-stage model can be fruitfully applied to the 
investigations of Latin modality.39
CASE STUDY: LICET
The impersonal form licet 
and its identified meanings and functions
Latin has a limited number of modal expressions. These are the verbs 
oportet ‘it is necessary,’ debeo ‘I have to,’ licet ‘it is allowed, it is possi-
ble,’ necesse est ‘it is necessary,’ possum ‘I can’; some adverbs, such 
as libenter ‘gladly,’ quidem ‘certainly’; adjectives in ­bilis ‘­ble’; and 
even more limited nouns, such as necessitas ‘necessity.’ As mentio-
ned above, the verbs often have a modal as well as a non-modal (or 
pre-modal) function, such as debeo in example 3). The exemplifica-
tion below focuses on licet, which has developed from the premodal 
form liceo ‘I make available.’
The Oxford Latin Dictionary distinguishes three functions of li­
cet, which can be summarized as follows:
– “It is permitted”; “one may”;
– (as the reply to a request or command); “Yes, certainly, I will”;
– (with the subjunctive, developing into conjunction); “although.”
39 The descriptions of the three types of contexts as well as of the four-stage scena-
rio are summarized according to Heine, “On the Role of Context in Gramma-
ticalization,” 84–6.
INVESTIGATING THE SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT OF MODAL MARKERS 45
Wiesthaler’s Latin­Slovenian Dictionary lists these meanings:
– “It is permitted,” “one may,” “it is freely available to,” “one can”;
– “although,” “if only,” “suppose that.”
For the present purposes, this article suggests distinguishing 
between two semantic meanings of licet: one of permission – de-
ontic use – and one of possibility – epistemic use. There is a third 
use, which, while semantically related to the first two, has adopted 
another pragmatic function, that of confirmation. The distinctions 
between the semantic and the pragmatic level is essential, for it 
illustrates the fact that semantic labels assigned to licet – or, ar-
guably, to any word – are to some extent arbitrary, as the analysis 
below shows. It may be said that semantic meaning is a more con-
servative side of the word’s profile, whereas pragmatic functions 
show the actual usage and, as the analysis below hopes to show, 
reflect the ongoing semantic change.
Licet occurs in two syntactic patterns. The first is a one-place 
pattern, where the only slot is filled by a clause, which can be finite 
(a subjunctive clause, sometimes, but rarely, introduced by ut) or 
non-finite (accusativus cum infinitivo). The second is a pattern with 
two slots, which are filled by a nominal constituent in the dative 
case and an infinitival clause.40 Sometimes a third slot is present to 
express the permitting agent or circumstance, with the structure 
per + permitting agent (see example 15) below) or by the ablative 
case. The focus of this article is on this slot, to see whether some – 
in Heine’s words – switch contexts can be identified in connection 
to it.
Permitting participant or circumstance
This chapter aims to observe the variation in permitting partici-
pants of the licet verbal structure in selected examples from Plau-
tus. It aspires to see whether a switch context that would propel the 
development of modal meanings forward can be identified. Magni 
observes that an epistemic reading is favored with less typical par-
ticipants (non-agentive, non-human, non-individuate, inanima-
te). In other words, “if there is no actor whose relationship to the 
40 Magni, “Mood and Modality,” 209.
TOMAŽ POTOČNIK AND MATEJ HRIBERŠEK46
accomplishment of the state of affairs can be estimated by the spe-
aker, we are out of event modality, and a shift toward propositional 
modality takes place.”41
As this chapter attempts to show, one is dealing with a con-
tinuum going from more to less specific meanings: the element 
on the left tends to have a more event-oriented meaning, while 
the one on the right a more propositional one. In order to form 
a better picture of the intermediate stages, it might be useful to 
illustrate the event modality > propositional modality spectrum 
with two extreme examples.
11) Plautus, Cas. 2.8: Licetne amplecti te? ‘May I hug you?’
Example 11) is a clear case of deontic possibility. With the verb li­
cet, the speaker in inquiring whether the state of affairs in which 
he wants to engage is permitted by the addressee. The scope of 
the utterance is an event, i.e., whether or not it will be fulfilled. 
The situation is not controlled by the speaker.
12) Plautus, Aul. 2.8: Deinde egomet mecum cogitare intervias 
occepi: festo die si quid prodegeris, profesto egere liceat, nisi pe­
perceris. ‘Then I began to think with myself upon the road, if 
you are guilty of any extravagance on a festive day, you may be 
wanting on a common day, unless you are saving.’42
Example 12) is a case of epistemic possibility, where the speaker 
is making observations about the situation. The scope of the ut-
terance is the proposition. Additionally, the state of affairs is in 
complete control of the speaker and it takes a specialist to see any 
trace of permission in the licet of 12).
Let us brief ly examine the difference between 11) and 12). 
While it may not be evident at first sight, it becomes more ap-
parent if one takes a closer look at the permitting agent. What is 
standing between the completion of the action and the speaker’s 
desire in 11), is a person. Example 12), on the other hand, has no 
permitting agent to speak of. What enables the state of affairs 
concerned – “to be wanting on a normal day” – is “extravagance 
on festive days.” This is an extreme case of Magni’s less-prototy-
41 Magni, “Mood and Modality,” 220.
42 Translation by Henry Thomas Riley.
INVESTIGATING THE SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT OF MODAL MARKERS 47
pical participant:43 it is non-agentive, non-human, non-individ-
uate, and inanimate – the opposite of the agent in 11). The state 
of affairs is in complete control of the speaker.
If one takes into account the findings regarding the permi-
tting agent in examples 11) and 12) and accepts to call the latter 
epistemic and the former deontic, this squares off a space on the 
continuum of semantic change in which one can now examine 
some other examples and place them on the axis in relation to 11) 
and 12), and to each other.
13) Plautus, Cist. 2.1: Postremo, quando aequa lege pauperi cum 
divite non licet, perdam operam potius quam carebo filia. ‘Af-
ter all, since with strict justice, a poor person is not allowed to 
contend with a rich one, I will lose my labor rather than lose my 
daughter.’44
In 13), it is slightly more challenging to assign the sentence a de-
ontic or an epistemic reading. The desired state of affairs, i.e., 
“for a poor person to contend with a rich one,” is not allowed by 
laws and customs. The permitting agent is non-standard in that 
it is inanimate and that it is not a person. Nevertheless, laws and 
customs intuitively signify a reliable source of authority – usually 
stronger than any single person’s (with obvious exceptions) – a 
fact which would favor a deontic reading. On the other hand, the 
speaker is expressing his judgment about the degree of the factu-
ality of the proposition, a clear sign of an epistemic use. Concern-
ing 13), a note is in order regarding the notion of animacy, men-
tioned in Magni45 as an indicator of a probable epistemic reading: 
while certainly less animate when compared to one’s master, they 
do not necessarily seem to presuppose a more epistemic reading.
The following example introduces yet another ambiguous 
permit ting agent. It is implicit but can be reasonably supposed.
14) Plautus, Men. 2.3: Prandium, ut iussisti, hic curatumst. ubi 
lubet, ire licet accubitum. ‘The breakfast, as you ordered, is pre-
pared here; when you please, you may go and take your place.’46
43 Magni, “Mood and Modality,” 219–20.
44 Translation by Henry Thomas Riley, modified.
45 Magni, “Mood and Modality,” 220.
46 Translation by Henry Thomas Riley.
TOMAŽ POTOČNIK AND MATEJ HRIBERŠEK48
The speaker, a slave, is informing her master that he may take his 
place. The state of affairs is to go lie down (note that, in ancient 
Greece, this was the customary position to take one’s meal). What 
is permitting it? Surely a slave would not presume to allow her 
master anything in the narrow, authoritative, sense? The deontic 
sense is, therefore, out of the question. The permitting agent here 
is simply the fact that the breakfast is on the table – it is, as in 12), a 
circumstance, which invites an epistemic reading of licet. It follows 
that a standard agent, even a person, may not be a clear indicator of 
the deontic or epistemic usage of a modal marker.
What can one say about the examples 11)–14) so far in terms 
of their progression along the diachronic pathway of modality? If 
11) expresses a deontic meaning and 12) an epistemic one, located 
some way further along the axis of modal development, one may 
reasonably imagine 13) on the right of 11), but still somewhere in 
the vicinity, for laws and customs are there to allow certain events 
or states of affairs to take place, or preventing them from happen-
ing. 14), on the other hand, is closer to the meaning expressed in 
12), as licet in both cases indicates favorable circumstances for the 
state of affairs to take place, and not an authority.
As mentioned above, according to the commonly accepted 
hypothesis, epistemic meanings appear later on the diachronic axis 
than non-epistemic ones. If non-typical permitting participants, 
such as in 14), favor the epistemic interpretation of modal verbs, 
they might well constitute what Heine (2002) calls switch contexts. 
Let us try to confirm this hypothesis with another example from 
Plautus.
15) Plautus, Mer. 5.4: Evtychus. Redde illi. ‘Let him have [sc. her].’ 
Demipho. Sibi habeat, iam ut volt per me sibi habeat licet. ‘Let 
him have [her] for himself, as he wishes, as far as I am concerned.’
The permitting agent is explicit. The state of affairs is for the third 
person, illi, to have the person in question. What stands between 
the now and the fulfillment of the desired state of affairs desired by 
Eutychus, is Demipho. One is still in the sphere of the deontic licet.
The best kind of proof that one has indeed identified a switch 
context for licet, would be a conventionalized epistemic meaning, 
which has, with the help of sufficient frequency of use, become 
an independent meaning. Such a meaning, one should remember, 
can freely appear alongside the meaning which precedes it on the 
diachronic axis. If the hypothesis holds, the appearance of both de-
ontic and epistemic licet in the same period, indeed, in many cases, 
INVESTIGATING THE SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT OF MODAL MARKERS 49
in the same comedy, would, to some extent, be proof in itself – it 
remains to be confirmed by a quantitative study. For now, however, 
let us confirm this with the third use of licet, which also frequently 
appears on the same pages as the other two.
16) Plautus, Cur. 1.1: Phaedromus. Tace, occultemus lumen et 
vocem. ‘Silence, let us hide the light and our voices.’ 
Palinurus. Licet. ‘Alright.’
From example 16) it is easy to see that this usage is semantically 
related to the previous two. Its pragmatic function, however, is dif-
ferent. If in the case of deontic meaning the purpose of an utterance 
is to inform or inquire whether some authority allows the state of 
affairs to take place and in the case of epistemic meaning to ob-
serve whether some state of affairs can take place, the purpose of 
this usage is to confirm – anything, as the following examples show:
17) Plautus, Amph. 1.3: Iuppiter. […] Numquid vis? 
‘[…] Do you want anything?’ 
Alcmena. Etiam: ut actutum advenias. 
‘Yes, that you return immediately.’ 
Iuppier. Licet […]. ‘Will do […].’
18) Plautus, Bac. 1.1: Bacchis. Quid si hoc potis est ut tu taceas, ego 
loquar? ‘Suppose it would be better that I speak and you stay silent?’ 
Soror. Lepide, licet. ‘Sure, with pleasure.’
19) Plautus, Capt. 5.1: Philocrates. Edepol, Hegio, facis benigne. 
sed quaeso, hominem ut iubeas arcessi. ‘My my, Hegio, you act 
kindly. But please, order that the man be summoned here.’ 
Hegio. Licet. […] ‘Certainly. […]’
Examples 16)–19) show that a third function exists independently 
alongside the other two. If epistemic meaning requires a speci fic 
context – that of a non-typical permitting participant – to be pre-
sent, the confirmatory licet does not seem to need it. In all four 
cases, it is used as a reply to orders or suggestions of various in-
tensity. The frequency of such usage in Plautus (17 out of the first 
100) suggests that, according to Heine’s model, one might be wit-
nessing a fully conventionalized or conventionalizing meaning. On 
the continuum, demarcated by the examples 11) and 12), these four 
TOMAŽ POTOČNIK AND MATEJ HRIBERŠEK50
examples would be situated on the right side of 12): not only is the 
permitting participant not expressed, but they also seem to have 
shed all modal meaning as well.
As the examples above show, observing the permitting partici-
pant can reveal important details about the stage of development 
of a modal marker. The examples above, selected from a hundred 
attestations of licet in Plautus, show that in the case of a standard 
permitting agent, the deontic usage is probable, although by no 
means a rule, as example 14) shows. Conversely, a non-standard 
permitting participant may favor the epistemic interpretation, but 
not necessarily, as in example 13). It certainly seems plausible that 
the ambiguities identified above may be seen as switch contexts, 
which, in the right circumstances – such as sufficient frequency of 
usage – may create new modal meanings. It would, therefore, be 
worth conducting a quantitative analysis with a sufficient sample 
to confirm this.
IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY 
OF THE DIACHRONIC DEVELOPMENT 
OF MODAL FORMS AND WHAT TO DO NEXT
The introduction has highlighted a common problem in historical 
semantics: how to trace the semantic development of an unchan-
g ing form through history. Chapter 2 has presented existing re-
search on modality and the most commonly accepted theoretical 
framework. Chapter 3 has adopted Heine’s model47 for studying 
the role of context in diachronic development to bridge the gap 
highlighted in chapter 1. Chapter 4 has attempted to illustrate the 
value of this framework on the example of the modal form licet and 
to identify the possible switch context, which could lead to further 
development, provided the support of a high frequency of usage.
Even the small sample from Plautus used in the study has high-
lighted the importance of closer studies of modality. First of all, 
read ing the older English translations of Plautus reveals deficien-
cies in translations, where an epistemic licet is translated to English 
with a deontic modal allow or permit. This leads to such translati-
ons as “you have caused me to be allowed to,” where the more na-
tural translation would be “you have enabled me,” the permitting 
circumstance being an obstacle removed by the addressee of the 
utterance, and not some permission based on his or her authority. 
47 Heine, “On the Role of Context in Grammaticalization.”
INVESTIGATING THE SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT OF MODAL MARKERS 51
Secondly, it turns out that the Oxford Latin Dictionary contains 
no trace of the meaning of possibility for licet; Wiesthaler’s Latin­
­Slovenian Dictionary does briefly mention it. This is serious – if 
such a significant proportion of attestations of licet in the archaic 
period is leaning towards epistemic, one may well suspect that in 
the classical period – in Cicero’s extensive opus, for instance – the 
number will be even higher. In other words, statistical data may 
soon confirm that our standard definitions of licet and other mo-
dals may have to be somewhat modified if they are to represent the 
actual usage in antiquity.
As observed above, Latin, with its material spanning for more 
than two millennia, is an essential resource for the study of mo-
dality in general. It offers a possibility to conduct a close quanti-
tative analysis of the usage of modal markers. The results could 
then be compared to similar studies in other well-attested langua-
ges, such as Ancient Greek, English, or German, and offer another 
perspective in fields, such as cross-linguistic studies of modality 
and language typology, as well as in Indo-European and Romance 
linguistics.
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INVESTIGATING THE SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT OF MODAL MARKERS 53
ABSTRACT
The article tackles the problem of studying diachronic semantic chan-
ges of modal markers in Latin. It proposes to do so by using context as 
a proxy for tracing the development of otherwise unchanging forms. 
In the first part, the leading theoretical positions in modality studi-
es are presented, especially the notions of deontic modality, episte-
mic modality, and pathways of modality. In the second part, Heine’s 
model for studying the role of context in language change is presen-
ted and applied to the modal verb licet. In the case study of licet, an 
attempt is made to identify the so-called switch context, which co-cre-
ates the conditions necessary for the semantic change.
KEYWORDS: modality, Latin modality, grammaticalization, de-
ontic, epistemic
RAZISKOVANJE SEMANTIČNEGA RAZVOJA 
PRI MODALNIH OZNAČEVALCIH: VLOGA KONTEKSTA
IZVLEČEK
Članek obravnava raziskovanje diahronih semantičnih sprememb 
pri modalnih označevalcih v latinščini. Semantičnemu razvoju sicer 
nespremenljivih oblik sledi z opazovanjem konteksta. V prvem delu 
so predstavljena glavna teoretska stališča pri preučevanju modal-
nosti, zlasti pojmi deontične modalnosti, epistemične modalnosti 
in modalnih poti. V drugem delu je predstavljen Heinejev model za 
preučevanje konteksta pri jezikovnih spremembah. Model je pona-
zorjen na primeru modalnega glagola licet. Študija primera licet je 
poskus razpoznavanja takoimenovanega preklopnega konteksta, ki 
soustvarja pogoje, potrebne za semantično spremembo.
KLJUČNE BESEDE: modalnost, latinska modalnost, gramatikali-
zacija, deontičnost, epistemičnost