Quasi-modals and Modals in Australian English Fiction 1800-1999,with Comparisons across British and American English

Abstract

This article seeks to extend beyond the almost exclusive concentration in studies of grammatical change over the Late Modern English period on British and American English. It traces the fortunes in Australian English of four quasi-modals that have been grammaticalizing rapidly over this period (have to and have got to representing the domain of necessity/obligation, and want to and be going to representing volition/prediction), comparing them with semantically related modals (must, should, ought to, will, and shall). Data are derived from two recently compiled corpora, COOEE and AusCorp, which together cover the period of approximately two centuries from the foundation of the first British colony in Australia in 1788 to the present day. Comparisons drawn with British and American English for the same period using data from the ARCHER corpus show Australian English evolving in the same general direction as the two longer-established varieties, but its endonormative independence being asserted in its users’ more extreme dispreference for the modals and their reluctance to embrace the quasi-modals as enthusiastically as users of American English.