«Voler» + infinitive in Catalan: From the imminence aspectual periphrasis to the epistemic and evidential marker (from the 13th century to the present day)

Abstract

Today’s Catalan knows the phrases vol ploure and vol caure , literally ‘[ it ] wants to rain’ and ‘[ it ] wants to fall,’ with the meaning of ‘showing signs that [something] has to [happen]’ ( DDLC , s.v. voler ). Such structures are only a remainder from the imminence aspectual periphrasis voler + infinitive, present in old and modern Catalan, as well as in other Romance languages, at least in medieval times (such as Occitan, Franco-Provencal, French or Italian). Our aim in this study is trying to describe and explain the constructionalization process (following Traugott 2012 and Traugott & Trousdale 2013) whereby this structure, saturated with the infinitives ploure or caure , will assume an epistemic/evidential value ever since the Modern Era (17th and 18th centuries) which is the one known by the current language. From Classical Latin and up to present-day Catalan, the periphrasis will thus describe a trend Wish > Intention > Imminence > Epistemicity/Evidentiality.