No question: lexicalization and grammaticalization processes in the development of modal qualifier meanings

Structure type	Middle English		Early Modern English
Late Modern English
n	%	n	%	n	%
Existential	0	0%	4	40%	73	51.8%
Copular	0	0%	0	0%	44	31.2%
Make question	5	100%	3	30%	22	15.6%
Adverb	0	0%	3	30%	2	1.4
TOTAL	5		10		141

Table 1: Absolute and relative frequencies of structure types across time periods

The make question pattern started off the whole development, but by Late Modern English it had become the least common and the existential structures had become the most frequent, while copular structures like it is no question were the second most common pattern.

There are not only quantitative changes, the network of structures and meanings associated with question is also amplified and diversified. Importantly, the two idiomatic patterns, meaning ‘challenge’ and ‘be at issue’, both specialize towards negative contexts with no question. It is then that they start on the road to grammaticalization, one towards positive modal meaning and the other towards negative modal meaning. The lexicalization processes not only precede and enable grammaticalization by pre-forming the periphrastic grammaticalizing expressions, but, as we will show, they also semantically determine the specific resulting modal meanings.

3.3.1. From ‘be unchallengeable’ to positive modal marker

The meaning of ‘challenge’ expressed previously by make Ø/a question is now also found in existential examples, e.g. (12). The idiom specializes for negative contexts, and tends to be accompanied by intensifying elements, e.g. not the least in (12), yielding the meaning ‘not be challengeable at all’.

(12) There is not the least question of its being original: one might as well doubt the originality of King Patapan! (CLMETEV, 1710-1780)

In (12), there is not the least question of its being original is addressable as the utterance’s main claim (‘can one really not challenge its originality?’), which is re-formulated and re-asserted by the following clause one might as well doubt the originality. There is not the least question in (12) is thus a primary lexical use, attesting to a second lexicalization process in which the form there be no question came to be conventionally associated with the meaning ‘be not challengeable’.

This new idiom is always followed by a complement clause. Importantly, this complementation construction is fundamentally different from the earlier one meaning ‘ask’ illustrated in (10). In (10) we have an instance of reported speech, consisting of a represented speech situation, were there certaine questions proponed, and indirectly reported questions. By contrast, (12) is a factive construction: its being original is a complement that is presupposed true (Kiparsky & Kiparsky 1971) and the matrix there is not the least question of explicitly evaluates and emphasizes the truth of this complement. With the shift from reported speech to factive construction, the nature of the complement changes from question to statement. Non-finite its being original is functionally a statement: there is not the least question that ‘it is original’.
It is this idiom with negative sense ‘be unchallengeable’ that grammaticalizes into a positive emphatic modal marker, as illustrated in (13).

(13) there is no question but the regard to general good is much enforced by the respect to particular. … where the greatest public wrong is also conjoined with a considerable private one, no wonder the highest disapprobation attends so iniquitous a behaviour. (CLMETEV, 1710-1780)

Example (13) shows a reversal of the discursive nucleus-margin relation (Hopper & Traugott 2003: 207-9). The primary point of the utterance is the regard to general good is much enforced by respect for the particular, as shown by its addressability by a really-query (is it really enforced?) and tag (is it?) (Boye & Harder 2007). The structural matrix there is no question has become secondary in the discourse in that it functions, as is typical of a grammatical element, as an operator or modifier of the proposition. In contrast with examples (7) and (10), it is not addressable as the main point of the utterance. It expresses he speaker’s modal comment, paraphraseable as ‘definitely’, on the content of what s/he is saying. This goes together with scope expansion: whereas lexical uses of there be no question have a scopal relation to their phrasal (7) or clausal complement (12) only, there is no question in (13) functions on a global utterance level (Brinton 2008: 131). Its modal reading is contextually supported by the following adverbial, no wonder, which modifies the statement strongly condemning a public wrong because it is also a private wrong, i.e. a reformulation of the proposition emphasized by there’s no question.

The same evolution towards modal marker takes hold of the other idiomatic clausal structures meaning ‘be unchallengeable’. This development is illustrated in (14) for the pattern with make (a/no) question.

(14) Till I cried out: “You prove yourself so able,

Pity! You was not Druggerman at Babel;
For had they found a linguist half so good
I make no question but the tower had stood.” (CLMETEV, 1710-1780)

There is discursive reversal of the nucleus-margin relation, as shown by the fact that the conditional clause in (14), for had they found a linguist half so good, clearly relates to the complement rather than the matrix. I make no question but functions as emphatic positive modal marker of the claim the tower had stood. Like a number of emerging existential modal markers of that period, including (13) above, it has complementizer but, a use sanctioned by the negation in the structural matrix (OED I: 1212). The no question but (that) pattern adds an emphatic meaning element.

The grammaticalization of the copular idiomatic pattern expressing ‘non-challengeability’ progresses more slowly. For instance, in (15) it can be no question, which echoes the primary assertion may be reasonably supposed, is still more propositional than the other matrices in (13) and (14). The copular matrices continue to take indirect questions, but some of these can be interpreted as rhetorical statements. In (15), the indirect questions express the possible alternatives, but the context signals that surely the only option is that ‘it be pressed forward’.

(15) It may, therefore, be reasonably supposed that the propriety of a law to prevent the exportation of victuals is admitted, and surely it can be no question, whether it ought to be pressed forward, or to be delayed till it will be of no effect. (CLMETEV, 1710-1780)

The pragmatic meaning of (15) is thus emphasis of a desired path of action, conveyed by the deontic modal ought to. What is marked here as incontrovertible is not a truth claim, but an obligation, i.e. a deontic statement.

Once the positive modal use of the clausal structures with no question was in place, it extended quickly from qualifying truth-claims to qualifying desired actions. From 1850 on, there be no question, is found with deontic statements, e.g. (16).

(16) At present the receiving apparatus is fixed on only some 650 steamers of the merchant marine ... . There is no question that it should be installed, along with wireless apparatus, on every ship of over 1000 tons gross tonnage. (CLMETEV, 1850-1920)

Summing up, the change from lexical matrix clause to positive modal marker coincides with the extension of the ‘challenge’-idiom to other clausal structures (than with make) and to negative contexts. After all, in the negative sense of ‘being unquestionable’ for which it is specialized since Late Modern English, the lexicalized clauses are very close to the meaning of the grammaticalized comment clauses (‘definitely’). It is plausible, then, to assume that the negative idioms’ polarity determined the polarity of the modal comment clauses as emphatically positive.

3.3.2. From ‘not be at issue’ to negative modal marker

The second idiomatized pattern, there be (no) question of in the sense of ‘be at issue’, specializes for negative contexts and increases in frequency some 150 years later than the ‘challenge’-idioms, between 1850 and 1920. Before, it was exclusively followed by prepositional phrases, e.g. (17), but from 1850 on, the expression can take clausal complements, in the form of non-finite clauses, e.g. (18) and (19). Some of these are liable to modal inferences. In (18), for instance, inviting him was never raised as an issue, as contextually supported by The latter never spoke of. At the same time, the fact that inviting him was never spoken of invites the inference that there was no willingness to invite him. Example (18) can pragmatically be interpreted as absence of volition, with the negation in there was no question of transferred to the implied modal notion of willingness. Likewise, there is no question of in (19) invites modal meanings of impossibility (with the fallen horse surrounded by traffic one cannot first debate how he came to fall) or absence of permission (pity with the overworked horse ethically forbids not getting him up). Here too, the negation in the matrix applies to the proposition in the complement clause. In fact, on their grammaticalized readings, (18) and (19) have what is known as NEG-raising, i.e. the negation applies to the complement clause. This “necessarily goes with grammatical, inherently non-addressable CTP [complement-taking-predicate, K.D., SD] variants” (Boye & Harder 2007: 578).

(17) There’s no question of the divine afflatus; that belongs to another sphere of life. (CLMETEV, 1850-1920)

(18) Marian, however, visited them at their lodgings frequently; now and then she met Jasper there. The latter never spoke of her father, and there was no question of inviting him to repeat his call. (CLMETEV, 1850-1920)

(19) When in the streets of London a Cab Horse, weary or careless or stupid, trips and falls and lies stretched out in the midst of the traffic there is no question of debating how he came to stumble before we try to get him on his legs again. (CLMETEV, 1850-1920)

These examples show how there is no question acquired negative value: it conveyed (or allowed to infer) the negation of modal notions such as possibility, permission or volition. The resulting reading is a statement in which a deontic-dynamic concept is negated: all these examples pertain to possible or desirable actualization of actions (Lyons 1977: 823).

In the emergence of the negative modal marker use, lexicalization and grammaticalization are again tightly entwined. The meaning of the idiom ‘not be raised as an issue’ shifted to negation of dynamic or deontic modality. Example (20) shows that the negative modal marker use of there be no question could also be followed by finite clauses in Late Modern English.
(20) there was no question that he personally was to capture and fight the great machine. (CLMETEV, 1850-1920)

In (20), the proposition contains the dynamic modal was to expressing subject-inherent necessity (Palmer 2001), which is negated by there was no question.

3.4. Present-day English

For Present-day English, we follow up only the patterns with no question, as it was these that acquired grammatical modal meaning in Late Modern English. The main aim of this section is to systematize the functional-structural patterns realized by clauses with no question in Present-day English, to complete the developmental picture traced in the previous sections. Our 250 token random sample contained 228 clauses, with the existentials dominating strongly with 226 tokens. They appeared almost exclusively sentence-initially, viz. in 97.3%. The remaining two clausal structures contained I have no question followed by a prepositional phrase with about. The discussion of the data sample will focus on the existential examples. Table 2 represents the distribution of lexical(ized) and grammaticalized uses across the sample.