ABSTRACT
Like epistemic modals, deontic modals can express speakers’ opinions and attitudes towards a proposition. The development of deontic modals involves pragmatic-semantic factors, such as subjectivity. In this paper, the two-stage development of the deontic modal tioh8 in Southern Min is used to exemplify the pragmatic-semantic impact on the emergence of deontic modals. The modal tioh8 was first reanalyzed from an instrumental preposition to a causative verb, and then to a deontic modal as a result of subjectification. The subjectivity-driven change of the modal tioh8 thus supports the idea that semantic-pragmatic factors are important for deriving deontic modals.
