# Emerging inferentials in English?

Éric Mélac

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Emerging inferentials in English? A study of the evolving uses of the present perfect and *have to*

Eric Mélac

Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3

Abstract

This paper investigates the evolution of the present perfect and *have to* in English to assess whether these forms
may be considered emerging inferentials. Combining quantitative and qualitative analyses in diachrony and
synchrony, it argues that the two forms may show incipient signs of the grammaticalization of inferential
evidentiality. The present perfect is already fully grammaticalized in its morphology, and highly frequent.
Inferential evidentiality is not part of its meaning, but a slightly rising implicature. The semi-auxiliary *have to* is
less grammaticalized morphologically, but possesses a distinct function that is traditionally called ‘epistemic’, but
is rather ‘logical inferential’. This function is still infrequent, but has been rising steadily in the past decades.
Whether these changes will lead to a fully-developed evidential paradigm is unpredictable, but this study confirms
that evidentiality is a necessary notion to describe English grammar and its evolution accurately.

Keywords: inferential; evidentiality; present perfect; have to; grammaticalization

**1. Introduction**

This paper investigates whether the present perfect and *have to* are developing into grammaticalized inferential markers in English. These forms often appear in sentences involving the speaker's inferential access to information, as in (1) and (2).

(1) Oh! He's **made** me a cup of tea! Little darling. Thank you. (BNC, KBF)

(2) Curtis was staring at the bloodstained shirt, 'I suppose it **has to** have been a firearm, sir?' (BNC GW3)

However, it should be examined whether such inferential interpretations are simply due to contexts,
or reflect the development of a distinct meaning, which could constitute the initial steps towards the
advanced grammaticalization of inferential evidentiality.

Inferentials are part of the broader class of evidentials, and natural languages differ greatly in the
number of evidentials they use, often resorting to polysemous forms with shifting semantic boundaries.
Some languages present evidential distinctions that appear in closed grammatical paradigms
(Aikhenvald 2004 *inter alia*). Lhasa Tibetan, for example, displays a highly grammaticalized evidential
system of inflections and clitics, as illustrated in (3) (from the Tibet Student Corpus, which I collected
in 2011-2012).

(3) ‘bar mdel g.yug-bzhag
By using the inferential perfect suffix -bzhag, the speaker in (3) indicates that he did not see the bomb being dropped, but knows about the event by inference (after seeing its aftermath). If the speaker had witnessed the event, the direct perception suffix -song would have been appropriate instead. If he had only heard about it, he could not have used -bzhag or -song, but would probably have resorted to a factual suffix (-yod red) followed by the hearsay enclitic -ze. Example (3) and its alternatives have no exact equivalents in English, and the evidential specifications will usually be lost in translation (Mélac 2023). However, if an English speaker really needs to specify his/her type of access to information, many lexical or semi-grammatical forms are available. For example, *I figured out + finite clause* may encode an inference, *I saw + non-finite clause* may express a direct perception, and *I hear + finite clause* may denote hearsay.

Evidentiality is a grammaticizable notion, that is, a semantic domain which may attract lexical forms to the right end of the lexicon-grammar continuum. Because English does not possess such evidential inflections or clitics, it is often presented as a language typically lacking grammaticalized evidentials (Aikhenvald 2004: 7–11; de Haan 2013). However, I argue in Mélac (2014, 2022) that many English tools expressing information sources have grammaticalized, at least partially (cf. also Marín-Arrese *et al.* 2022; Whitt 2009). An inferential phrase such as *I guess* has seen its semantic, phonological, and morphological substance erode. It is often reduced in *guess*, and loses its inferential reading when used with other persons or tenses, since *he guesses* or *I guessed* typically refers to finding the truth rather than supposing (compare “**I guessed** he lied” vs “He lied, **I guess**”). These processes of desemanticization, morpho-syntactic loss, and phonetic attrition are typical symptoms of grammaticalization. Many more markers, such as *must*, *seem*, *look like* also partially grammaticalized as they developed an inferential meaning (Mélac 2022). Evidentiality is thus a necessary concept to describe English grammar comprehensively, and this paper will present further arguments for the integration of this notion into English linguistics.

Typological studies have revealed that unrelated languages tend to develop inferentials from similar sources. A common scenario is the emergence of inferential evidentiality through the semantic shifts of forms that have grammaticalized to encode other grammatical notions, notably the perfect aspect or deontic modality (Friedman 2018 *inter alia*). The most frequent ways to express the perfect aspect and deontic modality in present-day English are probably the present perfect and the periphrasis *have to*. To investigate whether these forms are developing inferential extensions, I will conduct synchronic analyses on British and American English (mainly with the BNC and COCA, as well as with sentence

<footnote n="1">¹ The information in brackets specifies the source of the example. When unspecified, the example was elicited.</footnote>
felicity judgements). These analyses will be complemented with diachronic data focusing on American English (19th–21st century), because there is no large, well-balanced British equivalent of the COHA.

This paper aims to contribute to the debates on what current signs may help us predict likely or unlikely scenarios for the future of English (cf. Sanchez-Stockhammer 2015). It is structured as follows. Section 2 presents the literature on inferential evidentiality. Section 3 includes two case studies: the use of the present perfect (3.1), and *have to* in inferential contexts (3.2). Section 4 concludes the paper by assessing whether these forms can be considered emerging inferentials.

## 2. State of the art

### 2.1 A definition of inferential evidentiality

Since Aikhenvald (2004: 149), evidentiality is usually defined as the “grammatical expression of information source”. This definition limits the notion to languages with fully developed paradigms of grammatical evidentials, but such a restriction is debated, because drawing a line between what is grammatical or lexical is neither simple nor consensual. Proponents of an extended definition of evidentiality argue that many lexical items serve a similar function as the inflections of so-called ‘evidential languages’. From a functionalist perspective, these items deserve to be investigated and contrasted. Adopting this approach, Boye & Harder (2009) consider evidentiality a “functional-conceptual substance domain”, thus comparable to modality or temporality, and include linguistic forms located at any point on the lexicon-grammar continuum. Ekberg & Paradis (2009) propose to expand the definition further by including any linguistic means that may communicate information sources, even when those are merely inferred by the hearer/reader.

This paper examines whether there are incipient signs that English may develop a fully grammaticalized evidential system in the future. English is the most widely investigated language, but evidentiality is usually not considered necessary to describe its grammar.<fnref n="2" /> However, I argue that the reason why evidentiality is under-investigated in English comes from a regrettable, yet persistent, conflation of this notion and epistemic modality (i.e. the expression of a degree of certainty or reliability).<fnref n="3" /> It is inaccurate to claim that “reduced reliability [is] inherent in indirect evidentials” (Squartini 2016: 62), because indirect evidentials associated with a full assertion are not uncommon. Some markers combine evidential and epistemic features, but many markers are only epistemic or only evidential. For example, Lhasa Tibetan inflection *-pa *’dra* is both inferential and epistemic, *-bzhag* is only inferential, and *a yin/yod* only epistemic (Mélac 2024). In English as well, some forms express

<footnote n="2">² The term is absent or barely mentioned in most English grammar books (Aarts 2011; Huddleston & Pullum 2002 *inter alia*)</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ Many authors hold very different views on the links between evidentiality and epistemic modality (see de Haan 2001; Nuyts 2017; Squartini 2016 *inter alia*).</footnote>
both the speaker's inference and uncertainty, while others the speaker's inference and certainty, and yet
others only uncertainty without specifying any type of access to the information. For example, *must* is
both epistemic and inferential (in one of its uses), *I see + subordinate clause in the past* is inferential
but not epistemic, and *maybe* is only epistemic. Following are some examples of these forms.

(4) Let me guess, now. This **must** be for the telepaths living in Downbelow, right? (COCA 1998, TV)

The auxiliary *must* in (4) is generally considered ‘epistemic’, because using it makes the sentence less assertive than saying, “This **is** for the telepaths...”. However, I argue that this function of *must* is both epistemic and evidential because it is only felicitous with a certain type of access to information, that is, an inferential context. If the speaker has witnessed a situation but does not remember it precisely, *must* is less appropriate, and another form, such as *I think* is preferable, as in (5).

(5) I'm trying to remember what Joe's flatmate looked like, though. **I think** he had a weird face, a nose that looked broken. (iWeb 2015)
[?"he **must** have had...]

Example (5) confirms that *must* is an epistemic-inferential marker, because the speaker's uncertainty has to originate from his/her inferential reasoning and cannot be due to his/her vague memories.

The use of *I see + subordinate clause in the past* in (6) illustrates how English may express an inferential access without expressing uncertainty.

(6) [...] she saw Luke standing by the window, reading the paper, which she'd left open at the horoscopes. [...]

‘I see you’ve been checking your horoscope.’ (BNC JXV)

Even if the speaker in (6) only knows about the other person's action through indirect evidence (visual cues), no uncertainty is expressed. The use or deletion of *I see* does not make the sentence more or less assertive, since adding “...but I'm not entirely sure” would be infelicitous either way. This form does not express epistemic modality but inferential evidentiality.

Lastly, an adverb like *maybe* encodes epistemic modality but not evidentiality, because it is compatible with all evidential configurations: direct perception (7), inference (8), and hearsay (9).

(7) I think I saw **maybe** one other pickup truck on the road, coming the other way. (COCA 2007, FIC)

(8) I suppose **maybe** he is tired or... has a lot on his mind? (COCA 2014, MOV)
(9) What was prescribed? I don't remember. Codeine, **maybe**. (COCA 2009, TV)

In sum, there are significant links between evidentiality and epistemic modality, as well as abundant
studies exploring them (Cornillie 2009; Nuyts 2017; Mélac 2024b *inter alia*). However, examples like (6)–
(9) show that a clear distinction between the two notions is necessary, and their conflation has led to an
imprecise portrayal of several English markers.

## 2.2 The grammaticalization of inferential evidentiality

Not every scholar agrees on how to classify a form as lexical or grammatical, but the set of criteria
presented in Lehmann (1995 [1982]) is probably the most commonly used to diagnose grammaticalization:

a. integrity, i.e. a grammaticalized form has less semantic substance, phonological complexity, and morphological properties than a lexical form;

b. paradigmaticity, i.e. a grammaticalized form belongs to a closed class of items;

c. paradigmatic variability, i.e. a grammaticalized form is more obligatory;

d. structural scope, i.e. the scope of a grammaticalized form is more reduced;

e. bondedness, i.e. a grammaticalized form tends to bind to its host;

f. syntagmatic variability, i.e. the position of a grammatical form is more fixed.

All these parameters should be considered when assessing the grammaticalization of a form, and their
interconnectedness is largely confirmed by cross-linguistic data. The patterns of grammaticalization of
evidentials in the world's languages are varied, but certain pathways are cross-linguistically recurrent. A
very frequent phenomenon is for inferentials to come from forms that first grammaticalized to express
another semantic domain (Aikhenvald 2011; Mélac & Bialek 2024). The further semantic development of
already grammaticalized forms is usually called ‘secondary grammaticalization’ (Traugott 2002), and fully
grammaticalized inferentials are generally the result of the secondary grammaticalization of a form that
first expressed a notion such as the perfect aspect, or deontic modality.

An example of a perfect form that has become an inferential marker is the inflection *-bzhag* in Lhasa
Tibetan, which comes from Old Tibetan *bzhag* ‘to place/leave [somewhere]’ (Tournadre 1996). The lexical
verb *bzhag* became a perfect marker before acquiring an inferential meaning (Mélac & Bialek 2024).
Several scholars have observed this grammaticalization pathway in various languages, such as Turkic
(Johanson 2003), Slavic (Friedman 1986), or Lezgic languages (Maisak 2021). I will investigate the
hypothetical secondary grammaticalization of inferential evidentiality from the English present perfect in
3.1.

Deontic modality is another common grammatical source for the development of inferential
evidentiality. Because the literature often conflates evidentiality and epistemic modality, this pathway is
often presented as an extension of deontic modality into epistemic modality, but I argue this movement is
rather an extension into inferential evidentiality. This well-established pathway has been found in unrelated
languages such as Abkhaz (Northwest Caucasian), Guayí (Chibchan), and Baluchi (Western Iranian) (Bybee et al. 1994: 204; Kuteva et al. 2019: 318–9; Narrog 2005). The semi-auxiliary *have to* may be the most common deontic form in Present-Day English (Leech 2013 *inter alia*), and I will investigate whether it has developed an inferential function in 3.2.

## 2.3 The inferential uses of the English present perfect and *have to*

Several papers address the link between the present perfect and inferential evidentiality. Izvorksi (1997) argues that the morphology of the present perfect (combining one element of the present and one of completeness) may imply indirect evidentiality (either inference or hearsay), as it may link the description of a past event and its available evidence. She considers the English present perfect different from the perfect of ‘evidential’ languages by its ambiguity, as it needs a sentence adverb like *apparently* to necessarily entail an inferential meaning. Aijmer (1980) compares the present perfect in Swedish and English, and argues that inferential contexts favour this form in both languages. For example, many instances of the present perfect continuous suggest that the speaker infers from present signs a state-of-affairs s/he cannot have witnessed, as in “You **have been eating** garlic.” (Aijmer 1980: 137; cf. also Lindstedt 2000.). It remains slightly unclear to what extent this type of context is frequent, and whether this inferential interpretation is an implicature or a distinct meaning. Ritz (2010) argues that the English present perfect possesses inferential extensions, but only in certain varieties. Focusing on non-standard uses of this form in Australian police media releases, she shows that non-canonical instances are exploited in discourse to indicate that the speaker has indirect evidence of a situation s/he cannot have witnessed. This study has clearly established an inferential extension of the present perfect, and thus confirms how easily the perfect aspect may evolve towards inferential evidentiality. However, it does not show to what extent evidentiality is a useful notion to describe the general uses of the present perfect in standard English. This question is addressed by Corre (2006) and Fryd (2015), who consider evidentiality relevant for interpreting many instances of this form. Corre (2006) argues that the present perfect is polyfunctional, and that its evidential dimension is not limited to the speaker’s observation of a resultant state, but may simply entail that the speaker’s statement rests on some previous observation (either sensory or cognitive). Fryd (2015) refers to the ‘inferential hypothesis’ as a potential motivator for the use of the present perfect. He suggests that markers expressing modal distance, such as *allegedly* or *it would appear* are correlated with the present perfect. This association illustrates a connection between this form and inferential evidentiality. These studies explore the links between the present perfect and evidentiality, but do not really test whether evidentiality is an inherent component of the semantics of this form, which this paper will investigate.

Many grammar books describe *have to* as a deontic periphrasis, and briefly mention a secondary ‘epistemic’ meaning. Without providing details on its use, Huddleston & Pullum (2002: 205–206) state that ‘epistemic’ *have to* is widely found in American English, and still fairly rare in British English (cf.
sentences entailing a resultant state, as in (10), which illustrates a potential bridging context for the grammaticalization of inferential evidentiality.

(10) Oh, look. Someone's left me another toy car to play with. (COCA 1994, TV)

In (10), the speaker did not see anyone leave the toy, but infers the event by seeing its resultant state, that is, the toy sitting there. If the sentence was translated into Lhasa Tibetan, it would be a typical context triggering inferential *-bzhag*.

However, resultativeness is not the only factor motivating the use of the present perfect, and the latter is felicitous in contexts denying resultativeness, such as “I have closed the door, but now it is open” (Declerck 1991: 325). Related to resultativeness, the broad concept of ‘current relevance’ is also often invoked (Kearns 2011: 182 *inter alia*), but is equally disputed. Grice’s (1975: 45) maxim of relation prescribes that whatever we say should be relevant in the present conversation, so ‘current relevance’ cannot singularly characterize the present perfect (Declerck 1991: 340). Could this mean that what is commonly called ‘resultativeness’ or ‘current relevance’ corresponds to inferential uses? This hypothesis is tempting, but not all the occurrences of the present perfect appear in contexts of inference. Example (11) deals with an event that the speaker has directly witnessed.

(11) He **has asked** me to marry him. I am thinking about it. (COCA 1993, MOV)

There is no inferential implicature in (11), as the speaker was obviously present when the action took place. The present perfect is at least not limited to an inferential context, and thus cannot be considered a monosemic inferential. However, it remains to be examined whether its use when the speaker infers the state-of-affairs constitutes a separate function, which would make it a polysemous form with one inferential meaning. In other words, what should be tested is whether inferential evidentiality is one of its distinct meanings or simply a common implicature.

The cancellability test may be used to identify an implicature. If a form's meaning is inherent, it cannot be cancelled by any additional comment. For example, the first reading of (1) is inferential, but if the same sentence were compatible with another type of access to information, such as hearsay, the inferential meaning would be an implicature. And indeed, it is:

(12) Oh! He's **made** me a cup of tea! He's just told me.

Furthermore, the ‘zeugma test’ can be implemented to test polysemy (Cruse 1986: 6). When dealing with two separate meanings, a form cannot be used only once for the two meanings (unless facetiously). If the present perfect (or at least the auxiliary *have*) can appear only once for two coordinated predicates
of distinct evidential configurations (one inferential and one not inferential), this would confirm that inferential evidentiality is just an implicature. In (13), ‘it’ refers to a baseball cap:

(13) I've lost it and found it countless times.

(2024; https://x.com/OliverJia1014/status/1796087387015307521)

The knowledge that the cap is lost is typically accessed by inference, because the speaker can only realize the loss once the cap cannot be found, while finding it involves a direct perception. As the auxiliary *have* may be used only once for an inferential access and a direct perception access, inferential evidentiality is not a separate meaning of the present perfect.

The speaker's inference is therefore not a determining condition for the use of the present perfect. However, if the correlation between this evidential configuration and this form is particularly high, this recurrent inferential implicature might partly motivate its use. To estimate this correlation, I conducted a corpus analysis in the COCA and the BNC. Table 1 presents the step-by-step methodology adopted for each corpus.
<table><caption>**Table 1.** Method to analyse the inferential use of the present perfect from a corpus sample</caption><tr><td>1) Query [have] V-en to get its raw number of occurrences in the entire corpus;</td></tr><tr><td>2) Extract 1,000 random instances of [have] V-en;</td></tr><tr><td>3) Sort the actual present perfects (i.e. when [have] is present and excluding have/has got), calculate their percentage out of the 1,000 instances of [have] V-en, and apply this percentage to the total number of occurrences of [have] V-en in the entire corpus to estimate how many occurrences of the present perfect are expressed with [have] V-en in the entire corpus (n1);</td></tr><tr><td>4) Query [have] * V-en to get its raw number of occurrences in the entire corpus;<sup>5</sup></td></tr><tr><td>5) Extract 1,000 random instances of [have] * V-en;</td></tr><tr><td>6) Sort the actual present perfect, and calculate their percentage out of 1,000 instances of [have] * V-en, and apply this percentage to the total number of occurrences of [have] * V-en in the corpus to estimate how many occurrences of the present perfect are expressed with [have] * V-en in the entire corpus (n2);</td></tr><tr><td>7) Calculate the ratio of have * V-en over have V-en for the expression of the present perfect (R = n2 ÷ n1);</td></tr><tr><td>8) Annotate the present perfect sentences in the [have] V-en sample manually as ‘inferential’, ‘non-inferential’, or ‘ambiguous’ by examining the large context thoroughly until obtaining 300 occurrences that are unambiguously inferential or non-inferential;</td></tr><tr><td>9) Same as step 8 for the [have] * V-en sample until obtaining a number of instances (n2') (unambiguously inferential or non-inferential) which keeps the same ratio R (n2' = 300 x R);</td></tr><tr><td>10) Assemble the samples of steps 8 and 9, and estimate from this new sample the percentage of inferential contexts for the present perfect (as instantiated by [have] V-en and [have] * V-en in the corpus).</td></tr></table>

The manual task of semantic classification required to analyse the large contexts of numerous sentences, and extract only the sentences for which it was clear that the speaker could not have witnessed the state-of-affairs or been reported its existence, but could only have inferred it. The reliability and relative objectivity of my semantic classification were tested by asking a second rater to annotate a sample of 500 sentences from the COCA separately. I used Cohen's Kappa to evaluate our inter-rater agreement. We obtained a score of κ=0.77 for the identification of inferential contexts, which is highly substantial according to the standards proposed by Landis & Koch (1977: 165). Future studies may present more extensive data that might not corroborate my analyses, but I believe this sample offers a valuable first glimpse into some major trends. Following are my results. The 95% confidence intervals (henceforth 95%-CIs) are indicated, confirming statistically significant results.

Approximately 53% (95%-CIs: 47.5%–58.5%) of the present perfect in the COCA (179 out of a sample of 338 unambiguous instances) occur in inferential contexts, and approximately 57% (95%-CIs: 52.1%–61.8%) in the BNC (241 out of 423 unambiguous instances). I did a similar search for the preterite in both corpora (by querying V-ed, which is the abbreviated query for the preterite in the COCA)

<footnote n="5">⁵ It is not feasible to annotate manually all the instances of the present perfect in such large corpora, so I limited my search to two queries. Using [have] * V-en allowed me to include negative and interrogative sentences (with a negative word or a (pro)noun between the auxiliary and the lexical verb), as well as sentences with an adverb separating [have] and V-en.</footnote>
and BNC, and sorting the actual instances in the preterite). The results are that approximately 10.3% (95%-CIs: 7.1%–14.4%) of the sentences in the preterite are unambiguously in an inferential context in the COCA (31 out of 300 unambiguous instances), and approximately 11.7% (95%-CIs: 8.3%–15.9%) in the BNC (35 out of 300 unambiguous instances). These statistics show a strong association between the present perfect and an inferential context in contrast to the preterite. An inferential context may not be necessary for the use of *have*<sub>PSNT</sub> *V*-en, but such a contextual contrast suggests that inferential evidentiality might motivate the choice of this form over the preterite. Evidentiality does not account for all the factors favouring the present perfect, but the notion is worth considering to investigate what influences its use. Contexts may not always be explicit, but the type of information sources is a concrete variable, since a piece of information has to be acquired in one way or another. Evidentiality might thus be a partial alternative to the highly subjective concepts of ‘resultativeness’ or ‘current relevance’, since tests proving that the present perfect is more resultative or relevant in the current conversation are overall unsatisfying (Declerck 1991: 325, 340).

### 3.1.2 Is the present perfect an emerging inferential?

Two conditions are necessary to diagnose the incipient secondary grammaticalization of inferential evidentiality: the form under study should already be grammaticalized (and possibly grammaticalizing further), and an inferential implicature should start conventionalizing. Regarding the first condition, there is abundant literature describing the grammaticalization of the present perfect (Tagliamonte 2000 *inter alia*). This form has undergone all the processes of grammaticalization described by Lehmann (1995 [1982]; cf. 2.2), and now consists of two fully grammaticalized components, namely the auxiliary *have* and a past participle inflection. For the second condition, the increasing frequency of the contexts in which a given meaning is implied is usually a prerequisite of its conventionalization, so a rise of inferential contexts could indicate that its conventionalization is on the way. To examine this question, I have tracked the contexts of occurrence of the present perfect in the COHA with the methodology of Table 1 by extracting a random sample of instances from the following periods: 1820–1849, 1850–1899, 1900–1949, 1950–1999, and 2000–2018. Figure 1 synthesizes the results.
<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 1.** The proportion of the present perfect in inferential contexts (COHA sample)</figcaption></figure>

Figure 1 suggests a slight increase of the use of the present perfect in inferential contexts in American English from the 20th century onwards. The percentage of inferential contexts was below 40% (95%-CIs: 34.5%-41.2%) in the 19th century and slightly above 50% (95%-CIs: 46.1%-54.5%) in the 21st century. The change is clearly not radical, but might indicate a growing specialization of the present perfect towards inferential evidentiality. All conditions are present for an impending conventionalization of this meaning, but it is too soon to claim that the present perfect is an emerging inferential marker. Its inferential reading is not a semantic feature, but only a frequent, slightly rising implicature. If English is to possess a perfect form with a conventionalized inferential feature, what I have examined probably indicates the most likely route, but in the present state of our knowledge, we cannot guarantee that English will indeed walk this path.

## 3.2 Inferential evidentiality and the semi-auxiliary *have to* in English

### 3.2.1 *A semantic analysis*

The periphrasis *have to* is usually presented as a competitor to *must* that has emerged more recently, but is now more frequent. *Have to* has topped *must* in the domain of deontic modality, but so-called ‘epistemic’ *have to* is still rare (Krug 2000: 89; Mair & Leech 2006 *inter alia*). A comparative analysis of the root/epistemic ratio of *must* and [*have*] *to* in the COCA and the BNC corroborates this claim. I extracted a random sample of 500 occurrences for each of these two forms and annotated them as
‘deontic’ or ‘epistemic’.<fnref n="6" /> My estimations suggest that *must* is epistemic in 22.6% (95%-CIs: 19%–26.5%) of its uses while [*have*] *to* in only 2.8% (95%-CIs: 1.5%–4.7%) in the COCA. In the BNC, *must* is epistemic 22.8% (95%-CIs: 19.2%–26.7%), while [*have*] *to* 2.4% (95%-CIs: 1.4%–4.2%).<fnref n="7" />

The ‘zeugma test’ may help us check whether this so-called ‘epistemic’ function is a distinct meaning of a polysemous form, and not an implicature. Example (14) indeed shows that *have to* cannot have scope over two coordinated predicates, once with an inferential reading (‘be contagious’) and once with an ‘epistemic’ reading (‘be put in quarantine’):

(14) *Given its symptoms, this animal **has to** be contagious and **be put in quarantine**.

Although the inferential meaning of *have to* is infrequent compared to its deontic meaning, example (14) confirms that these two uses are distinct, so *have to* is a polysemous marker with one conventionalized inferential meaning.

Inferential *have to* is often semantically interchangeable with *must*. To check some of the previous claims on their differences, I selected eight examples of inferential *have to* or *must* from the COCA and BNC, and substituted one form for the other. I then submitted both the original sentences, and the ‘transformed’ ones to 16 native speakers of American English (n=8) and British English (n=8). The order of sentences was randomized, and each participant was asked to rate each sentence with the following categories: a. ‘sounds perfect’, b. ‘OK in a very specific context (if so, specify)’, c. ‘sounds strange’, d. ‘sounds incorrect’. The sentences were the following (the order of the *must* or *have to* versions was also randomized):

(15) If species change, was there a first person? At first sight, it seems obvious that there **must/has to** have been a first person...

(16) It **must/has to** be exhausting being you.’ [Chuckles] ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Look at how you’re holding your purse.’ ‘So?’ ‘You’re gripping it so tight, your knuckles are white.’

(17) Hey, look! They **must/have to** have dropped it.

(18) No way... You **must/have to** be joking.

<footnote n="6">⁶ An assistant researcher performed the same task, which led to a Cohen’s Kappa agreement score of κ=0.9, i.e. ‘almost perfect agreement’.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ The percentages I presented were calculated by excluding ambiguous cases. Krug (2000: 89) found relatively similar numbers in written British English corpora. The uses of *must* are on average 29% epistemic while epistemic [*have*] *to* represent approximately 2% of its uses (in LOB and FLOB).</footnote>
(19) Come on! There **must/have to** be some explanation.

(20) Oh, you **must/have to** feel sooooooooooo awful...

(21) 'Hello, ma'am.' 'Yes, can I help you?' 'You **must/have to** be Chris's mom.'

(22) Ow! I **must/have to** have stepped on a nail.

Table 2 summarizes the responses for each sentence. The left column in each category corresponds to the raw number of respondents that gave the given answer, and the right column the percentage. The most frequent answer(s) for each line is in bold.

<table><caption>**Table 1.** Responses to the acceptability survey comparing *must* and *have to*</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th colspan="2">a. 'sounds perfect'</th><th colspan="2">b. 'OK in a very specific context'</th><th colspan="2">c. 'sounds strange'</th><th colspan="2">d. 'sounds incorrect'</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>(15a)-must<br>(15b)-have to</td><td><strong>15</strong><br><strong>11</strong></td><td><strong>93.8%</strong><br><strong>68.8%</strong></td><td>1<br>3</td><td>6.3%<br>18.8%</td><td>0<br>1</td><td>0%<br>6.3%</td><td>0<br>1</td><td>0%<br>6.3%</td></tr><tr><td>(16a)-must<br>(16b)-have to</td><td><strong>16</strong><br>4</td><td><strong>100%</strong><br>25%</td><td>0<br>3</td><td>0%<br>18.8%</td><td>0<br>7</td><td>0%<br><strong>43.8%</strong></td><td>0<br>2</td><td>0%<br>12.5%</td></tr><tr><td>(17a)-must<br>(17b)-have to</td><td><strong>15</strong><br>0</td><td><strong>93.8%</strong><br>0%</td><td>1<br>4</td><td>6.3%<br>25%</td><td>0<br>4</td><td>0%<br>25%</td><td>0<br>8</td><td>0%<br><strong>50%</strong></td></tr><tr><td>(18a)-must<br>(18b)-have to</td><td><strong>14</strong><br><strong>12</strong></td><td><strong>87.5%</strong><br><strong>75%</strong></td><td>2<br>4</td><td>12.5%<br>25%</td><td>0<br>0</td><td>0%<br>0%</td><td>0<br>0</td><td>0%<br>0%</td></tr><tr><td>(19a)-must<br>(19b)-have to</td><td><strong>14</strong><br><strong>14</strong></td><td><strong>87.5%</strong><br><strong>87.5%</strong></td><td>2<br>2</td><td>12.5%<br>12.5%</td><td>0<br>0</td><td>0%<br>0%</td><td>0<br>0</td><td>0%<br>0%</td></tr><tr><td>(20a)-must<br>(20b)-have to</td><td><strong>16</strong><br>1</td><td><strong>100%</strong><br>6.3%</td><td>0<br>1</td><td>0%<br>6.3%</td><td>0<br>5</td><td>0%<br>31.3%</td><td>0<br>9</td><td>0%<br><strong>56.3%</strong></td></tr><tr><td>(21a)-must<br>(21b)-have to</td><td><strong>16</strong><br>0</td><td><strong>100%</strong><br>0%</td><td>0<br>2</td><td>0%<br>12.5%</td><td>0<br>7</td><td>0%<br><strong>43.8%</strong></td><td>0<br>7</td><td>0%<br><strong>43.8%</strong></td></tr><tr><td>(22a)-must<br>(22b)-have to</td><td><strong>14</strong><br>0</td><td><strong>87.5%</strong><br>0%</td><td>1<br>2</td><td>6.3%<br>12.5%</td><td>1<br>3</td><td>6.3%<br>18.8%</td><td>0<br><strong>11</strong></td><td>0%<br><strong>68.8%</strong></td></tr></tbody></table>

Several elements may be extracted from this survey. First, although the difference is too small to draw firm conclusions, the overall dialectal results (which do not appear in Table 2) somewhat corroborate a slight American bias (Algeo 2006: 35). The total number of responses 'a. Sounds perfect' for the *have to* versions is 24 for the American respondents (37.5%; 95%-CIs: 25.7%–50.5%), and 19 for the British respondents (29.7% 95%-CIs: 18.9%–42.4%).

Secondly, the *must* version is always preferred and judged 'perfect' by the vast majority of the respondents, with the exception of (19), which is judged equally 'perfect' with *must* or *have to* by 87.5% (95%-CIs: 61.7%–98.5%) of the respondents. This leads me to conclude that although the literature invariably opposes 'epistemic' *must* and *have to*, this is inaccurate, as there does not seem to be any
context where *have to* is preferable. Inferential *must* covers all the space occupied by inferential *have to*, while the latter is more specific.

Thirdly, inferential *have to* is felt as perfectly felicitous by the majority of speakers in sentences (15), (18), (19), but felt as either ‘strange’ or ‘incorrect’ in sentences (16), (17), (21), and (22). Sentence (17b) is judged by half the speakers to be either ‘strange’ or ‘OK in a very specific context’. The contexts suggested by the respondents for this sentence seem to confirm the claim that *have to* cannot be used if the inference occurs in the same time sequence as the state-of-affairs under its scope. Several respondents indeed commented that *have to* is only acceptable if the speaker infers the dropping of the object in a later situation, as “in a crime scene” or “by seeing a crack on it”. This ‘later situation hypothesis’ is all the more attractive that the *have to* versions of (16), (20), (21), and (22) have received a low acceptability rate, and their contexts suggest spontaneous reactions to clues in the speaker’s direct environment. However, claiming that *have to* cannot be used for an inference based on immediately accessible signs is inaccurate. *Have to* is, for example, felt ‘correct’ by most speakers in (19), which is a clear context of immediate inference based on what the interlocutor is saying. *Have to* can indeed encode an inference based on present signs (even sensory cues), but reflects an elaborate pathway of logical thinking. Regardless of the clues, the speaker needs to have weighed several hypotheses before reaching a conclusion when *have to* is used. In (16), (20), (21), and (22), *have to* is unlikely because the contexts suggest mere intuition, and not any elaborate reasoning that allows the speaker to rationally exclude a counter-proposition, what classical philosophy calls ‘dialectal reasoning’ (Plato 399 BC *inter alia*). Most speakers judged (16b) ‘strange’, because the speaker’s inference is explicitly based on the way her interlocutor is holding her purse, and this is typically more intuitive than rational. However, four speakers still found (16b) ‘perfect’, because it remains possible that the speaker has actually gone through dialectal reasoning to reach her conclusion. Similarly, proper names are far more frequently preceded by ‘you must be’ than ‘you have to be’ in English (cf. example 21), because such situations usually involve simple intuition (cf. Serpault 2017: 99–100). However, ‘you have to be + proper name’ is possible if the reasoning process is elaborate enough. In (23), the speaker uses the information given by his interlocutor to deduce his identity logically. The dialectal reasoning is further suggested by the discourse marker *then*.

(23) “Where’s Mr. Peterson?” Jeffrey asked. “I’ve brought him his newspaper.”

“Then you **have to** be Jeffrey.” (COCA 2004, MAG)

These examples indicate that *have to* encodes logical reasoning, and not mere intuition solely based on sensory cues. Other claims on the semantics of inferential *have to*, such as the absence of present clues, do not seem tenable, as these are not necessary conditions to its use but simple implicatures. The terms ‘subjective’ to define inferential *must* and ‘objective’ for *have to* (as proposed by Westney 1995: 56 *inter alia*) should also be avoided. While logic is indeed more universal, and thus more ‘objective’,
than perception and intuition, objectivity is a highly ambiguous term, and inferences are, in essence, not part of shared knowledge. Defining *have to* as ‘logical inferential’ and *must* as simply ‘inferential’ (i.e. possible with any type of inference) is more precise.

The epistemic evaluation implied by *have to* may seem ambiguous. According to Sweetser (1988: 54), *must* expresses a slightly greater degree of commitment than *have to*, while Larreya (2009: 10) argues that *have to* expresses a ‘stronger’ inference. Native speakers tend to perceive a statement with inferential *have to* as less assertive than a non-modalized sentence, but the degree of certainty seems so high that it usually sounds incoherent to express any doubt after a sentence that includes this marker, as in (24).

(24) Kim Jong-il **has to** have ordered it [...] (COCA 2010, NEWS)

[...?but I’m not sure./?but maybe he hasn’t.]

Nevertheless, when looking closely at the contexts of more examples, some signs do indicate that *have to* implies a certain level of doubt, even minimal, as in (25).

(25) Well, there **has to** be another way in. If there is, I'll find it. (COCA 2011, TV)

This sentence would indeed sound slightly odd if ‘has to be’ was replaced by ‘is’, confirming that inserting *have to* may add some level of uncertainty. However, other examples do entail full certainty, such as (26).

(26) Researchers have known that inflammation occurs in the brain, causing cells to respond by releasing cytokines and other soluble proteins that can damage the brain. “So there obviously **has to** be a mechanism to drain these products so they are eliminated from the brain,” says Moore. The question was how.

(2015; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4527918/)

In (26), the use of *obviously* and the larger context indicate that the speaker is certain that the proposition is true. He does not have a direct access to such a ‘mechanism’ and can only infer its existence, but this does not entail any uncertainty. Therefore, so-called ‘epistemic *have to*’ may express quasi-certainty or full certainty, so its epistemic interpretation is only an implicature, while its inferential meaning is inherent. I thus argue that ‘epistemic *have to*’ should be relabelled ‘(logical) inferential *have to*’. Keeping the traditional ‘epistemic’ label for such markers maintains the confusion between evidentiality and epistemic modality, and keeps our knowledge of English grammar imprecise in these domains.
### 3.2.2 *Is have to an emerging inferential?*

The step-by-step processes that have led to the semi-auxiliary *have to* are discussed by several authors (Brinton 1991; Fischer 1994; Ziegeler 2010 *inter alia*). This form is not as grammaticalized as the present perfect, but shows signs of partial grammaticalization.

First, *have to* has eroded phonetically. Its full pronunciation /'hævtu:/ is usually reduced to /'hæftə/ attesting the unvoicing of the fricative /v/ and the weakening of the second vowel. The spelling *hafta* is indeed relatively common when transcribing colloquial English (Bolinger 1980: 293), which confirms both phonetic attrition and coalescence. Semantically, *have* has evolved from a lexical meaning of possession to a deontic meaning, and later to an inferential meaning. The evolution towards inferential evidentiality typically constitutes a further step of grammaticalization as it reflects a process of subjectification (Traugott 1995), that is, the adoption of the speaker's perspective. Deontic *have to* expresses a necessity that is typically due to external circumstances (Palmer 1987: 129), while inferential *have to* encodes an inference by the speaker. Syntactically, *have to* is a semi-auxiliary, as it necessarily has scope over a main verb when it has a deontic or inferential meaning, contrary to lexical verbs (such as lexical *need*), which can typically be complemented by a noun phrase whenever they can also precede an infinitive clause: “he **has to eat**” (deontic or inferential), “he **has food**” (only possession), but “he **needs to eat**” (deontic, or more marginally, inferential), “he **needs food**” (similar meaning). Although *have to* retains most of its lexical morpho-syntactic properties, certain syntactic environments are ungrammatical with this form, which is symptomatic of partial decategorialization. The passive voice is uncommon with lexical *have*, but many examples exist, such as (27).

(27) If there is food to **be had** at home, now is the time for it. (COCA 2018, FIC)

Conversely, the combination of the passive voice with *have to* is ungrammatical. For example, ‘he **has to** eat meat’ cannot be passivized in “*to eat meat is had by him” or “*meat is had to eat”.

The semi-auxiliary *have to* thus presents many signs that its grammaticalization is relatively advanced. Its deontic use remains largely dominant, but it should be examined whether its inferential function is rising. I have annotated a random sample of 500 occurrences of [*have*] *to* per period in the COHA, and calculated the proportion of inferential uses (see Figure 2).
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.** Proportion of inferential uses of *[have] to* (COHA sample)</figcaption></figure>

I found no inferential *have to* before the 20th century, but in the 20th–21st centuries, its frequency keeps rising to reach 3.2% (95%-CIs: 1.8%–5.1%) in 2000–2018.

Several diachronic studies show that one of the latest stages of the grammaticalization of *have to* is the occurrences of inanimate subjects, reflecting a “shift from a deontic meaning of obligation to an epistemic meaning” (Brinton 1991: 22 *inter alia*). The rise of an inanimate subject such as *there* in the existential construction *there [have] to be* may thus point to an increasing use of inferential *have to*. To observe such a shift, I have calculated the proportion of *there [have] to be* vs *there must be* in the COHA (see Figure 3).
<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 3.** Proportion of *there [have] to be* vs *there must be* in the COHA</figcaption></figure>

Figure 3 shows that *there must be* was the only option in the early 19th century, but has been losing ground to *there [have] to be*, notably in the 20th century. However, *there [have] to be* is not limited to an inferential interpretation. In a sample of 500 occurrences of *there [have] to be*, 64% (95%-CIs: 59.6%-68.2%) are inferential in the COCA, and 41% (95%-CIs: 36.7%-45.5%) in the BNC, which is much higher than the average inferential/deontic ratio of *have to*, but also indicates that Figure 3 does not reflect the rise of inferential *have to* per se. This rise, however, suggests a progressing grammaticalization, since the ‘dummy pronoun’ *there* is not only inanimate but also non-referential, and can thus only be the subject of highly desemanticized verbs (Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 1195 *inter alia*).

Another sign of the progressing integration of *have to* in the paradigm of auxiliaries is the rise of
[*have*] to *have* V-en. Krug (2000: 93) argues that “unlike *must*, *have to* does not even display a tendency
for past environments to co-occur with epistemic modality”. This claim cannot be sustained nowadays,
as shown by the acceptability of (15b) and (24). The complementation of *have to* with *have V-en* has
probably developed by analogy with *must have V-en*, which largely favours an epistemic-inferential
reading. In a random sample of 500 occurrences, 93.4% (95%-CIs: 90.9%-95.4%) of [*have*] to *have V-en*
are inferential in the COCA, and 80.2% (95%-CIs: 76.4%-83.6%) in the BNC (calculated by
excluding the few ambiguous cases). To observe whether [*have*] to *have V-en* is gaining ground as a
competitor of *must [*have*] V-en, I have calculated the proportion of these two forms in the COHA (see
Figure 4).
<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4.** Proportion of *have* to *have V-en* vs *must [have] V-en* in the COHA</figcaption></figure>

Despite a low ratio, Figure 4 further reveals a steady rise of inferential *have to*. This form is following the grammatical extension that *must* took many centuries ago: deontic modality > inferential evidentiality.

In sum, *have to* may not be fully grammaticalized from a morpho-syntactic perspective, but is indeed an emerging inferential (even though *must* is still largely dominant for this specific function). *Have to* encodes a specific access to information that involves a certain level of cognitive computation, and thus belongs to the ‘logical’ subcategory of inferential evidentiality. Its compatibility with contexts attesting a high degree of grammaticalization and favouring inferential readings has been progressing for several decades.

**4. Conclusion**

This paper has investigated whether the evolution of the present perfect and *have to* suggests a grammaticalizing inferential function in English. These two forms, which result from the grammaticalization of the lexical verb *have*, allow us to investigate two cross-linguistically recurrent patterns of evidential development.

The present perfect is already highly grammaticalized from a formal perspective, since it is a time-
aspect form involving an auxiliary and a participial inflection that is well-integrated in the paradigm of
the English verbal system. Semantically, it is not clearly inferential, as the speaker's inferential access
to information is not conventionalized, but only frequently implied. This implicature is, however,
particularly salient when comparing the present perfect and the preterite. The diachronic data also show
a slight increase of the use of the present perfect in inferential contexts (estimated as above 50% in late
20th and early 21st centuries in American and British English), which could suggest an incipient
conventionalization of this function.

The semi-auxiliary *have to* has emerged quite recently among the diverse tools available to express inferential evidentiality. Its grammaticalization momentum is different from that of the present perfect in terms of semantics, morphology, and frequency. *Have to* is polysemous, with a distinct logical inferential meaning in addition to its deontic function. Its inferential use is traditionally called ‘epistemic’, but a closer look at the data reveals that epistemic modality is only an implicature while inferential evidentiality is a conventionalized meaning. This semi-auxiliary is not as grammaticalized as the evidential inflections of so-called ‘evidential languages’, but its grammaticalization is progressing, as well as its integration into a paradigm. Its inferential use remains infrequent, but shows a steady rise. The potential next stages could be for *have to* to turn into a full auxiliary, and then into an inferential inflection.

The present perfect thus presents the conditions for the grammaticalization of inferential evidentiality, and *have to* is already a partially grammaticalized inferential marker. This study, however, has limitations, and these phenomena deserve to be investigated with more corpus data and additional raters. It is also worth recalling that grammaticalization theory help us identify recurrent patterns, but cannot predict whether a form will keep on progressing along the grammaticalizationcline. A form might indeed stagnate or fall out of use before conventionalizing an inferential implicature (for the present perfect), or reaching a further morphological stage into a fully grammatical marker (for have to .) The frequency of this function may be increasing in these two forms, but is still too low to claim that English is likely to develop a pervasive system of evidential inflections in the near future. Nevertheless, this study confirms that the English evidential system is not purely lexical and that evidentiality is a dynamic grammaticalization niche. The first steps of widely documented patterns of the grammaticalization of evidentiality are also attested in English, which suggests that this language may one day develop an advanced evidential paradigm. It also indicates that evidentiality deserves more attention for an in-depth description of English in its present state.
## Abbreviations

95%-CIs 95% confidence intervals, BNC British National Corpus, COCA Corpus of Contemporary American English, COHA Corpus of Historical American English, INFR inferential, LV light verb, PFCT perfect, PHAT phatic marker, PSNT present, *V-en* past participle, *V-ing* present participle.

## Acknowledgements

I am grateful to David Lorenz and David Tizón Couto for their invitation to contribute to this special issue, and their precious advice. I warmly thank the two anonymous reviewers for their extremely relevant and useful comments, as well as the English-speaking native speakers who volunteered to respond to the acceptability questionnaire. Finally, my thanks also go to Beatrice Dal Bo and Cyril Mélac, who have been incredibly helpful with the semantic annotation of the corpus sample and the interpretation of the statistics.

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Address for correspondence

Eric Mélac

Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3

Route de Mende

Montpellier 34199

France

[eric.melac@univ-montp3.fr](mailto:eric.melac@univ-montp3.fr)

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6957-944X