From aspect to evidentiality: The subjectification path of the French semi-copula se faire and its Spanish cognate hacerse

Abstract

In the literature on evidentiality and epistemic modality, semi-copular verbs have hardly been discussed. One of these unstudied semi-copulas is French se faire (‘become’) , a pronominal verb taking a subject complement. It can be considered a product of the conjoined action of lexicalization and grammaticalization of the reflexive construction. Although its basic meaning is aspectual, expressing a change of state (‘become’), it is nowadays developing a non-dynamic meaning, involving no change of state at all. This paper addresses two central questions: (i) what is the exact meaning effect of se faire compared to other evidential semi-copulas such as sembler and paraître? (ii) how does this usage relate to the other usages of this multilayered verb and how exactly is subjectification taking place? As to (i), it will be shown that, although se faire expresses indirect evidentiality based on inference, it does not express appearance, unlike verbs such as ‘seem’. Rather, it has a factive meaning that comes rather close to what has been called direct evidentiality. As to (ii), it will be argued that, in a first stage, se faire has been increasingly used in contexts that display subjective perspectivation of the change of state. Then, it has lost its dynamic meaning by means of the mechanism of virtual change. On the whole, this evolution attests a new subjectification path leading from aspect (change of state) to evidentiality, which, interestingly, is confirmed by the Spanish cognate verb hacerse (‘become’).