Subjunctive verb forms in GN

The subjunctive verb forms in the German texts that express modality are not as numerous as one might have expected; there are only 26 instances in GN, see table 5.13, plus another 25 instances of the auxiliary werden in subjunctive verb form. N Word F % 1 HAETTE 9 34.62 2 WAERE 8 30.77 3 SEI 3 11.54 4 WUENSCHTE 2 7.69 5 BRAEUCHTE 1 3.85 6 BRAUCHE 1 3.85 7 HAETTEN 1 3.85 8 SEIEN 1 3.85 Total 26 100

Table 5.13 The frequencies of subjunctive verb forms in GN

Not all 26 instances of subjunctive verb forms, however, are used to express modality, i.e. hypothesis or potentiality. Out of the 26 instances, 8 are used in

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reported speech. We find five instances of subjunctive I (Konjunktiv I), i.e. sei, seien, brauche. Of these, one sei is used in a clause expressing potentiality, see example 40.

(40) …, sei es auch gewesen, was es will

The other four subjunctive I verb forms appear in reported speech, clarifying that the writer is only passing on information given by somebody else, not information she herself knows to be true, see examples 41 and 42.

(41) ..., und meinte, ich sei eifersüchtig

(42) Sie sagte, dass dies halt eine ( Art ) von Beziehung sei und sie ihre Freiheit brauche

As with the subjunctive I verb forms in the German language, the subjunctive II verb forms also have two functions. The first use is in reported speech (or reported thought), and we find four examples for this function in our corpus, see 43 to 45 below.

(43) Dann sollte sie mir aber auch signalisieren, ich hätte die „ Macht “ (44) ..., aber sie meinte, es wäre für mich sehr langweilig

(45) ... meinte er dann, dass ich wohl was falsches da hinein interpretiert hätte. Er hätte mir alles gesagt.

The second function is the expression of hypothesis or potentiality, i.e. to ex- press epistemic modality. There are 17 instances in GN; some examples are given in 46 to 48 below.

(46) …, und das wäre dann alles kaputt (47) Neulich hätten wir uns beinahe geküsst (48) Das wäre schon aus finanzieller Sicht besser

In conclusion, 8 out of 26 subjunctive verb forms are used in reported speech, not to express epistemic modality. It is striking that although there are 26 in- stances, these are realized by only four different verbs, i.e. by haben, sein, wünschen and brauchen.

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A fifth verb that frequently occurs in the subjunctive II verb form in GN is werden. The subjunctive form of the auxiliary verb werden, i.e. würden, has been annotated as auxiliary in the German part of the EDNA corpus for practical reasons, not as both auxiliary and subjunctive. Table 5.14 demonstrates the fre- quency of würden in its inflected verb forms and shows that würden is more frequent than any of the other subjunctive verb forms discussed above.

N Word F %

1 WUERDE 22 88 2 WUERDET 2 8 3 WUERDEN 1 4

Total 25 100

Table 5.14 The modal auxiliary werden in subjunctive verb form in GN

The subjunctive II verb forms of werden serve two functions as well. The first is to express hypothesis or potentiality; there are 17 instances of this in GN, see examples 49 to 51.

(49) Sicherlich würde ich ja in ein paar Monaten wieder zu Hause sein (50) Ich würde so gerne mit ihm darüber sprechen

(51) Was würdet ihr mir raten?

The second function is the use in reported speech or thought, and although not as frequent as the first function, there are eight instances of this in GN, see ex- amples 52 to 54 below.

(52) Die meisten denken, ich würde einfach nur kotzen, um abzunehmen (53) ..., und ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob ich es nicht noch mal tun würde (54) Ich habe ihr gesagt, dass dieses Modell von alle zwei Wochen für mich

auch nicht in Frage kommen würde

The subjunctive I and II are not used frequently in the corpus to express epis- temic modality, and of all the instances of subjunctive verb forms, about 1/3 is used in reported speech rather than in hypothetical clauses. Is it possible that the subjunctive is not used in spoken language as much as in written lan- guage? Fabricius-Hansen et al. (2006, 529) state that in written language, the

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subjunctive is predominantly used in reported speech, which is not the case in the EDNA corpus. The results in the EDNA corpus do, however, support a claim in Götze and Hess-Lüttich (1999, 132) that in spontaneous spoken lan- guage, a form of würde is predominant in reported speech: “In Textsorten spontan gesprochener Sprache gilt: bei der indirekten Rede herrscht die würde- Form vor.“

5.4.5 Grammatical metaphor

In what follows, the focus is a qualitative study of the grammatical metaphors in the EDNA corpus which are used to express epistemic modality. This is done by way of a superordinate clause which adds a degree of likelihood to the subordinate clause, instead of a modal auxiliary or adjunct which could serve the same purpose. Only those superordinate clauses which have the 1st person singular pronoun as subject have been annotated as grammatical meta- phor, and a few expressions which serve the same function, e.g. it seems, it ap- pears in EN and mag sein in GN. Table 5.15 below shows the results.

75 N Word EN F % Word GN F % 1 IKNOW 13 19.40 ICHWEISS 21 38.18 2 ITHINK 13 19.40 ICHBINMIRSICHER 4 7.27 3 IMSURE 7 10.45 ICHFRAGEMICH 4 7.27 4 IBELIEVE 5 7.46 ICHGLAUBE 4 7.27 5 IFEEL 5 7.46 ICHHABEDASGEFUEHL 4 7.27 6 IFEELLIKE 5 7.46 ICHDENKEMIR 2 3.64 7 IKNEW 5 7.46 ICHNEHMEAN 2 3.64 8 IGUESS 4 5.97 ICHBINSICHER 1 1.82 9 ITHOUGHT 3 4.48 ICHBINUEBERZEUGT 1 1.82 10 ITSEEMS 3 4.48 ICHDACHTEMIR 1 1.82 11 BELIEVEME 1 1.49 ICHHABEANGSTDASS 1 1.82 12 IREALIZE 1 1.49 ICHHABEBEDENKEN 1 1.82 13 ISUPPOSE 1 1.49 ICHHABEDIEVERMUTUNG 1 1.82 14 ITAPPEARS 1 1.49 ICHHABEKEINEAHNUNG 1 1.82 15 ICHHATTEMIREINGEBILDET 1 1.82 16 ICHHOFFE 1 1.82 17 ICHSAGSEUCH 1 1.82 18 ICHVERMUTE 1 1.82 19 ICHWUSSTE 1 1.82 20 MAGSEIN 1 1.82 21 MIRISTKLAR 1 1.82 Total 67 100 Total 55 100

Table 5.15 The frequency of superordinate clauses used as grammatical meta- phor to express epistemic modality in the EDNA corpus

We see that although in the English newsgroup texts there is a higher total number of grammatical metaphors, the variety of clauses is smaller than in the German texts, where writers use more different main clauses to express a de- gree of probability. Just as with the modal auxiliaries and adjuncts, these grammatical metaphors convey a stronger or weaker likelihood that the fol- lowing statement is true.