We might should oughta take a second look at this: A syntactic re-analysis of double modals in Southern United States English

A database of North American double modals and self-repairs from YouTube

“…The DMSR data provide evidence for patterns of negation and question formation that have previously been proposed to be unlikely according to some accounts (e.g., Close, 2004;Hasty, 2012Hasty, , 2014. For example, in this data, double modals are found to exhibit a remarkably flexible syntax in terms of constituent ordering in question forms.…”

“…as well as might could you…, could you might…, and could might you… are attested. The data in the DMSR resource thus may be of interest for theoretical accounts of the syntax and constituency of double modals, which have been proposed to represent single lexical items (Di Paolo, 1989), adverbial modifiers (Labov, 1972), bi-clausal constructions (Nagle, 2003), the specification of a TP (tense phrase; Battistella 1995), or a merged MP (modal phrase) above T (Hasty, 2012(Hasty, , 2014. Additional evidence for the syntactic structure of double modals in the data comes from negative sentences: the two principal negational possibilities are might not could and might could not.…”

“…Double modals have been documented in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Northern England (Beal, 2004;Brown, 1991;Corrigan, 2010) and Caribbean Englishes and creoles (see Zullo et al, 2021 for a summary), but they are a syntactic feature primarily associated with the spoken English of the Southern United States (Bernstein, 2003;Montgomery, 1989Montgomery, , 1998Schneider 2003Schneider , 2004. Due to the rareness of double modal constructions, however, most studies of their geographical distribution, possible combinatorial types, and syntactic behavior in the United States have been based on relatively limited data, such as elicited grammaticality judgments, typically administered in a specific place (e.g., Butters, 1973;Close, 2004;Hasty, 2012Hasty, , 2014Williamson, 2018), or responses to worksheet items asked of informants during the data collection phase of two major 20th-century linguistic atlases: The Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States (LAMSAS, McDavid & O'Cain 1980), and the Linguistic Atlas of the Gulf States (LAGS, Pederson et al 1986-1992. Evidence for multiple modal usage outside the American South, for example, in New England, the Midwest, the mountain states of the West, or the Pacific coast states, is limited (for a few examples, see Antieau, 2006;Di Paolo, 1989).…”

The semantics, sociolinguistics, and origins of double modals in American English: New insights from social media

“…Second, we know relatively little about dialect variation in DM use. Sociolinguists and dialectologists have collected data from a relatively small number of informants, mainly in the American South [ 20 – 22 ], but this data has not been of sufficient quantity to allow for detailed mapping or forms of quantitative sociolinguistic analysis. This gap makes it difficult to understand what factors condition the regional and social distribution of DMs or explain their historical origins.…”

Double modals in contemporary British and Irish speech

“…Although double modals have been widely studied in the past seventy years, questions remain as to their syntactic behavior, semantics and history, as well as to the pragmatic contexts that favor their use, the inventory of possible double modal types and their geographic distribution in different English varieties. Double modals are of theoretical interest as they represent micro-syntactic variation that may shed light on the status of the verbal phrase: although several proposals have been made as to the constituency relations and phrase structure of double modal constructions (Boertien 1986;Battistella 1995;Hasty 2012; see also Morin et al 2020 for a discussion of double modals from the perspective of Construction Grammar), their ultimate status has not yet been conclusively resolved, and the semantic status of some double modals remains unclear. Pragmatically, most double modal types have been proposed to be restricted to specific contexts: they are used for 'the negotiation of a speaker's wants or needs' in polite, cautious conversation in order to mitigate face-threatening situations (Mishoe & Montgomery 1994: 12; see also Montgomery 1998;Schneider 2005;Hasty 2015).…”