Same formal pattern, different contact situation, different propagation: evidential vs. deontic NCI constructions in Dutch (contrasted with English)

The grammars of both English and Dutch include nominative and infinitive (or NCI) patterns, consisting of a passive P-C-U verb complemented by a to/te-infinitive, e.g. Eng. be said to, be thought to, be found to, and Du. geacht worden te ‘be considered/supposed to’ and verondersteld worden te ‘be supposed to’. Both languages borrowed them from Latin in the Early Modern age, as loan translations of forms like dicitur and creditur, and introduced them as evidential constructions in scholarly writing. In English the evidential NCI could spread to other genres and become a productive schematic con... Mehr ...