Chance and Necessity in Language Evolution

This paper undertakes a diachronic analysis of modal systems in English, Dutch, and French from the perspective of chance and necessity in biological evolution. It is proposed that the initial impetus for language change originates from accidental alterations in the featural specification of lexical items, analogous to genetic mutations arising by chance. Once a particular featural shift occurs, subsequent changes follow as a matter of necessity, driven by the grammatical logic of the modified featural configuration. The dynamic of this mechanism is observable in the historical resetting of parametric values associated with modals in the three languages under investigation. Notably, each phase in language evolution unfolds within the constraints imposed by Universal Grammar.