Mauritian root modals are raising verbs

Abstract In Mauritian Creole, the forms kapav and bizin are interpreted as epistemic or root modals depending on where they appear. They express root modality before the verb and epistemic modality preceding TMA markers. I argue that Mauritian Creole root modals are raising verbs that select VoiceP. I show that, like raising verbs, root modals: (1) are bi-clausal, (2) permit expletive subjects, and (3) can have wide/narrow scope over quantified subjects. I further argue that epistemic bizin and kapav are not verbs at all by showing they do not share the properties illustrated of their root counterparts. I conclude that bizin and kapav are vocabulary items that spell out distinct syntactic heads; their different modal flavours derive from their scopal relations.