Modal remoteness in a grammatical description of Danish from 1901

In the paper it is described how the Danish grammarian Hylling Georg Wiwel (1851-1910) already in 1901 anticipated the concept of “modal remote-ness” by analyzing the modal uses of the Danish Past tense. Subsequently, it is demonstrated how the ideas of Wiwel have changed the Danish gram-matical tradition with important consequences for even very recent grammars. Finally, it is discussed whether the Danish experiences have some relevance for the grammatical description of the similar Italian phenomena.Keywords: Modal Remoteness; Danish Verbal System; Past Tense; H.G. Wiwel; E. Hansen; L. Heltoft.