The paper addresses the semantic shifts affecting predicate lexis. The tendencies are as follows: Verbs governing an object clause acquire meanings of storing, receiving, and releasing information, even if they have different meanings in other syntactic contexts; verbs governing the infinitive become modals or quasi modals within this structure; evaluative adjectives acquire modal meaning in certain syntactic and pragmatic conditions; neutral nouns acquire evaluative meaning that later becomes predominant. All these tendencies reflect a more general semantic movement from concrete to abstract.