English verbs selecting Bare forms

[Robert Levine]

I've encountered `durst' as well, exclusively in pre-Shakespearean
literature. If I recall correctly, there were a few tokens that didn't
occur before negatives but did select the bare stem form; if so, this
suggests that the odd confinement of the `dare' that selects the bare
form to negative contexts when no inversion is involved is fairly
recent.

Interestingly, there's some kind of polarity sensitivity that these
quasiauxiliary forms show; they don't need to actually precede a
negative adverb:

(1)a. I don't imagine that anyone need worry too much about Leslie's
	complaints.
   b. I can't imagine that Robin would dare say something like that
	without a lawyer being present.

I don't know of any other auxiliary(-like) elements that display this
property. All in all, the need/dare property set strikes me as somewhat
mysterious.

Bob