Impact of the meanings of the verb močʹ on its ability to form past tense and perfective
Impact of the meanings of the verb močʹ on its ability to form past tense and perfective

Summary/Abstract: It has long been noted that močʹ – smočʹ ‘can, be able to, may’ is an unusual aspectual pair, yet močʹhas been commonly treated as having three meanings: alethic, deontic and epistemic. The articleabandons this traditional treatment and identifies seven distinct meanings of the verb močʹ: internalability, permissive, epistemic, warning, perceived right, permission to begin, and external possibility.Their distinctions are not only semantic but also prosodic and in their ability to have a past tenseform and/or to form a perfective based on smočʹ.

• Details
• Contents