ENGLISH TRANSLATIONAL EQUIVALENTS OF THE MACEDONIAN POTENTIAL MOOD WITH PRAGMATIC FUNCTION

Abstract

This paper presents the  results of the  investigation of the  English equivalents of the bi-construction used in pragmatic functions.  The bi-construction in Macedonian is the main  marker  of  the  potential  mood  encoding  hypotheticality  and  volition.  Unlike English,  which  employs  modal  verbs  to  render  these  meanings,  the bi-construction recruits both modal and lexical verbs in its structure. In non-conditional uses,potential mood  forms  may  perform  a  range  of  pragmatic  functions  related  to  politenessand hedging. The goal of the investigation is to determine whether the pragmatic functiontends to be performed by bi-constructions based on modal or lexical verbsand whether this influences the choice of the translational equivalent in English. The results show that potential mood bi-constructions containing a modal verb are more frequent. The analysis confirmed the hypothesis that pragmatically used bi-constructions tend to be translated with the modal verb would. Moreover, there seems to exist a strongsemantic correlation  between  the bi-construction  based  on  a  particular  modal  verb  and  its English equivalent: thus saka chooses would, može–could, and treba–should.