E. Grammatical Modality and Means of Expressing It
Grammatical or syntactic modality is of common nature in English and Ukrainian as well. It expresses actions viewed upon as real, unreal, optative, hypothetic, conditional, incentive, interrogative, etc. The principal means of expressing such actions are mood forms of the verb (indicative, imperative and subjunctive). These mood forms are realized respectively in declarative, interrogative and negative sen-
tences of wishful, hypothetical or conditional modality.1 As conveying the meanings, which are pertained to different verb forms in the indicative and partly in the imperative mood does not present any difficulty for our students, it is expedient to pay attention, at least shortly, to the means of expression and rendering in English and Ukrainian of optative or wishful (бажальна), incentive (спонукальна) and subjunctive (умовна) modality.
1. Ways of Expressing the Meanings of Optative Modality
Optative (бажальна) modality in English and Ukrainian serves to express the wish of the speaker to establish the correspondence of content of the utterance to reality. The main ways and means of expressing this type of modality in English are syntactic. They include characteristic sentence structures, the use of auxiliary and modal verbs (to be, were, should, could, let, would, etc.), the ascending or descending utterance intonation. In Ukrainian apart from the modal verbs and intonation (prosodic means) some specifying modal particles are widely used. The most common of them are б/би, аби, щоб/щоби, коб/и/, бодай, десь, либонь, хай, хоч, хоч би,чи не, коли б, якби and others Cf:
«Я її либонь побачу.» «І might see her there.»
(M. Вовчок)
«Чи не краще вийти на- «Would it not be better to meet
зустріч?» (М.Коцюбинський) them halfway?»
Optative modality is used in both languages in simple and composite sentences:
If only it could always be От якби завжди була весна.
spring. (Galsworthy) /От коли б завжди була весна/.
«Ah. I wish I were fifteen «Ах/От якби мені знову
again.»(Maugham) було п 'ятнадцять років.»
То express wish with implied regret or unreal wish the stative жаль or шкода may be used in Ukrainian:
«I wish I had met him when he «Шкода, що я не зустріла
was younger.» (Greene) його, коли він був молодшим.»
1 See more about grammatical/syntactical modality in: Сучасна українська літературна мова. Синтаксис. За ред І.К. Білодіда. - К.: Наукова думка, 1972, р. 125-137.
| tural transformation: «Якби ви тільки змусили його хоч посміхнутись.» The meaning of optative modality expressing desire is very close to incentive modality expressing non-categorical demand, requestor threat. Optative meanings are usually realized in English via the modal verbs should, would, may/might, could, and the semantically corresponding infinitive, whereas in Ukrainian the particles щоб, бодай.хай and the prosodic means (sentence intonation/stress) are mostly employed here: |
| 2. Incentive(спонукальна) modality is more often expressed in English through the modal verb let. These meanings are usually rendered into Ukrainian with the help of the imperative mood forms of the verbal predicate and the particle хай/нехай: |
| The meaning of the second sentence, for example, may have a fuller expression when it is rendered into Ukrainian antonymically: Хто не заробляє хліба, той не повинен і їсти його./Хто не робить, той не їсть. Ukrainian incentive sentences introduced by the particle хай/ нехай are usually translated into English with the help of the modal verb let as well: |
| «I wish I could gather knowledge as carelessly...» (Maugham) |
«Хотів би/міг би я отак безтурботно/ліньки набувати знань...»
Optative modality is very often used to express incentive (спонукальні) meanings which are expressed in English simple and composite sentences with the help of the so-called subjunctive I mood form (synthetic or analytical). In Ukrainian the imperative mood of the verb and the particles хай, бодай, що бare mostly used for the purpose. They express the meaning pertained to the modal verb may in the subjunctive (I) mood as in the following sentences:
«... my gates are open to real «... обійми мої відкриті
life, bring what it may». (B. Sha w) перед життям, хай несе воно
що завгодно./Що_б воно мені не несло.»
| «May you both be happy.» (Hornby) |
«Хай вам обом щастить./ Бажаю вам обом щастя./ Щасти вам обом.
Some optative meanings expressed in Ukrainian through such modal particles as бодай,for example, may not be easy to fully and completely express in English which has no such fine means (Confer the Shevchenkinian «Веселі здалека палати, Бодай ви терном поросли.»).
The Optative meaning of the concluding line was rendered by John Weir with the help of the modal verb may. The mansion, too, from far a way - May nettle choke the cursed place!
Optative modality in both languages may have different forms of expression. Its formal means in Ukrainian include the corresponding mood forms of the verb (predicate) and the particle б/би. The particle identifies some subtypes of the subjunctive mood meanings (the suppositional, the conditional, etc.):
«I would he were a tree or «Хотів би я, щоб він був
flower.» (H. S. Leigh) деревом чи квіткою.» (От якби
| «If only you could make him laugh.» (M.Twain) |
він був деревом чи квіткою).
«Тільки б ви змогли викликати в дядька посмішку/ Якби тільки ви змогли викликати в дядька посмішку.»
The last sentence, naturally, can be translated without any struc-
«Щоб нікому 'ні 'словечка.» (А.Головко)
«Щоб на 'світанку був 'тут!» (Г.Тютюнник)
God said, "Let Newton be!» and all was light. (A.Pope)
Let him that earns the bread eat it. (Bibl. Saying)
Let each tailor mend his own coat. (Saying)
Нехай стара мати Навчається, як дітей Нових доглядати. (Т Шевченко)
Нехай мати усміхнеться. Заплакана мати. (Т Шевченко)
«But no one should ever know/learn anything about it.»
«But you should (are to) be here at daybreak!»
Бог сказав: «Хай буде Ньютон!» і навкруги розвиднилось.
Нехай той, хто заробляє свій хліб, і споживає його (nop. Хто не працює, той не їсть).
Хай кожен займається своїми справами.
Let the old mother learn How such kind of children... must be cared for by her. (Transl. ByJ.Weir)
Let once more our mother smile. Our tear-ridden mother. (Ibid.)
| in simple and composite sentences have in Ukrainian their morphological and semantic equivalents. Constantly distinguishing among them is that same particle б/би or the conjunction якби, which help to render the meanings of the suppositional and the conditional mood forms into Ukrainian. The use of the modal particle or the conjunction is predetermined by the meaning of the Ukrainian verb and not by the mood or tense form of its English lexical equivalent, which may express actions referring both to present and to future as in the following sentences: |
| Similarly rendered are also meanings expressed by the subjunctive II and conditional mood forms of the verb, which may refer to present, past or future. These forms of the verbal predicate have their corresponding paradigmatic equivalents in Ukrainian. Cf.: |
| The clauses which express the subjunctive meanings in English and Ukrainian may have no introductory/connecting conjunction if (якби, коли б): |
| The past subjunctive II (had been prowling) and the past conditional mood paradigm (would have been seen) have in these sentences their corresponding verb forms in Ukrainian. These subjunctive |
Incentive modality may also be expressed in Ukrainian with the help of other modal particles. One of the often used for this purpose is ж/же, the meaning of which is usually expressed in English through the modal verb let and the corresponding intonation:
Походимо ж. моязоре. Oh let us wander still, my fate...
(Т.Г.Шевченко) (Transl. by J. Weir).
English incentive meanings can also be expressed through the combination of the particle long with the modal verb may, which together with the corresponding intonation of the sentence express the meaning close to the Ukrainian exclamatory sentences with the particle хай or the particles хай же: Long live and prosper our Motherland! May our Motherland live long! Хай/хай же живе і квітне наша Батьківщина!
3. The means of expression as well as those of rendering sub
junctive modality are mostly common with those employed to ex
press optative modality. They are in English the modal verbs could.
should, would, might or the expressions would rather, would
sooner. For example: / would rather come tomorrow than today.
He would sooner resign than take part in such dishonest business
deals. (Kerr) These modal verbs are also used to express the corre
sponding subjunctive meanings in Ukrainian simple and composite
sentences:
«Пішов би в огонь і воду.» «Не would go through thick
(Гончар) and thin/through many trials.»
«Вам би милосердною «You would perfectly sujt for
сестрою бути. (Ibid) a hospital nurse.»
4. The expression of subjunctive modality in the composite sen
tence of the two languages does not differ from that in their simple
sentences. Allomorphism, i.e., divergence is observed only in the al
ready mentioned formal expression of incentive meanings with the
help of the so-called subjunctive I mood; the latter does not correlate
with its Ukrainian grammatical and partly semantic expression. For
example: It is necessary that you (should) come a couple of days
before the others. (Kerr) Необхідно/треба, щоб ти приїхав за кілька
днів раніше від інших.
The subjunctive I form should come or simply come (It is necessary that you come) used for any person in singular or plural has in Ukrainian the only equivalent verb form in the indicative mood (приїхав).
Other English synthetic and analytical subjunctive mood forms
It would be madness to start in management unless one had at least three plays. (Maugham)
«Should Carry come, ask her to wait."(Dreiser)
«But if they had been sent by my people to take me away, then I should not hide." (O'Dell)
«If he had any sense, he'dshut his eyes.» (Maugham)
«Were I less attached to you, I might pretend to gloss it over.» (Cronin)
«... had any stranger been prowling round the house, he would have been seen by the servant or the keepers.» (Wilde)
Було б просто божевіллям братись за організацію трупи, доки нема/не маєш хоча б трьох п'єс.
«На випадок, якби прийшла Керрі, попросіть її зачекати.»
Але якби вони були послані нашими, щоб забрати мене, то не треба було б мені ховатись.»
«Коли б він був розумнішим. він би заплющив на це очі.»
«Був би я менш прихильним до вас, я б може й прикрасив ие./Будь я не так прихильний»
«...никав би був хтось сторонній попід будинком, його був би помітив слуга чи то сторожі.»
mood forms under the pressure of centuries long domination of Russian in Ukraine are mostly substituted for simple past verb forms. Being lexically equivalent and structurally much like their English paradigms, these Ukrainian subjunctive mood forms present an excellent morphological means of expression and must not be neglected when rendering such type of meanings into Ukrainian.