Features of expression of modal meanings in 16th-century biblical translations created on the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

The paper deals with the features of expression of some modal meanings in the Masoretic text of the book of Genesis by means of particles and the special construction of infinitivus absolutus, which serves to express modality in Hebrew. The ways of translating into Slavic languages in 16th-century bibles created on the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania are considered as well. The data from classical translations - LXX, the Vulgate, and the Czech Venetian Bible - are also used for analysis. The particles were chosen because they are desemantized and do not make considerable changes in the semantics of sentences, but merely specify them. The infinitivus absolutus constructions are a means of expressing modal semantics. They are absent in Slavic languages and require understanding and special translation efforts from the translator. It is concluded that even the translator dealing with sacred texts corrects modal semantics and changes the formal means of its expression, indicating that the modality is understood as a category of a special kind, with unclearly defined borders and a diverse and non-rigid set of means of expression. The analysis of translated texts made using various original texts shows that translators while trying to preserve the spirit and letter of the original or authoritative translation (the Masoretic text, Church Slavonic translation, the Venetian Bible, the Vulgate), nevertheless, consider modality to be a category that can be easily sacrificed in translation, by changing or even eliminating the modal meaning.

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