The Semantic Properties of Modal Constructs in English and Hungarian

Abstract

This paper is concerned with Multi-Modal Constructions (MMCs) which appear in certain dialectal variations of English, such as Scots, Jamaican Creole, African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) and Southern dialects of the United States. Modality in Hungarian is viewed through the examples of using the -hAt modal suffix and the -nA conditional suffix.