Modal systems in historical Slavic languages: formal semantics, microvariation, diachronic change, and language contact

01/03/2018 to 28/02/2022

The project studies the meaning of words expressing necessity, possibility and futurity in the Slavic languages of the 14-17 centuries. It is known that during that time, interesting meaning changes occurred in the respective grammatical subsystems within the Slavic language family. It is also known that various Slavic languages affected each other, and were affected by language contact with languages of other families as well. The current project applies the mathematical-logical methods for analyzing meaning to the actual historical texts of the late Middle Ages and Early Modern times, and by doing so, will reveal the micro-differences in the development of different Slavic languages and the effects of language contact.