German-Russian parallel corpus as an instrument for studying the modality of obligation: Оn semantic differences between müssen and sollen

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to clarify the semantics of two German verbs expressing the modality of obligation (müssen and sollen) by comparing their translation equivalents from the German-Russian parallel subcorpus of the Russian National Corpus (RNC). These translation equivalents represent a set of Russian words and constructions with a potentially modal meaning, including those not recorded in bilingual and explanatory dictionaries. Some Russian lexical units are used as translation equivalents only for müssen or only for sollen, while others are preferred for one of these verbs, and this preference is not accidental. The distribution of translation equivalents indicates that the verb müssen expresses some absolute necessity, and sollen a kind of relational necessity. Relational necessity is established on the basis of certain correlations. In the ontological plane, it is the correlation represents some logic of the development of events. In the deontic plane, it is the will of another person or one’s own idea of causal relationships. In the communicative plane, it is someone else’s statement. The weakness of necessity, usually recognized as a feature of the modal meaning expressed by the verb sollen, as opposed to the more hard meaning of necessity expressed by müssen, is secondary: it is a potential effect of primordial relationality.