Semantics Of Indirect Moods In Russian And Kalmyk Languages: Comparative Analysis

Abstract

The article studies the semantics of indirect moods in the Kalmyk and Russian languages. The subject of research is comparative analysis of categorical meanings of indirect moods and their contextually determined semantic features in the Kalmyk and Russian languages. The purpose of the work is to identify semantic patterns which create a complex structure of the system of indirect moods in Kalmyk and Russian, to describe the grammatical meaning of their forms using literary works by Russian and Kalmyk writers extracted from the National Corpus of Russian and Kalmyk languages. The category of mood in both languages is a system of opposing mood forms and their categorical meanings which are a complex unity of interrelated parts. The main semantic feature of moods is modal differentiation. In both languages, there are two similar moods: indicative and imperative ones. Each mood has its own categorical meaning: reality (indicative), inclination (imperative), assumption and possibility (subjunctive), desire and intention (optative), warning and fear (apprehensive). Indirect moods differ from each other in morphological features, reference to specific individuals. All of them can have various aspects of meanings and a dominant modal meaning. Data from the National Corpus of the Russian and Kalmyk languages were used as research materials.