Based on the grammaticalization theory suggesting that the grammatical morphemes are developed gradually out of lexical morphemes, this article maintains that the diverse Russian modal auxiliaries(modals) not only have been developed or changed in meaning out of lexical items, but also have been gradually shifted to grammatical status, although the stages of the development differs according to the perspectives. Russian modal meanings are expressed by various morphological, syntactic, and lexical categories. While in English and German the modals have specific morpho-syntactic properties and are well established in grammar, in Russian the category of modals is not an established notion and is treated as a lexical phenomenon. It means that the modal system of Russian is not grammaticalized as the Germanic system is. Russian modals exhibit diverse morphological and syntactic manifestations. Russian modal auxiliaries, which are served as predicates in sentence and can be combined with a main verb, can take the forms of verbs, adjectives or adverbs. Personal modals require a subject in the nominative, while impersonal modals require a subject in the dative. Thus, they do not form a closed set and can only be determined by being located on a grammaticalization chain extending from content words with a lexical meaning to function words with a grammatical meaning. In this way, auxiliation can be understood as a partial phenomenon from lexical-syntactic expressions to free-grammatical expressions of a concept. This article tries to examine through the five mechanisms of semantic change, proposed by Bybee et al.(1994); metaphorical extension, inference or the conventionalization of implicature, generalization, harmony, and absorption of contextual meaning. Among the modals only dolžen and moč’ can express epistemic modality owing to metaphorical extension. The motion verb idti/xodit’ alone could not proceed from spatial meaning to modal auxiliary's meaning, but with the suffix -sja through metonymic inference. The modal predicates dol en and nel’zja lost specific features of meaning and thus show generalization in meaning and specialization in function. Having examined the mechanisms of grammaticalization, this article compiles the results of stages in the following table. In conclusion, with the grammaticalization theory we could not only categorize the modal auxiliary system more insightfully, but also explain why these modals are so different from English and German counterparts. The modal system of Russian is not as grammaticalized as these counterparts, but the development of modals in Russian shows very interesting gradual transitional evolution from a lexical status into more or less grammatical status as well as the interference phenomena with diverse levels and types of grammaticality.

Based on the grammaticalization theory suggesting that the grammatical morphemes are developed gradually out of lexical morphemes, this article maintains that the diverse Russian modal auxiliaries(modals) not only have been developed or changed in meaning out of lexical items, but also have been gradually shifted to grammatical status, although the stages of the development differs according to the perspectives. Russian modal meanings are expressed by various morphological, syntactic, and lexical categories. While in English and German the modals have specific morpho-syntactic properties and are well established in grammar, in Russian the category of modals is not an established notion and is treated as a lexical phenomenon. It means that the modal system of Russian is not grammaticalized as the Germanic system is. Russian modals exhibit diverse morphological and syntactic manifestations. Russian modal auxiliaries, which are served as predicates in sentence and can be combined with a main verb, can take the forms of verbs, adjectives or adverbs. Personal modals require a subject in the nominative, while impersonal modals require a subject in the dative. Thus, they do not form a closed set and can only be determined by being located on a grammaticalization chain extending from content words with a lexical meaning to function words with a grammatical meaning. In this way, auxiliation can be understood as a partial phenomenon from lexical-syntactic expressions to free-grammatical expressions of a concept. This article tries to examine through the five mechanisms of semantic change, proposed by Bybee et al.(1994); metaphorical extension, inference or the conventionalization of implicature, generalization, harmony, and absorption of contextual meaning. Among the modals only dolžen and moč’ can express epistemic modality owing to metaphorical extension. The motion verb idti/xodit’ alone could not proceed from spatial meaning to modal auxiliary's meaning, but with the suffix -sja through metonymic inference. The modal predicates dol en and nel’zja lost specific features of meaning and thus show generalization in meaning and specialization in function. Having examined the mechanisms of grammaticalization, this article compiles the results of stages in the following table. In conclusion, with the grammaticalization theory we could not only categorize the modal auxiliary system more insightfully, but also explain why these modals are so different from English and German counterparts. The modal system of Russian is not as grammaticalized as these counterparts, but the development of modals in Russian shows very interesting gradual transitional evolution from a lexical status into more or less grammatical status as well as the interference phenomena with diverse levels and types of grammaticality.

Necessity, Possibility, Modal Auxiliaries(Modals), Etymons, Mechanisms of Grammaticalization