Darbības vārda veids un modalitāte
Verbal aspect and modality

Summary/Abstract: This study is dedicated to the research of aspect and modality, which has not been extensively dealt with in Latvian linguistics and has been treated mainly in connection with the derivation and aspectual meanings of the verb. The current article deals with the mutual interdependence of modal meanings and imperfective/perfective aspect. Albeit Latvian belongs to the so-called aspect languages, it has to be pointed out that deontic and epistemic modality expressed by the five moods prevail over aspectual meanings in Latvian. This fact can be explained by the big amount of grammatical moods in Latvian. The category of five moods shows various kinds of grammaticalization of modal meanings. On the contrary, aspect cannot be considered as grammatical category in Latvian as it depends on the lexical meaning of the verb, the affixes added (prefixes and suffixes) as well as the semantics of the context and situation.

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