Modal auxiliaries in English and Swedish A contrastive study of English can/could, may/might, and Swedish kunna and få

Abstract

The results suggest that English can and could, when expressing dynamic modality, are mainly translated as respectively kan and kunde. When omitted in the translation, the main verb with which they co occur is often a verb of perception, such as see, or a private verb involving a thought process, like understand or remember. Epistemic might was mostly translated as kanske. Swedish kan and kunde, when expressing dynamic modality, were mostly translated as can and could, respectively. When dynamic kunde was omitted in English, the translation sometimes contained an adverb expressing repetition, such as sometimes or occasionally. This adverb was not always present in the Swedish original, however.