English modal verb "shall", its meanings and Czech counterparts

Abstract

Tato práce zkoumá užití anglického modálního slovesa SHALL, jeho významy a překladové protějšky. Cílem práce je podat popis jednotlivých významů tohoto slovesa v angličtině a popsat jeho překladové koreláty v češtině. V závěrečné části práce jsou výstupy těchto dvou úkolů propojeny a výsledkem je nástin překladových korelátů v závislosti na konkrétním významu modálního slovesa SHALL.

This study focuses on the English modal verb SHALL, which is nowadays on the decline especially in American English, and explores its meanings and translational counterparts in Czech. The theoretical chapter of the study will first present a brief overview of the concept of modality and English modals and then comment specifically on the uses of SHALL as a deontic modal and a future auxiliary. Likewise, an overview of its meanings as well as its formal criteria will be presented. Additionally, a remark on frequency of SHALL will be made and the situation in Czech will be outlined. In the empirical chapter of the study, 128 occurrences of SHALL provided by the corpus Intercrop will be analyzed in two stages. First, the occurrences will be studied according to the meanings of SHALL described in the theoretical part and then their Czech translational correlates will be taken into focus. The conclusion will summarize and evaluate the findings from the empirical chapter and will combine the results of the two analyses in order to present an overview of the Czech counterparts of SHALL according to its meanings.