Choice of strategies in realizations of epistemic possibility in English and Lithuanian

The paper deals with the qualitative and quantitative parameters of equivalence between the realizations of epistemic possibility in English and Lithuanian. The focus of the contrast is on the auxiliary and adverb strategies (van der Auwera et al. 2005) in English (can, could, may, might vs. maybe, perhaps, possibly) as opposed to the corresponding modal verb and adverb/particle strategies in Lithuanian (galeti “can/could/may/might” vs. gal, galgi, galbut, rasi, lyg ir “maybe/perhaps/possibly”). The purpose of the corpus-based study is to find out which means of expression are preferable in the two languages and what the scope of their meanings is. The paper will also look at the frequency of epistemic and non-epistemic use of the modal expressions in the original and in translation.