International Journal of Language & Linguistics

An Easily Performed Advance through Difficult Conditions – One More View on the Slovenian Lahkó
Dr. Bostjan Dvorak

Abstract
Among a bunch of striking peculiarities of modern Slovenian standard language, the typologically unusual use of the modal adverb lahkó (“easily”) as modal particle replacing the original modal verb *môči (“to can”) in almost all affirmative contexts deserves its place on the list – and any comparative linguist´s attention. In a recent analysis of this phenomenon by Marušič & Žaucer (2016, to appear), based on a detailed historical documentation, a convincing proposal is given of how it could – and obviously must – have arosen – from a primarily combined construction of the older modal verb and the preceding adverb lahkó (“easily”). Whereas the historical evidence yields an almost complete picture of the gradual development from an originally verbal to the completely adverbial expression of possibility in affirmative constructions, yet a technical problem remains unsolved – that of the loss of the infinitive. A proposal of how this “jump” could happen, and some additional evidence for a rather independent development in Slovenian, is given here, by considering probable influence from other verbless constructions.

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