Historical and etymological constituent of the lexicographic portrait of the verb can in Scots (according to old and new dictionaries)

The lexicographic portraiture method can help in implementing a comprehensive project of a functional-semantic description of the modal verbs system in Scots. The integrity principle of the lexicographic description of a word can be successfully implemented on Scottish material due to a wide “line” of dictionaries of Scots, despite the total lack of its codified standard variety. The historical and etymological constituent of the lexicographic portrait of words, including modal verbs, is of independent significance. In this regard, it seems possible and necessary to describe this group of verbs in the light of the integral principle precisely by considering their origin and family relationships according to the data of the corresponding dictionaries. The article characterizes, on the basis of lexicographical sources, the general picture of the modal verb “can” origin and historical development in the Scottish language. Based on the material of historical, etymological and dialectological dictionaries, we obtained a general picture of the verb “can” existence in Scots during the period from the 14th to the 17th centuries. The most reliable and complete historical information about the lexeme “can” is provided by the DOST dictionary, based on material from the Scots language corpora. The use of “can” as a modal verb, according to this dictionary, is already observed in the text of the poem “Bruce” (second half of the 14th century). According to the data of the examined dictionaries, it is also possible to add to the lexicographic portrait of the verb “can” the fact that in Scots, like in English, the semantics “to be able to” and the functions of the modal verb itself began to predominate, which is not a differential, but an integral feature of both languages.

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