Lexico-Semantic and Morphosyntactic Features of the Modal Verb Can in Modern Scots (the Evidence of Lexicographic Portraiture)

The article contains a lexicographic portraiture of the modal verb can in modern Scots. The Scots National Dictionary, the Concise Dictionary of the Scots Language and Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language were used as primary sources. According to the above-mentioned Scots dictionaries, the meanings of the modal verb can in English and Scots coincide, which indicates the absence of semantic diff erential features (Scotticisms) in this modal verb in Scots. The identity of meanings of the verb can in Scots and English, allows to describe the semantic structure of this lexeme in Scots on the evidence of a reliable English dictionary, such as Webster's English Dictionary. The semantic and component structures of this verb are determined, consisting of defi nitions of ten lexico-semantic variants (LSV) and ten semes, respectively. SND provides detailed information on the infl ectional morphology of the verb can and its functions. It can be concluded that all the forms of the verb can and constructions employing it are grammatical Scotticisms, which distinguish the Scots system from the English one. Webster's dictionary also reports on the use of the verb can in multiple modals, what is characterized as a regionalism.