This diploma thesis deals with modality in German and highlights possible problems which can arise when modal formulations are translated from German into Czech. It focuses on modal verbs, which are presented as a special verb group. Knowledge of modal verbs is the basic prerequisite for accurate translation as far as semantics, grammar and stylistics are concerned. Since the correct identification of modality in a sentence essentially influences the accuracy of a translation, modality is considered exhaustively. Data was gathered from the parallel corpus Intercorp (project of parallel corpuses of The Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague), the Coocurrency Database (CCDB) IDS Mannheim which competes with the parallel corpus InterCorp, and original German fiction texts and their Czech translations and was the subject of comparative critical analysis. These analyses demonstrate the problematic phenomena encountered when German modal formulations are translated into Czech.

The goal of the thesis is to contribute to the description of the category of aspect and to do so in an alternative way, i.e. without linking aspectual value of a sentence exclusively or directly to the morphological make-up of the verb. The starting point is the distinction between states and activities, i.e. between state and activity events. In the center of our attention are states, namely the way how states are expressed by perfective predicates. Two analyses of corpus data (SYN v7) were performed to pursue the issue. The first analysis focused on the occurrence of state and activity meanings of perfective forms of so-called capacitive verbs. It turns out that one of the decisive factors construing the aspectual meaning of a sentence is the category of tense. The other analysis focused on a collocation we have termed aspectual paradox. It combines durative adverbials (for instance stále) with perfective verbs in the framework of one construction. This analysis has demonstrated that another important factor involved in sentence aspectual construal is modality. Another outcome of this analysis is a classification of state meanings of the "durative adverbial + perfective" collocation. Eleven kinds of meanings were established: ability, possibility, existence, quality, quantity, etc. Verba...