Modals

Qohenje has a set of defective lexemes which fill a grammatical role normally assimilated with the modal verbs in English. There are six of these modals, which all exhibit a defective conjugation, only having NOR and ATT aspects. The NOR aspect corresponds to the deontic modal function in English (indicating a moral or social responsability or requirement), while the ATT forms fill an epistemic role (indicating probability or likelihood).

DEONTIC
EPISTEMIC

Deontic modals

These look like NOR grade verbal lexemes, but they do not have any other aspectual forms. They occur in constructions where the major verbal concept is expressed in an AOR infinitive LM, obligatorily marked with an AX LM clitic, and the modal behaves like the main verb.

In speech, these almost invariably carry an emphatic particle, and omit the LM clitic,

Once again, negation can either occur on the AOR verb or the modal,

Epistemics

The epistemic modals are one of the class of Qohenje preverbs. The forms , and indicate varying degrees of certainty but all imply the speaker's conviction of the reality of the predicate. They all occur with realis verbs. , and on the other hand show that the speaker is uncommitted with regard to the truth value of the predicate. These latter three occur with irrealis verbs.

The difference between the straight irrealis formation and the mild epistemic modals is minor. Use of the modal indicates more of a deliberate statement of opinion, whereas the simple irrealis is more non-committal.

Note that, unlike ATT form preverbs, modals usually do take a cejhan between themselves and the verbal lexeme, although this varies somewhat. Although their grammatical structure is the same as other preverb formations, Qohenje speakers do not think of them as adverbial structures, and literate speakers tend to prefer to distinguish them in writing with the cejhan.

Modals can be negated, although the resulting differences are difficult to capture in translation

Note also the difference between these and positive modals with negated verbs: