Grammaticalization Path ‘Know’ > ‘Can’ in Slavic Languages in Areal Perspective

This study is devoted to the grammaticalization of verbs with the meaning ‘know’ towards the meaning ‘know how to’ (‘can’) in Slavic languages. As part of the study, verbs in eleven modern Slavic languages from three pre-Slavic forms were examined: *uměti, *věděti and *znàti. Based on materials from bilingual, explanatory, and etymological dictionaries and corpus data, a detailed list of meanings of knowledge and skills was compiled, and it was determined in which meanings the lexemes under consideration are used. It was studied in which Slavic languages grammaticalisation occurs ‘know’> ‘know how to’ (‘can’). The neighboring languages of Europe were also considered, and a map of languages was compiled in which the similar process of grammaticalization takes place. At the last stage of the work, a map of the semantic field of knowledge and possibility was created.