Lehetségkifejez

Lehetségkifejez is a term derived from Hungarian (literally "expression of possibility") used to describe linguistic means by which speakers indicate that a state of affairs is possible rather than certain. In linguistics it falls under the broader category of modality, and covers lexical, grammatical and pragmatic resources that mark possibility, probability or potentiality.

Types of possibility commonly distinguished include epistemic possibility (speaker’s assessment that something might be true), deontic/permissive readings (permission or allowance), and dynamic possibility (ability or circumstantial potential). Different languages realize these distinctions with modal auxiliaries, mood morphology, adverbs, particles, evidential markers and lexical items. For example, English uses modals and adverbs — "She may come" (epistemic) or "She can come" (dynamic) — while Hungarian often uses expressions such as "Lehet, hogy jön" (It may be that she will come), "Talán jön" (maybe she will come) or "Tud úszni" (he/she can swim).

Cross-linguistic variation is wide: some languages have dedicated potential moods, others rely on periphrastic constructions or contextual inference. Analysis of lehetségkifejez touches on semantics (truth-conditional force), pragmatics (speaker stance, hedging) and syntax (placement and scope of modal elements), and is relevant for fields from theoretical grammar to discourse analysis and language teaching.