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[References: р. 13 (14 tit.)]

This article describes the starting process of transferring the functions of expressing the internal modality from the category of mood (from the forms of the optative and the imperative) to the units of the lexical level - the preterite-present verbs, which were transforming into modal verbs in the Gothic language. To explain this degrammaticalization process the conditions and the peculiarities of the transformations in the semantics of the preterite-present verbs were analyzed, which allowed to determine the prospects in the development of the category of modality in German.