Otdfbt

For a person (and in Russian everything is a person), the Russian thought model makes no distinction between:

1. the person's moral right to do something;


2. the person's ability to do something (like, physical ability);


3. the objective circumstances allowing or not for anyone to do something in a given situation. (Note that the circumstances are a person too!)

Raskolnikov's famous "Тварь я дрожащая, или право имею?" perfectly illustrates how he makes no difference between (1) and (2).

Another perfect example of the same ambiguity between all three usages is found in a genius play "Дракон" by Шварц. In one of the final scenes the hero (Ланцелот) lies wounded at the side of the 3-headed Dragon he just slayed (the Dragon is barely alive).

 2-я голова. Тише! Я чую, рядом кто-то живой. Подойди. Дай воды.

 Голос Ланцелота. Не могу!

You really can't tell whether the hero has no moral right to help his enemy, has no ability to do so (as he is wounded too), or something else is preventing him from doing this!

That shows us the hero's personal integrity. For a true hero, there is no difference between thought, action, and evaluation of external circumstances.

(Yep, that means that the journalists represented Putin as a true hero in the islands story ;-))

As pointed out in comments, your impression of English “can” and “may” seems too rigid. Consider these dictionary definitions with the many meanings and examples, some of which overlap, and the usage note at can: can, may, may.

Many of your original examples can use these same English verbs and sometimes even both, even though you say they all of the examples have different meanings:

1. OK, I guess in such an official context this one has to be “should” or “must (not)” or even “has the moral right to” or even just “has the right to”—with the “moral” being implied!—in English. But informally, you might exclaim, “You can’t put your child in jeopardy!”




2. Roman Abramovich can/could take 3000 people on his yacht to Crimea at a time. He could do that, but he doesn’t want to. (The most direct translation of “could” back into Russian is “мог бы”, and it could work in the original Russian phrase, too. At the same time, “can” technically works here in English. But in Russian, “может” here sounds perfectly natural whereas I feel “can” sounds odd in English, and “может” has the benefit of providing a better artistic effect by matching the case of “не хочет” exactly.)




3. He can’t betray his battery, and he can’t betray his wife and girls. (He feels he doesn’t have a moral right to do so. But his morals are such an integral part of him that he feels he is unable to do something morally wrong.)




4. Probably: Savchenko may get out of jail on that night. But it might also be “can”. Really, to fully understand the exact meaning, you’d have to read the full article. The only information the title gives you is that one way or another, it is possible that she will get out of jail on that date.




5. I like your use of “will” here, but equally well he can spend hours looking at vegetables in supermarkets, especially if he doesn’t do it every day, or he even may spend hours to just look at vegetables in supermarkets. To be honest though, I think the most natural English phrasing of this sentence would just use present simple: he spends hours looking at vegetables.




6. You may/can use calculators. As noted by Oxford Dictionary in the above links, it is most traditional/strict/formal to use “may” to give permission, but in reality, “can” is also possible (in speech of all registers) and means the exact same thing.

I’m guessing your confusion really stems not from the English verbs, of which “can” actually matches мочь fairly closely, but from the variety of forms used in Japanese to express these nuances. Off the top of my head, there’s 〜事ができる denoting physical ability, 〜ていい denoting permission, 〜可能性がある denoting a chance of happening, 〜かもしれない denoting the speaker’s lack of knowledge of whether something is/was/will be happening, and 〜える expressing other states of being able to do something (with some overlap with できる) or object states where something can be done to them. These are all мочь in Russian, except inherent, passive object states such as “edible”/“съедобный”. Any time you want to use any of these, be bold and just use мочь.

Of course, if you want to emphasize a particular nuance, it is possible in Russian by using additional words: я не умею; разрешено/можно; есть шанс/надежда, что…; возможно/может быть, [что]…

As I’m sure you know from Japanese, context is king. When multiple meanings of мочь work in a context, you either guess (possibly incorrectly) or the speaker simply doesn’t consider it important enough to differentiate between them. The common meaning is that the effect may end up occurring, one way or another. Is it because the subject takes an active action to cause it to occur? Is it because something else acts and enables it to occur? Is it because something else doesn’t counteract and prevent it from occurring? Is it because people think it should occur? In most cases, it’s either clear from the context or doesn’t matter.

Now, what about the Putin example?

7. 
   

   All of them.

   
   
   

   I’m not even sure, but I think the very first meaning that crossed my mind was “is it likely that he will do so in the imminent future?” (7d) but immediately afterwards I thought of “should he?” (7a, I guess).

   
   
   

   If I was asked this kind of question (except if I was in a hurry or wanted to avoid a detailed answer for some other reason), I’d give an answer that essentially consists of several parts that answer each possible meaning that I would have an answer for. For example:

   
   
   

   
   

   Может-то он может* [this is 7b, actually, which I processed without even thinking!], но вряд ли он это сделает (в ближайшем будущем, по крайней мере) [7d]. Честно говоря, я думаю, что их следовало бы отдать/оставить по таким-то причинам… [7a] но в любом случае, сейчас, насколько я слышал, никто их отдавать не собирается, так что пока что непохоже, что это произойдёт [7cd], если только японцы вдруг не предложат что-то кардинально новое, но непонятно, что такого они могут предложить.

   
   

   
   
   

   * Now that I think about it, I don’t actually know if he can/if this depends on Putin personally. Let’s not go there. This was just an example.

   
   
   

   I notice that I used могут myself in my example answer. Which meaning did I put into it? Essentially, this могут has all the same meanings as the original может in the Putin question. I didn’t actually think about any particular meaning when using the word. In English, I’d use “can” and equally not think about the exact meaning.

   
   
   

   But if I now try to figure it out in retrospect, I guess it’s “unclear whether there is anything the Japanese are willing and able to offer to the Russians that would actually be so beneficial to them that they would be happy to trade the islands for it despite the public backlash (if it wouldn’t change the public opinion as well)”.

   
   
   

   Well, what’s “willing and able”? We can keep going further/deeper with these questions, and at this point I think the exact meaning already doesn’t matter to the verb I chose. If I had wanted to underline a particular concern to the Japanese, I would have spoken of it explicitly in the first place. I think in this case the most important factors are physical ability (what at all could the Japanese offer that the Russians would find useful, even if they entirely disregarded public opinion within Japan?) and public opinion/political consequences, especially in internal politics (if they do offer that, will they be shunned by voters and fellow politicians?), but I’m not forcing this choice upon the other person, and if they think other factors are more important, that’s fine too.

   
   

Of course, with such an overloaded word as you point out, there are bound to be cases when misunderstandings do occur:

8. 
   

   My original impression was the same as yours:

   
   
   

   
   

   He died, but could he have done something differently to survive instead?

   
   

   
   
   

   Indeed, this might be even more specific than your understanding. See how “Could he have survived?” has several meanings too; at least these two:

   
   
   

   • Could he have done something differently to survive instead of dying?

   
   

   • Could something else have happened to let him survive instead of dying?

   
   

   My mind jumped to the possibility of his own actions because it seemed (to me, at that time) most sensible in the context, but this is not by any means implied by the verb itself. Indeed, other Russian speakers might have thought of the other option or neither in particular.

   
   
   

   If I were to read the article, I’d most likely be surprised to discover the author intended the meaning “Is it possible that he actually survived when everyone thought he was dead?”. But I wouldn’t think the author had used erroneous phrasing. At most, I might think that the author had deliberately chosen this phrasing to lure people who shun conspiracy theories into reading the article by capitalizing on the fact that most people would interpret it the same as we did. The same can be done with any other word that has multiple meanings or homonyms/homographs, in any language. If you read a lot of articles by authors who do this in a particular language/manner, you start to recognize ambiguous titles before clicking on them and ignore such articles or know what to expect when you do open them out of curiosity. But it is also entirely possible that, when the author was choosing the title with the intended meaning already in mind, this phrasing seemed completely natural and they didn’t realize other people would misinterpret it out of context.

   
   

So misunderstandings can occur sometimes, but don’t let this stop you from using the word!

Moreover, the multiple nuances can even be used intentionally to humorous effect: e. g. the sentence above said Abramovich can take 3000 people on his yacht to Crimea. Does this mean his yacht holds 3000 people, or that he is allowed to take people to Crimea? Probably both. But what if one is true but not the other? Тогда он может, но не может!

Furthermore, actual everyday dialogue can intentionally contrast multiple nuances in a somewhat similar manner:

— Возможно, твой друг может это починить?

— Не может: у него болит спина, и он не выходит из дома.

— Мы можем забраться на их яблоню и оттуда пролезть в окно второго этажа!

— Не можем, потому что яблоня огорожена забором.

— Говорят, он может часами смотреть на овощи в магазине.

— Не может: ему месяц назад запретили входить в продуктовые магазины.

Есть известная максима о том, что язык определяет мышление. Все различия между оттенками значений в данных случаях должны быть ясны из контекста (либо по интонации). Если это не так, то и самих отличий тоже нет. По крайней мере для человека говорящего и думающего на русском.

Например, (8b) просто не имеет смысла, если вы только не любитель "теорий заговора", ну или же горячий поклонник творчества Пелевина ;-) Поэтому (и только поэтому!) данный вопрос будет понят в смысле (8a).

Что же касается (7), то это вопрос о будущем, а значит обо всём сразу (не столько о Путине, сколько о том, может ли такое случиться вообще). При этом, разумеется, значение (7d) должно быть релевантно в наибольшей степени, а (7a) - в наименьшей. Однако
подобная многозначительность в формулировке вопроса явно появилась неспроста. Это по поводу Ваших сомнений, высказанных в комментариях - никто не ошибается так часто, как журналисты, но, по крайней мере часть их ошибок совершается преднамеренно.

1.

Может ли Путин передать Японии 2 острова Южных Курил?

I understand it in the sense of possibility which can't be excluded. Whether it's probable that he decides to cede them and does so, i.e.

(7d) Can't it be excluded that Putin actually transfers two islands of
the Northern Territories to Japan in the future?

I guess it's because (according to my observations) survey questions which deal with moral character and integrity of political leaders are framed more explicitly and because ordinary citizens are not considered to be in a position to question his political powers and rights, these are a given. So the remaining interpretation is whether he will actually use his authority.

I watched the video to see how respondents had understood the question. About a half used the word должен/должно either in the positive or in the negative. It could mean that what they had in mind was that he might but should not (it's not excluded but i prefer that he not). But frankly i failed to figure out how they'd exactly understood it in part because quite a few of them instead of judging chances of cession by Putin offered their opinion on whether such cession is acceptable at all. Still in the dialogue with the 1st respondent the journalists asked a clarifying question почему не может быть? which indicates a future possibility. So this seems to give an idea at least on the intent of the journalists themselves. And the last respondent seems to have understood it similarly.

2.

Непобедимый Чапаев: тайна гибели легендарного комдива. Мог ли он
выжить?

I would have understood it like you did.

(8a) Invincible Chapaev: The mystery of the legendary commander's
death. Could he have survived?

just because i've never heard of such a conspiracy theory to consider it in the possible reading, but if i have to me it would have sounded ambiguous. If the author were aware of the ambiguity or more considerate towards the readers he could have rephrased it to read something like Не мог ли он выжить? Что, если он выжил? or even more explicitly Действительно ли он погиб?

And how do you always succeed in unmistakenly interpeting this verb,
especially in sentences like the above ones about Putin and Chapaev?

Well, as follows from my reply this may not necessarily be always the case. Often you just don't give it too much thought and simply dive into the content to find out. In a dialogue you might ask for clarification. But of course in most cases it's pretty clear because, i think, the natives both as speakers and as audience rely on a complex of clues stemming from familiarity with certain established use patterns and situations, where one specific meaning would be dominant or the most likely, as well as from the context of a speech act.

As for the concept behind the verb, at this point i'm not ready to give any opinion or thoughts, because it's a complex and intricate subject. What i can say though it that it just appears to be polysemous. Such status of Russian modal verbs is recognized by linguists (and i believe it's not exclusive to Russian)

1. I probably would translate such titles not with a modal, but with "be".

"Может" in this context can be understood as a shortened version of "Может быть" - "may it be/is it possible".

I would translate these titles as

"Is it possible that Putin will transfer to Japan 2 islands of Northern Kuril"?

"Indefeatable Chapaer: Is it possible that he survived?"

The "Может" in this context is more of a clickbait technique designed to be ambiguous - introduce some possibility, but not really explain the context or the real meaning behind it. I can't imagine a scientific or even a respectable article with such a title.

2. I think it's a good rule of thumb that if in doubt, it's better to assume the meaning of "is it possible that something will/did happen" - for any reason.

As a bilingual Russian-speaker (in addition to Ukrainian) and a native habitat of Ukraine (post-soviet country) I will try to explain this:

"In these sentences this verb appears to mean entirely different things: In the first sentence it appears to mean an ethical norm, in the second - a physical ability, in the third - a character quality, in the fourth - a possibility that cannot be excluded, in the fifth - habitual behavior, in the sixth - a permission."

For example, you can not do smth because your morality, physical disability, external prohibitions stop you and you are unable to do smth (it is mostly about sentences 1, 2, 6). Sentence 3, as for me, is also about morality, but your explanation is also correct.
Also, as you have mentioned about sentence 4, can can also have a meaning of may/might, which seems not strongly different from the word 'can' in my perception. While learning English, we usually learn, that "might" is a very low probability, "may" is relatively low (like 30% or a bit more), "can" is more (like 50+), "must" is very high (80-90+). About sentence 5 - I think can is used here, because most people (or at least the author/character/speaker/writer) can not do that, because it seems very untypical, the person may/can get bored, tired, consider it like ridiculous, insane, out of common sense etc.

About sentence 7 - I think your suggestions are grammatically correct, in addition I give an example of how I understood the sentence (most of them are close to 7d, 7c) " Is it possible? Do the external circumstances force/allow him to do that? What profits he/country can/may/might get of it? Do they overweight the disadvantages of the decision? Isn't he too proud for it?".

About sentence 8 - I think that the word mystery (of death) in the sentence may guide the person's thoughts that it can be some conspiracy. And the sentence "Мог ли СССР выжить?" has no clue about any conspiracy, but when reading Russian titles of news or articles you never know - there is a tendency to make clickbait titles, which can trick your mind, sometimes titles are almost a lie or (more rarely) a real lie. An example of tricking is the youtube video with the title "Афроамериканец наехал на украинца в США", which is usually understood like "Afroamerican ran over an Ukrainian (a person) in the USA", but actually in the video afroamerican driver hit a car droven by an Ukrainian.

I will try to explain it in a simple way.

In Russian verbs мочь и должен describe a situation person ended up in, not the person himself or his attitude. And it doesn't matter why said person ended up in this state. So мочь is closer to english word "able", than to "can" or "may".

While it may be silly to say in English "Is Putin able to transfer two islands to Japan?" - it is the logic of a Russian languge (there are a lot of subsences and inclines, wich are commonly translated with "may" or "can" words, but they are "next level of understanding")

Same story with "должен" word. I do not know neutral anolog in English, but just keep in mind that Russian (and other europian languages) has little or no "second plain of meaning" and more direct than eastern languages.

P.S. On second thought, the most exect translation of (7) is: "May it happen that Puttin will transfer two islands to Japan?". And for "Забор не должен упасть" - "It must not happen that the fance falls".