Expressions of Impossibility and Inevitability in Mari Charms

This chapter aims to show the linguistic means used in Mari verbal charms to denote those events, actions and processes which are either impossible or inevitable. The notions of impossibility (improbability) and inevitability are expressed with the help of folklore hyperboles and metaphoric similes. But their usage is of a distinct character, which reveals the intuitive folk understanding of several concepts also found in contemporary probability theory.