This methodological article presents an introduction to the field of clause-based semantic text analysis. The method is introduced and elaborated with regard to the study of ideological developments within fledgling democracies. In such studies modality plays an important role. Democratic societies are maintained in accordance with either a modality of achievement or one of necessity. This is illustrated using editorial texts from Hungary, one of the countries in Central and Eastern Europe where people had to find their democratic way after communism disappeared in 1989.
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