Modern linguistics studies the combination of particles with notional words as a periphrastic construction which has a constant structure and semantics and is also regularly used in Russian spoken speech. The paper presents the analysis of the meaning of the analytical syntactic structure with a particle tchut' ne (‘almost') which implements subjective modality in the proposal and has a high emotionality and expression. Studying the features of the meaning, structure and grammar of the periphrastic construction tchut' ne + V in the context of a sentence is the purpose of the article. In this paper the context is perceived in a narrow sense as a linguistic environment in which any given linguistic unit is used. With little emphasis having been put on the context, the existing works have mainly been focused on the meaning of the action which is close to completion, yet not fulfilled due to uncontrollability, surprise and suddenness of the situation. Test material analysis revealed that constructions with a particle almost do not only have a proximative meaning but also a contextually determined one, i. e., the maximum exaggeration of physical states and emotions of the subject (almost died of laughter etc.) and the controlled choice (almost said). Desemantization of verbs and the inclusion in the periphrastic construction of causatives provide a new meaning to it. Such type constructions as almost died from laughter, almost said become idiomatic. The article concludes that the contextual environment and communication goals affect the semantics of the periphrastic construction almost + V. Refs 22.