Phonological and Grammatical Means of Expressing Modality. Different modal meanings are expressed with the help of intonation

Different modal meanings are expressed with the help of intonation. In academic literature the phonetic means of expressing modality have not been studied enough, though some scholars paid special attention to this area. Coates’ investigations (1986) show that intonation and other prosodic features can be considered as modality in semantic sense. Palmer concludes that the different patterns of stress express different types of modality. Intonation is the only generally valid means of expressing modality. It is a prosodic element that gives information about the content of the utterances such as imperatives, declaratives and exclamations, besides, intonation gives information about the speaker’s personality.

The expression of modality by modals and adverbs, individually or in combination relates to the linguistic category of intonation. In case of epistemic modality, intonation pattern and modal expression correlate.

e.g. “Well I think it should be quite good, actually, I mean it’s a terrific thing.

Coates’ suggests that stress patterns and individual modal forms which express epistemic meanings (could, may, might, must) receive some kind of stress that is associated with intonation.

Modal intonation represents the highest level of semantic organization which can be reached by intonation. It took quite a while for speech melody to become a marker of modal categories. Modal intonation, for example interrogative intonation patterns denote interrogative modality the content of which is the meaning of request.

The grammatical means of expressing modality is mood. Much study was carried in the spheres of mood and modality as systems of the English. The main focus is on the modality, not mood. Palmer states the inclusion of mood in Mood and Modality, because it has informative value. Mood and modality are sometimes used interchangeably and there arises confusion, this is because of their connection. Mood and modality are separate spheres in grammar, but they are related in origin and even in meaning. Originally, the word ‘modal’’ is connected with ‘mode’ (manner/way of doing something). The same word ‘mode’ also served to be the origin of the word ‘mood’. Both mood and modality are concerned with the distinction of objective statement from speaker-centered one. The term ‘mood’ is often used to cover both (Huddleston, 1984:164; Greenbaum, 1996:80).

Modality is a notional category which expresses the relation of the utterance to reality as stated by the speaker. There are two semantic types of modality: reality (factuality) and unreality (non-factuality). Mood is the morphological means of expressing modality. There are different approaches to the system of moods in Modern English, the most reasonable one seems the system proposed by Barkhudarov. According to him there are two moods in Modern English: the Indicative and the Imperative. The opposition lies in the sphere of the non-past only. Past tense forms and different combinations of modal verbs with the infinitive are used as morphological, lexical and syntactic means of expressing modality, different from the category of mood.

Proceeding from the accepted definition of the grammatical category, the verbal category of mood is a set of opposed form classes, which express modality by grammatical (morphological) means (Ivanova, 1981; Jespersen, 1992; Palmer, 1998; Smirnitsky, 1959). Mood is a morphosyntactic category, because it is characteristic of finite forms only. However, the number of opposed form classes (moods), their semantics and means of expressing modality (synthetic and analytical) remain obstacles for grammatical theories. Various systems of mood suggested by linguists comprise from 16 to no moods at all. It is obvious that the system of 16 moods proposed by M. Deutschbein (Deutschbein 1928) is the result of the semantic approach. The main problem with it is that it focuses on the meaning only neglecting the form.

According to the view of H. Whitehall (Whitehall 1956), V. Plotkin (Plotkin 1989) and F. Palmer (Palmer, 1998) the category of mood in Modern English has died out. However, this approach focuses mainly on the form and neglects the existing linguistic data. Between these extremes there are intermediate views, such as that of A. I. Smirnitsky (Smirnitsky, 1959), who proposed a system of 6 moods: indicative, imperative, subjunctive I, subjunctive II, suppositional, conditional.

Mood refers to a grammaticalized category (grammatical category) of the verb which has a modal function and deals with the differences in the morphology of the verb. Mood is concerned with the speaker’s attitude to the proposition. The system of mood varies from language to language and the verbal paradigm differs too: e.g. indicative, subjunctive, optative, imperative, conditional, etc. On the other hand, modality is the semantic domain concerning with the elements of meaning expressed in the language.

In the sphere of modality the category of mood is defined as a morphological verbal category which expresses the modal meaning of the sentence (and belongs to the category of grammatical markers of modality). Most languages have either modal system or mood, but some languages have both, this is one of the reasons that Lyons (1977:848) remarks “mood is a grammatical category that is found in some, but not all languages”, as for ‘modality markers’, they are found in all languages. Thus, mood is grammaticalized expression of modality, therefore in some languages the grammatical markers are also called ‘mood markers’.

The best-known moods cross-linguistically are indicative and subjunctive, though imperative may also be added. The distinction between the indicative and subjunctive is associated with assertion and non-assertion respectively, the reason for non-assertion is that the speaker has doubts about a statement.

1. Indicative mood /declarative/’fact mood’ is used when speaker/writer wants to make statements (affirmation), reject something or express questions of actuality and likelihood. It is proper to say that the indicative is used to describe real, factual events.

e.g. Thus, the fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than the fear itself. (D. Defoe, p. 142)

The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder you are happy or not. (G. B. Shaw)

2. Subjunctive mood/'thought mood' or 'what-if mood' ’: through subjunctive mood we express wishes, hypothesis, purposes, and even requests. Though this expression in Modern English is performed with the help of modal auxiliaries, yet subjunctive mood preserves its role in this aspect. There are three types of subjunctives in Modern English: formulaic subjunctive – used in patterns which express wishes, blessings; mandative subjunctive – used to express obligation, orders, intentions, etc.; ‘were’-subjunctive – expresses that the situation is a hypothetical wish and has the form of ‘were’:

He wished he could rip out his heart, his innards, everything that was screaming inside him… (J. K. Rowling, p. 559)

3. Imperative mood: with the help of imperative mood speaker forms sentences that make direct commands, requests:

e.g. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of clear eye and the kindly heart… (W. Saroyan, p. 280)

Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret… (W. Saroyan, p. 280)

The use of the imperative presupposes an unequal power relation between the speaker and the hearer because the speaker is required to have some sort of authority over the hearer in order to use the imperative like this. In addition to giving orders, there are other uses of the imperative, which are also sanctioned by unequal power relations: command, request, instruction, advice, permission, prayer.

“Oliver, calm down!” said Fred, looking slightly alarmed. “We’re taking Hufflepuff very seriously.” (J.K.Rowling, p.

Show the readers everything, tell them nothing. (E. Hemingway, quote)

Ask us no questions and we will tell you no lies. (J.K. Rowling, p. 54)

Imperative mood is used in English quite often. When discussing imperative mood, it's proper to pay attention to 'deontic' modality which also has the same meaning. Both imperatives and ‘deontic’ modal sentences that have activity predicate which has carry future orientation.

The imperative has other grammatical features that make it very distinctive. The most notable one is the absence of subject e.g. Sit down!. The imperative has no tense distinctions and the verbs always take the same form. The imperative almost never occurs with the perfect and only occasionally with the progressive. e.g. Be cooking my favourite dish when I get back home.

Another interesting aspect of imperative mood is that it may express requestive/imperative apologies, catching attention. In conversational situations, a speaker who has social power will use more and stronger imperatives than one who does not. Teachers often use the imperative with students.

Excuse me! (in the auditorium) – this one needs special intonation which totally expresses dissatisfaction and each word is stressed. In this case we come closer to the field of phonetic means of expressing modality.