19.The category of mood and modality

54. Modality. Means of expressing modality.The category of modality is one of the most complicated linguistic categories which has various forms of its expression in the language. It has also a lot of various definitions & interpretations. In the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary modality is defined as a functional-semantic category which expresses different types of relations between the utterance and reality as well as dif. types of subjective evaluation (оценка) of the information contained in the utterance. Modality expresses 2 types of relations and includes 2 levels. That’s why the linguists usually differentiate between 2 types of modality: objective (or primary) and subjective (or secondary).Ch. Bally considered that each utterance consists of two parts, the part which presents information ( he called it 'dictum') and the part which presents the speaker's evaluation of this information (he called it 'modus'). The primary modality expresses the relation of the contents of the sentence to reality as established by the speaker who, choosing the appropriate form of the mood presents the event as real, unreal or desirable. It is expressed by the grammatical form of mood and thus it is a component of predicativity and as such it always finds a grammatical expression in the sentence. E.g. You are my wife. Be my wife. I wish you were my wife. Thus, primary modality as a component of predicativity is an obligatory feature of the sentence - we cannot make a sentence without expressing primary modality. Secondary modality presents another layer of modality, built over the primary modality. It' does not always find an explicit expression in the sentence. Secondary modality is not homogeneous. It contains two layers and we can differentiate between two types of secondary modality. The first type expresses the relations between the subject of the sentence and the action. The action may be presented as possible, permissive, obligatory, necessary, desirable or unnecessary for the subject. It is expressed by the modal verbs in their verb-oriented meanings: ability, possibility, permission, necessity, obligation etc. E.g. Children must be seen but not heard. I can jump puddles. You may be free for today. The second type of secondary modality expresses the attitude of the speaker to the contents of the utterance or the speaker's evaluation of the event presented in the utterance. This type of modality can be expressed by: 1)modal words and modal adverbs and modal particles: maybe, probably, certainly, of course, perhaps, sure, evidently, supposedly, luckily, fortunately etc. ( E.g. This is probably the best chance you have ever had); 2) by modal verbs in their sentence-oriented meanings: probability, doubt, supposition, certainty, disbelief (E.g. She couldn't have done it alone) ;3) by modalized verbs seem, to appear, happen, chance (She appeared to be holding something back from him); 4) by the so called performative verbs and phrases which name speech and mental acts: think, suppose, guess, doubt, be certain, be sure etc. (e.g. I guess you are right; I am afraid this is true); 5) by special syntactic structures like 'tag questions' (This is true, isn't it?), as well as 6) by intonation and word order. As we can see the modal verbs participate in the expression of two kinds of secondary modality.

The number of moods in Modern English. The grammatical category of mood has the reputation of being one of the most controversial categories. Mood is traditionally defined as a grammatical category which expresses the relation of the action to reality as stated by the speaker. As follows from the definition mood seems to be the only morphological category which includes the category of the speaker in its definition. It means that it is one of the most speaker-oriented categories. The forms of the moods serve the needs of the speaker to present the action as real, unreal (contradicting the state of things in reality) or hypothetical. The category of mood presents the interpretation of the action by the speaker from the point of view of its relation to reality. Scholars differ greatly in the understanding of this category, its scope and, consequently, in the number of grammatical forms of the mood they find in English. This number- varies from two (in Barkhudarov's interpretation) to sixteeen (in Deutchbein's interpretation). In our interpretation and classification of moods we shall follow the classification system of moods presented by Smirnitsky. It appears to be the most consistent because it is meaning-oriented and it also takes into consideration the difference between an analytical form and a free syntactic combination. His system of moods includes six moods: the Indicative, the Imperative, Subjunctive I, Subjunctive II, the Conditional Mood and the Suppositional mood. The Indicative mood presents the action as real from the speaker's point of view. It is the most frequently used type of mood and it has the greatest number of forms. The forms of the Indicative mood are used in two communicative types of sentences: declarative and interrogative. Suppositional mood specializes in the expression of hypothetical actions. The comparison of such sentences as "If he turns up tell him to -wait for me" and "Should he turn up tell him to wait for me" shows that both the verbal forms present the action as hypothetical but differ in the degree of certainty which is higher in the case of Present Indefinite Indicative. The Imperative mood is used to express inducement(побуждение, стимул) to action, which means that the speaker considers the action as desirable. The use of the Imperative mood is restricted to only one communicative type of sentences - imperative sentences. The Conditional mood is built with the help of the auxiliary verbs should/would and the Infinitive of the notional verb. As in the case of Subjunctive II, the non-perfect and perfect forms of the Infinitive have a temporal meaning rather than the meaning of priority. The Conditional mood expresses an unreal action which is the consequence of an unreal condition.

20. non- finite forms of the verb

As was mentioned in the previous unit, on the upper level all verbal forms fall into two major sets: finite and non-finite. The term “finite” is derived from the Latin term “verbum finitum”, which shows that these words denote actions developing in time.

Non-finite forms of the verb, the infinitive, the gerund, participle I (present participle) and participle II (past participle), are otherwise called “verbals”, or “verbids”. The term, introduced by O. Jespersen, implies that they are not verbs in the proper sense of the word, because they combine features of the verb with features of other notional parts of speech. Their mixed, hybrid nature is revealed in all the spheres of the parts-of-speech characterization: meaning, formal features, and functions. The non-verbal features of verbids are as follows: they do not denote pure processes, but present them as specific kinds of substances and properties; they are not conjugated according to the categories of person and number, have no tense or mood forms; in some contexts they are combined with the verbs like non-verbal parts of speech; they never function as independent predicates; their functions are those characteristic for other notional parts of speech. The verbal features of verbids are as follows: their grammatical meaning is basically processual; like finites, they do have (at least, most of them have) aspect and voice forms and verbal combinability with direct objects and adverbial modifiers; they can express predication in specific semi-predicative constructions. Thus, verbids can be characterized as intermediary phenomena between verbs and other non-verbal parts of speech. It is interesting to note that historically verbids in English were at first separate non-verbal nominative forms, but later they were drawn into the class of verbs by acquiring aspect and voice forms, verbal combinability, etc. The Infinitive is the most generalized, the most abstract form of the verb, serving as the verbal name of a process; it is used as the derivation base for all the other verbal forms. That is why the infinitive is traditionally used as the head word for the lexicographic entry of the verb in dictionaries. If the subject of the action denoted by the infinitive is named, in the sentence it forms a secondary predicative line with the infinitive. Syntactically, semi-predicative infinitive constructions may be free or bound to the primary predicative part of the sentence. The “for + to infinitive” construction in free use (either as a subject or as any other substantive notional part of the sentence) includes the infinitive and its own, inner subject, e.g.: For him to be late for the presentation was unthinkable; I sent the papers in order for you to study them carefully before the meeting. The constructions known as “complex object with the infinitive” and “complex subject with the infinitive” (the passive transformation of the complex object constructions) intersect with the primary predicative part of the sentence: the inner subject of the secondary predicative part forms either the object or the subject of the primary predicative part, e.g.: I saw her enter the room; She was seen to enter the room. The predicative character of the secondary sentence-situation can be manifested in the transformation of the whole sentence into a composite syntactic construction, e.g.: I sent the papers in order for you to study them carefully before the meeting. à I sent the papers so that you could study them carefully before the meeting; I saw her enter the room. à I saw her when she was entering the room. The gerund is another verbid that serves as the verbal name of a process and combines verbal features with those of a noun; the gerund, like the infinitive, can be characterized as a phenomenon of hybrid processual-substantive nature, intermediary between the verb and the noun. It is even closer to the noun, because besides performing the substantive functions in a sentence like the infinitive, it can also be modified by an attribute and can be used with a preposition, which the infinitive can not do, e.g.: Thank you for listening to me; Your careful listening to me is very much appreciated. The functions of the gerund in the sentence are as follows - that of a subject, e.g.: Your listening to me is very much appreciated; It’s no use crying over spilt milk; of a predicative, e.g.: The only remedy for such headache is going to bed; of an object, e.g.: I love reading; of an attribute, e.g.: He had a gift of listening; of an adverbial modifier, e.g.: On entering the house I said “hello”. In these functions the gerund displays nounal combinability with verbs, adjectives, and nouns, especially in cases of prepositional connections. As for the verbal features of the gerund, first of all, there is no denying the fact, that its meaning is basically processual, which is evident when the gerund is compared with the nouns, cf.: Thank you for helping me. – Thank you for your help; in addition, the gerund distinguishes some aspect and voice forms, e.g.: writing, being written, having written, having been written. Like the finites, it can be combined with nouns and pronouns denoting the subject and the object of the action, and with modifying adverbs, e.g.: I have made good progress in understanding English; She burst out crying bitterly; Her crying irritated me.

The verbal features distinguish the gerund from the verbal noun, which may be homonymous with the indefinite active form of the gerund, but, first, it has no other verbal forms (passive or perfect); second, cannot take a direct object, but only prepositional objects like all other nouns, cf.: reading the letters (gerund) – the reading of the letters (verbal noun); and, third, like most nouns can be used with an article and in the plural, cf.: my coming (gerund) – his comings and goings (verbal noun). In the correlation of the three processual-substantive phenomena, which constitute a continuum of transitions between the verb and the noun – the infinitive, the gerund, and the verbal noun, the infinitive is the closest to the verb, as it is more dynamic and possesses fewer substantive features, the gerund is somewhere in between the two, semantically semi-dynamic, and the verbal noun is the closest to the noun, semantically static, possessing practically all the features of normal nouns. They can be treated as the three stages of a lexico-grammatical category of processual representation which underlies various situation-naming constructions in the sphere of syntactic nominalization (see Unit 24), cf.: He helped us. à for him to help us à his helping us à his help to us.