8. Intermediary (mixed) communicative types of sentences.

Besides the three basic monofunctional communicative types of sentences, there is a number of sentence models of intermediary, mixed communicative character. The transfer of certain communicative features from one communicative type of sentence to another can be observed in correlations of all three main communicative types, i.e. in statement – question, statement – inducement, and inducement – question correlations.

So-called indirect questions have the form of a declarative sentence, but actually express a request for information: I wonder who shut the window (cf.: Who shut the window?). An answer is expected, as with a regular question: I wonder who shut the window. – Tom did; the response supports the mixed communicative character of this sentence type. Sentences of this type are declarative in form and intermediary between statements and questions in meaning.

On the other hand, so-called rhetorical questions are interrogative in their structural form, but express a declarative functional meaning of high intensity: How can you say a thing like this? The sentence does not express a question; it is a reprimand. No answer is expected. If a direct answer follows the rhetorical question, it emphasizes implications opposite to the content of the question; often it is the speaker himself or herself, who answers the rhetorical question: Who is to be blamed for it?- No one, but myself.

Intermediary between statements and inducements are formally declarative sentences with modal verbs and other lexical means of inducement: You must shut the window; I want you to shut the window (Shut the window, please!). The responses to these sentences are similar to those required by imperative sentences proper: I want you to shut the window. - O.K., I will.

The inducement in the form of a question is very characteristic of English; it is employed to convey various shades of politeness, suggestion, softening of a command, etc.: Will you, please, shut the window? Could you shut the window, please? The response required by such polite requests resembles the one to a proper inducement: Will you, please, shut the window? - O.K., I will.

Thus, the classification of the communicative sentence types, in addition to three basic communicative types, includes six intermediary subtypes of sentences of mixed communicative features; first, mixed sentence patterns of declaration (interrogative-declarative, imperative-declarative), second, mixed sentence patterns of interrogation (declarative-interrogative, imperative-interrogative), and, third, mixed sentence patterns of inducement (declarative-imperative, interrogative-imperative). Most of the intermediary communicative types of sentences perform distinct stylistic functions, and can be treated as cases of transposition of the communicative types of sentences presented in oppositions.

9. The pragmatic communicative types of the sentence: classification of speech acts.

The communicative description of utterances was undertaken at the end of the 1960s by John R. Searle within the framework of the so-called “theory of speech acts”, on the basis of philosophical ideas formulated by John L. Austin. Utterances are interpreted as acts by which the speaker does something (the title of the book by J. L. Austin was How to Do Things with Words). On the basis of various communicative intentions of the speaker, J. R. Searle produced a detailed classification of so-called pragmatic utterance types. The two basic utterance types are defined as performatives and constatives (representatives): performatives are treated as utterances by which the speaker explicitly performs a certain act: I pronounce you husband and wife; and constatives (representatives) as utterances by which the speaker states something, e.g.: I am a teacher.

Constatives are further subdivided into minor types, such as promissives (commissives): I will help you; expressives: How very sad!; menacives: I’ll kill you!, directives: Get out!; requestives: Bring the chalk, please; etc. From the purely linguistic point of view, various speech acts correlate structurally and functionally with the three main communicative types of sentences.

Later the theory of speech acts developed into a separate branch of linguistics known as “pragmatic linguistics” (“pragmalinguistics”, or “pragmatics”); this approach is used in syntactic studies as complementary to the classification of the grammatically distinguished communicative types of sentences.