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§ 9. The next pair of correlated communicative sentence types between which are identified predicative constructions of intermediary nature are declarative and imperative sentences.

The expression of inducement within the framework of a declarative sentence is regularly achieved by means of constructions with modal verbs. E.g.:

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You ought to get rid of it, you know (C. P. Snow). "You can't come in," he said. "You mustn't get what I have" (E. Hemingway). Well, you must come to me now for anything you want, or I shall be quite cut up (J. Galsworthy). "You might as well sit down," said Javotte (J. Erskine).

Compare semantically more complex constructions in which the meaning of inducement is expressed as a result of interaction of different grammatical elements of an utterance with its notional lexical elements:

"And if you'll excuse me, Lady Eileen, I think it's time you were going back to bed." The firmness of his tone admitted of no parley (A. Christie). If you have anything to say to me, Dr Trench, I will listen to you patiently. You will then allow me to say what I have to say on my part (B. Shaw).

Inducive constructions, according to the described general tendency, can be used to express a declarative meaning complicated by corresponding connotations. Such utterances are distinguished by especially high expressiveness and intensity. E.g.: The Forsyte in him said: "Think, feel, and you're done for!" (J. Galsworthy)

Due to its expressiveness this kind of declarative inducement, similar to rhetorical questions, is used in maxims and proverbs. E.g.:

Talk of the devil and he will appear. Roll my log and I will roll yours. Live and learn. Live and let live.

Compare also corresponding negative statements of the formal imperative order: Don't count your chickens before they are hatched. Don't cross the bridge till you get to it.

§ 10. Imperative and interrogative sentences make up the third pair of opposed cardinal communicative sentence types serving as a frame for intermediary communicative patterns.

Imperative sentences performing the essential function of interrogative sentences are such as induce the listener not to action, but to speech. They may contain indirect questions. E.g.:

"Tell me about your upbringing." — "I should like to hear about yours" (E. J. Howard). "Please tell me what I can do. There must be something I can do." — "You can take the leg off and that might stop it..." (E. Hemingway).

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The reverse intermediary construction, i.e. inducement effected in the form of question, is employed in order to convey such additional shades of meaning as request, invitation, suggestion, softening of a command, etc. E.g.:

"Why don't you get Aunt Em to sit instead, Uncle? She's younger than I am any day, aren't you, Auntie?" (J. Galsworthy) "Would — would you like to come?" — "I would," said Jimmy heartily. "Thanks ever so much, Lady Coote" (A. Christie).

Additional connotations in inducive utterances having the form of questions may be expressed by various modal constructions. E.g.:

Can I take you home in a cab? (W. Saroyan) "Could you tell me," said Dinny, "of any place close by where I could get something to eat?" (J. Galsworthy) I am really quite all right. Perhaps you will help me up the stairs? (A. Christie)

In common use is the expression of inducement effected in the form of a disjunctive question. The post-positional interrogative tag imparts to the whole inducive utterance a more pronounced or less pronounced shade of a polite request or even makes it into a pleading appeal. Cf.:

Find out tactfully what he wants, will you? (J. Tey) And you will come too, Basil, won't you? (O. Wilde)

§ 11. The undertaken survey of lingual facts shows that the combination of opposite cardinal communicative features displayed by communicatively intermediary sentence patterns is structurally systemic and functionally justified. It is justified because it meets quite definite expressive requirements. And it is symmetrical in so far as each cardinal communicative sentence type is characterised by the same tendency of functional transposition in relation to the two other communicative types opposing it. It means that within each of the three cardinal communicative oppositions two different intermediary communicative sentence models are established, so that at a further level of specification, the communicative classification of sentences should be expanded by six subtypes of sentences of mixed communicative features. These are, first, mixed sentence patterns of declaration (interrogative-declarative, imperative-declarative); second, mixed sentence patterns of interrogation (declarative-interrogative, imperative-interrogative); third,

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mixed sentence-patterns of inducement (declarative-imperative, interrogative-imperative). All the cited intermediary communicative types of sentences belong to living, productive syntactic means of language and should find the due reflection both in theoretical linguistic description and in practical language teaching.

CHAPTER XXIV