Intonation of Modality in English
Abstract
The article presents intonation as a modal means providing speech utterance segmentation into sentences or phrases; realizing emotional-sensuous aspects of the utterance; expressing the volitional implementation of the utterance; and finally detecting the modal relation of the utterance to the reality as well as a speaker’s attitude to it. It also shows the role the syntagm plays in semantic-intonational text stratification. The article also characterizes the modal essence of the sentence, logical and emphatic stress. The author explains the specificity of modal means’ intonation in the plane of the evaluative information theory and the role intonation takes in utterance content heterogeneity and speaker's stance conveying. On sentence level, functionally intonation as a modal means is considered from the standpoint of the thought formation and embodiment. In view of the fact that intonation is capable of forming grammatical categories expressions, it is obvious that the ontological essence of intonation is modal. In other words, in speech modality is realized through intonation.
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