The category of modality is one of the most complex and contradictory categories of grammatical theory. In linguistics there are two approaches to the category of modality – wide and narrow. In wide understanding modality is the category of a sentence, expressing the attitude of its contents to reality from the point of view of the speaker and including such aspects of utterance, as its expressiveness, communicative aim, negation, evaluation, time (V.V.Vinogradov). In the narrow sense modality is the category which shows the attitude of the speaker towards the utterance.

    Emotions can be expressed by extra-lingual means, but modality can not. Sentence can be emotionally neutral, but modality is semantically necessary component of a sentence. It performs the constitutive function and that’s why it is obligatory. Emotions are not represented on categorical level, they are expressed lexically; on the contrary, modality is on the categorical level and is expressed grammatically.

    Communicative aim of a sentence and its modality are different things, as the sentence can be interpreted from the view of three aspects:

1) grammatical structure (formal level)

2) meaningful structure (semantic level)

3) the level of organization of the utterance (communicative level).

The communicative aim of an utterance is understood in communicative linguistics as its illocutive power.

    Modality exists in any time plan. Modality always has external expression but modal meanings are not expressed by word-building suffixes. Modality can be objective and subjective. Objective modality is a reflexive category, as it reflects the onthological link between the object and its characteristics, and its subjective type is a cognitive category as it is a product of mental activity of a person, the result of gnoseological activity of a person. So the category of modality in its aspect is a cognitive – reflexive category and to its belonging to some linguistic level – it belongs to syntactic level.

    There is also another syntactic category – predicativeness. In logic it is marked that the characteristics of a thing can be assigned in two ways:

1) the characteristic is viewed as permanent which cannot be taken from the object. Such method is called attribution; and linguistic expression of attribution is attributive word combination. A green apple, a cold water, a beautiful building

2) second method supposes that the characteristic is viewed as separate from the object; which has temporal and changeable character. And to view this characteristic as belonging to the object we need to make mental operation or predication. The lingual expression of the process of predication is a sentence:

The apple is green. The water is cold. The building is beautiful.

The existence of the predicate in the sentence tells about its predicativeness.

Thus, therefore we may say that modality and predicativeness are obligatory and necessary meaningful characteristics of a sentence: predicativeness, supplying the presence of characteristics in the sentence leads to the existence of modality; modality provides the link between predicativeness to the object of speech and at the end is responsible for the ability of a sentence to reflect the appropriate part of the world situation as actual and potential. Being a meaningful parameter of a sentence modality can be expressed in its structure by the system of lingual units of different levels.

References

1. Bloch M.Y. A Course in Theoretical English Grammar. - M., 2000. 

2. Блох М.Я. Теоретические основы грамматики – М., 2000

3.Iofik L.L., Chakhoyan L.P. Readings in the theory of English Grammar

4. Тураева З.Я. Категория времени. Время грамматическое и время художественное.- М., 1986

5. Штелинг Д.А. Грамматическая семантика английского языка. Фактор человека в языке. – М.: МГИМО, ЧеРо, 1996

ADJECTIVE AND ADVERB

1. A general outline of the adjective

2. Classification of adjectives

3. The category of adjectival comparison

4. A general outline of the adverb

5. Classifications of adverbs

Terms: property, comparison, qualitative adjectives, relative adjectives, evaluative adjectives, specificative adjectives, substantivization