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e.g. «One had better (best) do smith» – [25, v. 2; 119].
«If you want to feel good and live a long life you had better take a half-hour walk each day, preferably at a brisk pace». [3; 262].
«You had better ask us about the perfect diet in a perfect environment and how to maintain your good health longer if you take the effective doses of vitamins A, C, E, plus selenium, glutathione, cysteine, and bioflavonoids» [3; 266].
«One o’clock has just struck. I am considering whether I had better wait here for the arrival of the messenger from London, or slip away quietly, and watch for him outside the long gate». [W. Collins, The Woman in White, 2; 238].
«Or, perhaps – NO! it is quite revolting enough to feel that third conjecture stir ring in my mind. I would rather not see it confronting me in plane black and white». [2; 228].
«By whatever other circumstance the day may be marked. It is not the day, Lavinia, on which I will allow a child of mine to pounce upon me. I beg – nay, command! – that you will not pounce». [Ch. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, 5; 430].
«I had not spoken hitherto, and I would much rather nor have spoken now. But the expression of distress in Laura’s face when she turned it towards me… left me no other alternative than to give my option…» [W. Collins, 2; 218].
«Many of these visitor were consumptive, who had yet to learn that the bracing alpine air would sooner for their health…» [The Sunday Times, Culture, June 27, 2004, p. 42].
«The one virtue of our electoral system is supposed to be that it enables the people to «kick the rascals out» at election time…» [The Week, 30 Oct. 2004, p. 34].
I.V. Arnold points at modal particles just, only but K.N. Kachalova, [24, p. 303–305] includes too, also, as well, either, else, even, alone, ever, simply, merely. They can express the additional shades (connotations) in context.
e.g. «There was something hidden, beyond a doubt, under the mere surface-brutality of the words which her husband had just addressed to her». [2; 224].
«That was the very thing I was thinking just now, «said Stickly-Prickly.» I think scales are a tremendous improvement on prickles – to say nothing of being able to swim…» [The Children’s Treasury of Humour, 12; 42].
«How strange! «cried Elizabeth.» How abominable! – I wonder that the very pride of this Mr. Darcy has not made him just to you!» [J. Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 4; 85].
«But I tell you, honestly, if you want to see me swim away, you’ve only got to drop me into the water». [12; 39].
«June 19th. – I had only got as far as the top of stairs when the locking of Laura’s door suggested to me the precaution of also locking my own door, and keeping the key safety about me while I was out of my room». [W. Collins, 2; 272].
Periphrastic modals are used to communicate a lot of connotations and subtle shades and tinges. This process of activation of periphrastic modals by relating them to our speaking and writing expands possibilities and potentialities of texts and discourses in the frame of their contexts. They convey the identities, knowledge, emotions, abilities, beliefs, and assumptions of the writer (speaker) and reader (hearer); association and the relationships holding between them. The most striking instances of periphrastic modals presented above give us additional material for the practical course in the frames of the theoretical English grammar.
Stylistic transpositions of special connotative value in expressive language conveyed by verbal forms. (Table 1.4.)
l. The Historical Present.
e.g. «Habits of writing and reading in Anglo-Saxon England were indeed largely confined to monastic centers; but from the twelfth century onwards the production and consumption of manuscript material increased greatly, and some vernacular works of fourteenth and fifteenth centuries survive in numerous copies.» [The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature, 20; 3].
«Such verse (alliterative) continued to be written in English, as we shall see, to the end of the Middle Ages and it has bee revived in modern times by poets such as W.H. Auden; but its principles, derived from a common Germanic tradition of oral poetry, present difficulties to the reader of Chaucer, Pope, or Tennyson. [20; 4].
«The evolution of Homo sapiens, being with the same physical characteristics that we possess, was a long and complex process that is still imperfectly understood. The earliest evidence for the existence of Australopithecus, or «southern ape», dates from approximately 2 million years ago and comes from the temperate regions of Africa and western Asia (now known as the Middle East)». [Civilization of the World, 21; 4].
NOTE: The so-called «historical present» occurs in historical information, in rather mannered and formal prose of an old-fashioned tone, and furthermore it is common in colloquial spoken narrative, especially at points of particular excitement. The time reference is unequivocally past. [Quirk R., 28; 1457].
2. Colloquial spoken narratives with the «historical present» as characteristic of popular narrative style.
e.g. «It was on the Merritt Parkway just south of New Haven. I was driving along, half asleep, my mind miles away, and suddenly there was a screeching of brakes and I catch sight of a car that had been overtaking me apparently. Well, he doesn’t. He pulls in behind me instead, and it’s then that I notice a police car parked on the side». [Quirk R., 28; 1457].
«I hand the first book to my math. Perhaps it is grammar, perhaps a history or geography. I take a last drawning, look at the page as I give it into her hand, and start off aloud at a racing pace while I have got it fresh. I trip over word Mr. Murdstone looks up. I trip over another word. Miss Murdstone looks up. [Ch. Dickens, 29; 141].
«She has escaped from my Asylum!»
I cannot say with truth that the terrible inference which those words suggested flashed upon me like a new revelation. Some of the strange questions put to me by the woman in white, after my ill-considered promise to leave her free to act as she pleased, had suggested the conclusion either that she was naturally flighty unsettled, or that some resent shock of terror had disturbed the balance of her faculties. But the idea of absolute insanity, which we all associate with the wery name of an Asylum, had, I can honestly declare, never occured to me, in connection with her.»
[W. Collins, The Woman in White, 2; 21–22].
«Mr. and Mrs. Veneering were bran-new people in a bran-new house in a bran-new quarter of London. Everything about the Veneerings was spick-and-span new. All their furniture was new, all their friends were new, all their servants were new, their plate was new… This evening the Veneerings give a banquet. Eleven leaves in the Twemlow; fouteen in company all told. Four pigeon-breated retainers in plain clothes stand in line the hall… Mrs. Veneering welcomes her sweet Mr. Twemlow. Mr. Vereening we1coms his dear Twemlow…» [Ch Dickens, 5; 7].
«The poetry of Shakespeare was inspiration: indeed, he is not so much an imitator, as instrument of nature; and it is not so just to say that he speaks from her, as that she speaks through him». [Hazlitt, 14; 1].
«Shakespear’s imagination, by identifying itself with the strongest characters in the most trying circumstances, grapp1ed at once with nature, and trampled the littleness of art under his feet: the rapid changes of situations, the wide range of the universe, gave him life and spirit, and afforded full scope to his genius… The author seems all the time to be thinking of his verses, and not of his subject, – not of what his characters would feel, but of what he shall say; and as it must happen in all such cases, he always puts in their mouths those things which they would be the last to think of, and which it shews the greatest ingenuity in him to fink out.» [14; 256].
«I was sitting at the bus stop the other day and this woman was sitting across from me and I see this caterpillar drop behind her and start squiggling its way up to her and I’m just like, «Should I tell her or should I not?» I sat there for five minutes a and watched it get up to her shoe and I decided I can’t tell her. I’ve got to see what happens ». [G.YULE, 31; 72].
«This is the only point, I flatter myself, on which we do not agree. I had hope that our sentiments coincoded in every particular, but I must so far differ from you as to think our two youngest daughters uncommonly foolish». [J. Austen, 4; 29].
Another illustrative example:
| «He holds him with his skinny hand» «There was a ship», quoth he. «Hold off! unhand me, grey-bread loon!» Fftsoons his hand dropt he. He holds him with his glittering eye – The Wedding-Guest stood still, And listens like a three years’ child: The Mariner hath his will. The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone: He cannot choose but hear; And thus spake on that ancient man, The bright-eyed Mariner. | PRESENT PAST PAST PRESENT PAST PRESENT PRESENT PAST PRESENT PAST |
| [Coleridge S.T., The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 36; 40–41] |
NOTE: These three verses show no less than seven shifts of tense, backwards and forwards, from simple present to simple past.
The change of the tense-forms with one and the same time reference is a most effective stylistic devices in expressive language. The historical present describes the past as if it is happening now: it conveys something of the dramatic immediacy of an eye-witness account. The phenomenon of present/past tense alternation is common in informal spoken narrative, conversations and letter writings.
3. Echo Utterances
In the discourse function echo utterances are either questions or exclamations.
1 Recapitulatory echo questions:
a) a yes-no questions or questions which repeat part or all message:
e.g. A: The Browns are emigrating.
B: Emigrating?
e.g. A: Switch the light off, please.
B: Switch the LIGHT OFF?
or
Switch the LIGHT OFF, did you say?
(to make the meaning explicit)
b) a wh-echo questions which indicates, by wh-words, which part of the previous utterance the speaker did not hear or understand;
e.g. A: It cost five dollars.
B: How much did it cost?
or
How much did you say it cost?
I (after wh-element only)
e.g. A: Switch the light off.
B: Switch WHAT off?
e.g. A: His son is a macro engineer.
B: His son is a WHAT?
NOTE: What may replace a verb: e.g.: She sat there and WHAT ted?
Stylistic purpose: to express irony, incredulity, or merely fill a conversational gap.
c) questions about questions:
e.g.: A: Have you borrow my PEN?
B: (Have I) borrow your PEN?
(a yes-no question about wh-question;
a wh-question about a yes-no question;
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