Full Description
The goal of this monograph is a comprehensive analysis of understatements and other forms of non-direct speech (hedges) in modern English. It is based on a multi-level approach, including philosophical, cultural, and socio-psychological arguments. The main part consists of an investigation of the linguistic restrictions for understatements and hedges to be formed by means of the following grammatical categories: negation of predicates, gradation of predicates, modalization of affirmative sentences by means of parenthetical verbs, modal adverbs, modal verbs, and questions.
Contents
1. Preface; 2. 0. Introduction; 3. 1. Guidelines to Understatements and Hedges; 4. 1.1. The sentence and its negatability; 5. 1.2. Liability constraints of the sentence; 6. 1.3. Working definition and working perspective; 7. 2. Phrastic Indetermination as a Device for Forming Understatements; 8. 2.1. Negation of predicates; 9. 2.2. Detensification of predicates by grading adverbs; 10. 3. Neustic Indetermination as a Device for Forming Hedges; 11. 3.1. Factivity and modality; 12. 3.2. Questions; 13. 3.3. Modalized assertory assertions; 14. 3.4. Summary; 15. 4. Communicative Conditions for Understatements and Hedges; 16. 4.1. Another look at negatability of sentences; 17. 4.2. Communication as a possible threat to face; 18. 4.3. Understatements and hedges as face saving strategies; 19. 4.4. Face threatening acts and face saving strategies exemplified by praise and criticism; 20. 4.5. Summary; 21. Footnotes; 22. References
