Expanded Modal Vocabulary of Spoken Buryat Revisited: Functional-Modal Words

Introduction. Modality is present in any language at the level of words, phrases, sentences. In this regard, it is not unexpected, that the means of its expression can be observed at most different levels of the language: modality is expressed at the syntactic, morphological, lexical, phonetic levels; very often morphological, syntactic and other means are combined. And, nevertheless, despite the obvious prevalence and universality of this phenomenon, the problem of modality has not yet received its full description, and the literature on modality, functional-modal words in particular, is very limited. Goals. The article raises the question of lexical units — nouns, adjectives, adverbs, which in some conditions perform the functions of modal words due to their tendency to develop secondary uses, in particular, the function of modal words, that reinforce, emphasize a certain segment of a statement. Results. Functional-modal words, having different formal-morphological features and their primary lexical meanings, due to the emotional-expressive connotation inherent in their semantics, can in the message, along with modal words, express their general grammatical meaning - the speaker’s (multi-aspect) attitude to the content your statement or part of it. The considered functional-modal words do not differ from their ‘brothers’ in the lexical and grammatical category, but episodic losses of lexical meaning in connection with the performance of the function of the modal word draw attention to them as a phenomenon, that signifies the possible beginning of obscuring the lexical meaning and subsequent derivational processes — lexicalization, transposition, transition from one part of speech to another. The paper also touches upon the fundamental theoretical issue of including / excluding emotional-expressive meanings in the modality category, which many researchers exclude from the named category, explaining that they do not express the logical-rational qualification of the content of the utterance. The linguistic material, as it seems to the author, resists the division of statements into logical-rational and emotional-expressive, since in many cases, even within the framework of one word, these two aspects appear in an inseparable unity.

1. Folktales of the Upper Lena Valley. Irkutsk: Eastern Siberia Book Publ., 1938. 302 p. (In Russ.)

2. Kalyagina I. G. Dependence of modal word meaning on its usage context. Vestnik of Yaroslav the Wise Novgorod State University. 2015. No. 4 (87). Part 1. Pp. 154–158. (In Russ.)

3. Mulaeva N. M. Kalmyk Lexical and Grammatical Modality Means: Possibility, Necessity, Certainty. Cand.Sc. (philology) thesis abstract. Elista, 2006. 22 p. (In Russ.)

4. Mӧnkh-Amgalan Yu. Existential Threats to Modern Mongolian. Ulaanbaatar: Surgaltyn Tӧv, 1998. 370 p. (In Mong.)

5. Nuyts J., Auwera J. van der. The Oxford Handbook of Modality and Mood. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. 670 p. (In Eng.)

6. Pankov F. I. Grammar and semantics of modal words revisited: a case study of one linguodidactic model from Russian morphology. Moscow State University Bulletin. Series 9. Philology. 2003. No. 2. Pp. 59–74. (In Russ.)

7. Pyurbeev G. Ts. (ed.) Unabridged Academic Mongolian-Russian Dictionary. Vol. 2: Д–O. Moscow: Academia, 2001. 536 p. (In Mong. and Russ.)

8. Pyurbeev G. Ts. Mongolic languages: category of modality and its means. Voprosy Jazykoznanija. 1981. No. 5. Pp. 25–30. (In Russ.)

9. Shakhmatov A. A. Russian Syntax. 2nd ed. Leningrad: Uchpedgiz, 1941. 620 p. (In Russ.)

10. Shevernina Z. V. Functional-semantic meanings of Mongolian modal particles. In: Mongolic Languages. Issues of the Grammatical System. Elista, 1980. Pp. 20–31. (In Russ.)

11. Shvedova N. Yu. (ed.) Russian Grammar. In 2 vols. Vol. 2. Moscow: Nauka, 1980. 709 p. (In Russ.)