2.3.

The Expressive / Emotive Function of the Language Besides the communication of ideas, the locutor externalises, in a more or less overt way, his intentions, emotions, wishes and desires, in a word, his feelings . These psychological features visible at the level of the surface structure of the message are relevant to the study of the expressive function of the language . The most natural way of expressing one s own intentions or internal voliti on, besides the use of the finite verb to intend, is by means of the deontic mod al verb will: 1). I will try this again later. 2). We will solve this problem as soon as possible. It is true that in these two examples the modal will expresses intention , but this is only one meaning among others. The sentences above can be understo od in more than one way: I / We intend to , I / We promise that , I / We assure you that , I / We have just made up my / our mind to , even I / We want to , in this last situation will being no longer a modal but a finite verb rendering the idea of w illingness and that of intention as well. Therefore, the modal verb will can exp ress besides intention volition, promise, assurance, desire. When a finite verb, its use in the continuous aspect comprises the meani ngs of simultaneous volition and intention: 3). I am willing to quit smoking. The operator expressing future time, shall, is also characterised by the semantic feature [+ Intention] : 4). We shall visit you next week. However, the [+ Intention] feature in the time auxiliary shall is weaker than that in will, primarily because modal auxiliaries, like will here, are clo ser to lexical verbs in terms of meaning than time operators are. Sharing one s intentions can be realised overtly by means of other verb co nstructions such as be going to Future or Present Tense Continuous with a future m eaning: 5). We are going to leave the town next week. 6). We are leaving the town next week. These last two constructions make it possible for the locutor to speak n ot only about his intentions, as was the case of will and shall in the situation s above, but also about the others : 7). They are going to come tomorrow. 8). They are coming tomorrow. But in this situation the main function of the language is the referenti al, not the expressive one. The locutor himself may have strong feelings against the course of events as intended by others, in which case we shall speak of oth er feelings he expresses when uttering such sentences as (7) and (8). This depen ds a lot on the intonation he uses, on the linguistic and extra-linguistic conte xts in which he formulates these sentences, on his facial gestures or body langu age. Mental and physical emotions are overtly expressed syntagmatically throu gh: a) verbs indicating intellectual or emotional attitudes: abhor, adore, a ppreciate, contemplate, despise, detest, enjoy, fear, feel (like), hate, hope, h urt, (dis)like, pity, (dis)respect, (cannot) stand, trust, wish, etc.: 9). I can t stand the sight of her.

10). We appreciate your effort. 11). I feel like I m falling down into pieces. Here the locutor s emotion is totally rendered by the verb in the progressive aspe ct following the Subject 1(I) + feel like + Subject 2 structure, which is not th e case of: 12). I don t feel like dancing at all. where the structure (not) to feel like concentrates the whole emotional content of the sentence . In such a case, the verbal structure feel like and the followi ng ing verb have the same Subject. b) verbal constructions of the type be / feel + adjective / past partici ple denoting emotions or states of mind: afraid, amazed, amused, angry, anxious, attracted, bewildered, devastated, eager, ecstatic, excited, furious, glad, go od, grateful, happy, heart-broken, hopeful, hopeless, miserable, nervous, nice, overwhelmed, pleased, responsible, sad, sorry, tempted, thrilled, wonderful, w orried, etc., followed by the appropriate prepositions: 13). I m so sad that you missed the party! 14). We ll always be grateful to you. 15). I feel so happy that you have passed the exam! c) exclamatives of the type What (a) + adjective .!, How + adjective / adv erb !: 16). What a great idea! 17). How nice of you to have thought of us! 18). How beautifully she swayed about the room! d) exclamatives in disguise: 19). He was such a good dancer! (utter appreciation of his achievements) 20). He was so good a dancer! 21). He was too / very arrogant! (disapproval or contempt) With these sentences, the idea of superlative can be rendered by means o f intensifiers such as: very, too, so, such, as in (19), (20), (21), or by means of negative indefinite pronouns and adverbials: nobody, nothing, never (ever), no way as in: 22). Nobody has ever done that for me (before)! (strong feeling of grati tude as reaction to a service received) 23). Nobody has ever done that to me (before)! (strong feeling of disappointment , contempt or disdain, depending on intonation and other paralinguistic features ) 24). Never (ever) will I speak to you (again)! (disappointment + determination n ot to repeat action) 25). Nothing ever happens (lack of hope, melancholy) 26). No way will he come here (again)! (utter lack of hope) In (22) and (23) the mere change of a preposition for another one entail s a total change of meaning, from the positive to the negative pole. This change is due to the meaning of the prepositional verb phrase: to do something for som ebody implies a positive meaning of [+ Beneficiary], whereas to do something to somebody implies a negative meaning of [+Affected]. It is also worth noting that the idea of superlative in the examples from (22) to (25) is added to by the ti me adverbials before, again, ever, which sometimes are already implied, if they are not overtly expressed, by the use of the perfect tense - in (22) and (23) or of a future time reference of will, meaning want to - in (24) and (26).

e) interjections and adjectival or adverbial equivalents expressing pain , surprise, bewilderment, disappointment, disgust, excitement, joy, happiness: O uch!, Oh!, Ah!, Alas!, Wow!, Hurray!, Ugh!, Phew!, Yes!, No!, Great!, Fantastic! , Terrible!, etc. The last three exclamatives in this list may be considered the shortened form of a full exclamative sentence of the c) type above: How great / fantastic / terri ble + noun / pronoun + Be !, or What (a) great / fantastic / terrible + noun / pro noun + Be ! Given the context in which these adjectives are used as interjections, the participants in a discussion whose topic is already clear usually have no d oubts about what noun they modify. Wishes, hopes and desires are overtly expressed by: a) verbs and verb phrases such as: wish, desire, want, hope, expect, wou ld like, would prefer: 27). I wish it were true! (wish + slight disappointment, bitterness or r egret) 28). We wish it would rain! (a not very hopeful wish) 29). We expect you to come to work in time. (wish + polite demand) 30). I d like to read some interesting books. (desire) 31). I want to become a famous writer. (wish + determination) b) a verb in conditional sentences In such sentences, whenever the grammatical Subject in the main clause i s a pronoun in the 1st person, its verb may be interpreted semantically as the l ocutor s wish or desire to accomplish some task: 32). If it is fine tomorrow, I ll go for a walk. (Rephrasing: I wish it wo uld be fine tomorrow so that I go for a walk!) 33). If I were wealthy, I would travel about the world. (Rephrasing: I w ish I were wealthy and travelled about the world!) 34). Had you come in time, we wouldn t have missed the train. (Rephrasing: I wish you had come in time and we hadn t missed the train!) 35). If she had brought me the book, I wouldn t be watching T.V. now. (Rep hrasing: I wish she had brought me the book and I weren t watching T.V. now!) In all these sentences the fulfillment of the action expressed by the ma in verb depends on that of the verb in the conditional subordinate clause. All v erbs refer to the locutor s more or less hopeful wishes and desires, even if these are impossible to achieve, as is partially the case of present conditionals (33 ), and fully the case of past conditionals (34), and mixed conditionals (35). In all the examples from (27) to (35) the idea of wish or desire is not the only one expressed by the locutor. One and the same sentence may render the meaning of wish and some other meaning such as: disappointment (27), bitterness (27), demand (29), determination (31), regret (33), reproach (34, 35). c). The construction If only ! followed by a verb in the subjunctive mood also expresses wish and hope, whether the goal is attainable or not: 36). If only I could see you! (meaning: I wish I could see you! I don t kn ow whether this will happen or not.) 37). If only she hadn t been so boring! (meaning: I wish she hadn t been so boring, but unfortunately she was.) Intentions, wishes, desires, and especially emotions are classes of feel ings that have many constitutive members : alarm, amazement, anger, appreciation , attraction, bewilderment, bitterness, comfort, desire, determination, disgust, eagerness, fear, gratefulness, happiness, hate / hatred, hope, intention, love, peacefulness, pity, pleasure, sadness, serenity, shock, stubbornness, temptatio n, willingness, wish, etc. The locutor may express his feelings by employing these nouns in verb ph rases of the type:

Feel / Show / Express + Noun Phrase: 38). I ll always express my gratitude to you. 39). I could feel fear flowing through my veins. or in sentence patterns such as: It + Be + Noun Phrase + to + Verb : 40). It is my intention to work out a solution to this problem. 41). It was utter happiness to see my parents again. or in sructures such as: Possessive + Noun Phrase + Be 42). My appreciation of his merits was immense. Even if the main function of these last five sentences (from 38 to 42) i s the referential one - as the locutor informs the interlocutor of his intention , feelings of happiness, appreciation, fear, etc. - it is clear that the emotive function is not totally absent. It is, nevertheless, diminished by the distance that the locutor places between himself and his feeling, distance visible in th e way he speaks of the feeling and not expressing it directly. The direct way of expressing one s own feelings is, as mentioned earlier, in the very presence of those feelings: using the 1st person singular or plural along with a verb in the present or future tense , by means of interjections or exclamative sentences and phrases. When using nouns describing intention, emotions, however, the locutor ma y speak of his or others feelings in the past tense as well: 43). My / Their intention was to take up that job. 44). It was utter despair that I could read on her face. 45). I felt the temptation to deny immediately and unambiguously such mot ivations 46). I d detectable in 47). I by the feeling suspect some residue of my bewilderment, not to say shock, remaine my expression. must confess I did feel a slight sense of alarm a sense aggravated that I was perhaps not on the correct road at all [ ]

In such a case the feeling is reified and constitutes a part of the inform ational content of the sentence, which is the focus of the referential function of the language.