EPISTEMIC MODAL MARKERS IN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE DETECTIVE PROSE AS A GENRE CONSTITUTING ELEMENT

Abstract

The article deals with a subtype of subjective modality – epistemic modality which qualifies the speaker’s attitude towards the verity of the utterance. The work objective is to examine, if the use of epistemic modal operators is characteristic for detective prose. Manifesting the semantics of supposition, these modal markers seem to be optimal linguistic means to be used in the context of criminal investigation. The obtained data confirm the hypothesis and enable to single out contextual, semantic and syntactical peculiarities of the use of epistemic modal operators in this genre. The peculiarities are revealed on the example of one of the most frequent markers of epistemic modality in detective prose – the modal verb must. The key features that explain the typical use of the verb in detective genre are reference to the situation of inferential knowledge, conclusions based on the interpretation of indirect data, including the result of sensory perception, background and third party information, as well as the life experience of the speaker; explicit presentation of the basis for inference; characteristic communicative situations of reconstructing a picture of the past, establishing cause-consequence relations, defining the location of the object, emotional or physical state, assessing quantity parameters of the situation; the possibility of alternative versions.