IMPERATIVE IN MOTIVATION SENTENCE AS A DOMINANT OF FUNCTIONALSEMANTIC FIELD OF MOTIVATION IN OLD ENGLISH

Abstract

The article examines imperative forms of the verb as nuclear constituents of functional-semantic field of motivation in Old English and analyzes semantic volume of these language units, as well as the laws of their functioning. The purpose of the article is to consider the features of Old English means of expression of motivation. The subject of the study is the actualization of the modal meaning of motivation. The relevance of the research is determined by the fact that it is conducted within the framework of historical pragmatics and allows, on the one hand, to expand the scope of application of pragmatic analysis and, on the other hand, to obtain data on speech aspect of the studied literary monuments of the past. The mentioned goal led to the formulation and solution of the following tasks: to determine the semantic scope of modal meaning of motivation, represented in Old English texts; to identify the means of expressing a given meaning and to subject them to a nuclear-peripheral organization in the corresponding functional semantic field; to establish the role which play the language tools that have a modal potential of motivation, in the implementation of communication goals; to realize a pragmatic description of speech units of Old English native speakers. The source of factual material was mainly editions of Old English texts, edited by the 19th–20th centuries’ specialists. So, the construction of affirmative and negative imperative sentences reveals some certain patterns that consist in a more likely explication of the agent expressed by a personal pronoun, in case of negation. Numerical prevalence of affirmative imperative sentences and occasionality in the explication of the addressee in negation allow us to consider Old English imperative sentences as one-part ones. An introduction to their structure of personal pronouns for indication of a potential performer of the necessary action, along with conversion, helps to make command more emphatic. The obtained results can serve as a starting point for the study of the field, adjacent to the functional-semantic field of optativity/desirability in Old English. Further investigations can provide a detailed analysis of stylistic conditioning of motivation markers usage in a particular type of text.