Modal verbs as a means of expression in a literary text (based on the novel “Atemschaukel” (“The Swing of Breathing”) by H. Müller).

Abstract

The article considers modal verbs in German as elements of the language system, which can act in a literary text not only as actualizers of different types of modality, but also as means of linguistic expressiveness. In the text of H. Müller’s novel “The Swing of Breathing” (Herta Müller “Atemschaukel”), we find the necessary prerequisites for the realization of the expressive potential of modal verbs. The corpus of examples demonstrates that the concentration of modal meanings in rather small parts of the text, the contact arrangement of markers of non-deictic and deictic modality, their combinatorial combination, the juxtaposition of the meanings of necessity, possibility, desirability or undesirability intensify the expressiveness of the content. With the help of the variable use of modal verbs, the author figuratively represents the situation of violence and coercion, which constitute the dominant meanings of the narrative.