From mirativity to argumentation

Abstract

This study is an analysis of the relation between emotion and cognition exhibited by the various uses of meditative-polemic should in English. In its primary uses linked to the expression of emotions, the syntactic construction exhibits a negative evaluative meaning in the superordinate clause, which posits the propositional content of the subordinate clause as counter-expected and therefore endowed with a mirative value. In more intellectual uses in which the superordinate clause does not explicitly express negative meanings, the semantic mirative meaning is preserved, illustrating a case of multistratal modality. In these cases, the initial mirative value is exploited in argumentation as discursive mirativity, counter-expectancy being used as a built-in foundation for more elaborate meanings, allowing a subject to express a particular value while anticipating contradiction on the part of another subject.