SENSE STRUCTURE OF MODAL UNITS “SEMBRARE” AND “PARERE” (IN ITALIAN)
Authors:   Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine, Okhrimenko V. 
Published: July 2019

The article focuses on the appropriateness of quantifying information in the microtext of functioning of the modal units “sembrare” and “parere” in Italian. Being the nucleus and forming modal structures together with adjoined components, modal units “sembrare” and “parere” determine quantifying of information in the microtext. The modal structure is formed by adjoined components according to the regularity rules in the near-nuclear zone (components combined with modal verbs “sembrare” or “parere”) and the near-peripheral zone (components used in the modal sentence with “sembrare” or “parere” or in adjacent sentences). These modal units preserving the liaison with their inner form possess semantic implicatures of non-definitiveness. Being perceptive predicates, which is a prototypical function of “sembrare” and “parere”, these modal units combine in the pre-nuclear zone with lexical units of perceptive and emotive semantics as well as with Italian modal markers of trustworthiness “davvero” and “proprio”. Such contexts are characterized by subjectocentric parameters: unity of space, time, subject and a fragment of reality of sensory perception being an object of modal evaluation sensory perception with obstacles or emotional state of a subject as an entity without denotation. The modal structure is formed during the fusion of the nucleus (Italian modal verbs “sembrare” and “parere”) with pre-nuclear zone (lexical units of perceptive or emotive semantics as well as with modal markers of trustworthiness “davvero” and “proprio”). The combination of modal verbs “sembrare” and “parere” with perceptive predicates “sentire”, “vedere”, “udire” reveal the phenomenon of obligatory grammatical pleonasm. The context of actionality and the context of evaluation are not typical for the microtext of functioning of Italian modal verbs “sembrare” or “parere”. While the modal verbs are used in such types of context, the microtext is characterized by use in the near-nuclear zone of lexical units that verbalize quasireality that is impossibility or improbability of real state of affairs confronting to the state of affairs from the point of view of a subject of modal evaluation. Such confrontation of the real and the imagined being in accordance with semantic implicatures of non-definitiveness of Italian modal verbs “sembrare” and “parere” correlates with diversity of evaluation, use of disjunctive connectors, sense relations of contradictority between microtext segments. The use of “sembrare” and “parere” in the contexts of actionality and evaluation is the maximum distance from the prototype that is usually marked with the Subjunctive Mood. Italian modal verbs “sembrare” and “parere” can be also used as epistemic predicates. Being epistemic predicates, which is a non-prototypical function of “sembrare” and “parere”, these modal units combine in the pre-nuclear or near-peripheral zone with lexical units of epistemic semantics that reveal privative epistemic state of a subject of modal evaluation such as “non sapere”, “essere incerto”. Such contexts are characterized by the following parameters: interruption of unity of space, time, subject and a fragment of reality of modal evaluation, diversity of time of event and modal evaluation, reliance on deduced knowledge, privative epistemic state of a subject, influence of emotional state of a subject on identification of causal relationships. The use of the modal operator “infatti” in the near-peripheral zone causes disappearing of non-definitiveness. The use of approximators in the near-nuclear zone preserves non-definitiveness meanwhile the use of quantors and markers of epistemic necessity causes diminishing of non-definitiveness.