Comment clauses and FDG 201As demonstrated in depth in a number of publications by Hengeveld in
relation to modality, the layered model is useful precisely as a way to do
two things at once: to relate a grammatical choice like the indicative-
subjunctive contrast systematically to those aspects of sentence meaning
that it affects, and to show what the difference is in different types of cases.
This particular case requires access to more than pre-discourse layering.
Unless there were three simultaneous levels, with relations explicitly indi-
cated, and with the possibility of interpersonal factors moving ‘downward’,
this could not be captured.
But the question is how best to configure and distribute the discourse in-
formation and the grammatical information over the model. Consider now
the English translation of the two Spanish clauses, which can receive either
of the two readings:
(3) I am afraid that John is ill.
To describe this sentence adequately and to capture its ambiguity, we
need to be able to assign either of the FDG descriptions to it, rather than
one for each mood, as in Spanish.
Because of the orientation of FDG towards matching the speaker’s
choices, with the point of departure in his communicative intention, it is
logical to expect that the differences in communicative intention will be
clearly expressed at the interpersonal level; and in terms of the basic fea-
tures of Hengeveld’s model as laid out in the introduction, this is also the
aim. Quoting selectively from Hengeveld’s description (this volume: 5) of
what goes on at the interpersonal level, we see that
[a]t the interpersonal level a central unit of analysis is the move (M), ... the
vehicle for the expression of a single communicative intention of the
speaker.
In order to achieve his communicative intention, the speaker executes
one or more discourse acts (A), defined in Kroon (1995: 65) as ‘the small-
est identifiable units of communicative behaviour’. A move consists of one
central act, which may be supported by one or more subsidiary acts...In or-
der to build up the communicated content the speaker may have to execute
one or more ascriptive acts (T) and one or more referential acts (R).Hengeveld, moreover, leaves open the possibility of including larger
structures such as turns and exchanges where necessary. The model as de-
scribed in the passages quoted above seems to me well suited to bring out
the difference between the two readings. The question I raised above