On The Negative Function Of The Rhetorical Question Mood

The rhetorical question mood has always been categorized into interrogation; however, it conveys a negation instead of a question. That is to say, a language form followed by the rhetorical question mood means its opposite. Previous researches of the issue are only based on an instinctive feeling for the form, paying little attention to a systematic analysis of its semantic representations, syntactic features and pragmatic functions.This thesis, proceeding from the function of the negative words, points out that the linguistic negation is essentially the negation of certain preconditions and thus proves that the rhetorical question mood is functionally identical to negative words, which is validated with the meanings, forms and the application of punctuations. With this understanding, the transforming mechanism from the formal interrogation to the functional negation in different types of rhetorical question mood is probed. The thesis also analyzes in detail the pragmatic characteristics of the rhetorical question mood, probes into the basis of its coexisting with the negative words. It is discovered that the rhetorical question mood is different from the negative words in the conditions of application, negative intensity, expression of emotion and style frequency. The causes for the differences are explored as well. Based on the negative function of the rhetorical question mood, it is concluded that the rhetorical question should not be categorized into interrogation, but should be viewed as an independent category in the sentence system instead.