Infinitive as the means of achieving the "fantasy" effect in fantasy texts

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the problem of the functioning of infinitive constructions in the English language and the use of these constructions to achieve the "fantasy" effect. By the infinitive we understand the impersonal form of the verb, which expresses an action without determining the person, number and manner, does not have the usual verb tenses, but only indicates the time correlated with the moment of the action expressed by the verb in the personal form. The dual nature and opacity of the syntactic semantics of the infinitive and infinitive constructions cause numerous discussions among researchers of grammatical studies regarding their functional, semantic and structural characteristics. However, despite such a diverse study of infinitive constructions, the functioning of these units in fantasy texts as the means of achieving the "fantasy" effect remains insufficiently covered. It determines the relevance of our research. The purpose of the article is to clarify the functional features of infinitive constructions in fantasy texts, which are specified in the following tasks: 1) to determine the communicative and pragmatic functions of the infinitive in fantasy works; 2) reveal the role of the infinitive in achieving the "fantasy" effect. In this article, we consider fantasy as a literary genre and interpret it as a special subgenre of fiction based on a special "fairytale" artistic world. This world resembles the Middle Ages, but populated by unreal creatures, has its own developed mythology, built on the basis of archetypal plots. To fulfill our tasks we analyzed the infinitive constructions selected for the study by the continuous sampling method from 287 pages of J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novel "The Hobbit". After analyzing all the factual material, we came to the conclusion that the use of infinitive constructions plays a significant role in creating the "fantasy" effect, namely in the implementation of such characteristics of the fantasy genre as a non-existent world, magic, the confrontation between good and evil, and a quest as the main plot scenario of a fantasy novel. The "fantasy" effect in sentences with infinitives is created if the sentence contains an independent infinitive, infinitive constructions, or an infinitive combined with modal verbs.