NEED I SAY MORE? (modality question)
This is an example of modality in a question:
NEED I GO ON?
It could be asked with the meaning: I don’t need to keep talking about this.
rhetorical
‘Rhetorical’ questions have the form of a question but the communicative function of a statement.
present continuous (rhetorical questions)
Point 35 in PRESENT continuous is defined as: question forms to ask rhetorical questions. For example, the first three questions asked the speaker does not expect an answer. So we said that we have seven million deaths caused by air pollution every year. Are we panicking? Are we keeping calm? Are we declaring a national …
how can (reflections)
Roughly 10% of language points in the English Grammar Profile depend heavily on manual interpretation to identify them. That is when the form has many other more frequent uses, and when the use is highly specific. Let’s investigate point 233 in the category of MODALITY. ‘how can’ to reflect, through rhetorical questions. And how can …