Cognitive peculiarities of perceiving and distinguishing different meanings of the modal verb would

The article deals with the problem of functional peculiarities of the modal verb “would” in narrative texts. The analysed corpus comprises those meanings of “would” that render temporal aspects of the semantics of the following simple infinitive. The various meanings of modal constructions are considered in terms of the relative frequency of their usage in written texts as well as of their dependence on the broader lexical and pragmatic context. The present article also studies cognitive nuances of creating and perceiving “would + simple infinitive” phrases including their referential characteristics. At the end of the paper we attempt to build a cognitive model of the narrative discourse functioning of “would”-constructions, which takes into account the addressor’s presuppositions at the input and the implications at the output as inferred by the addressee.