Interaction of grammatical person, number and modality in non-factual constructions in the Macedonian language

The paper provides an in-depth analysis of functional features of the analytical first-person singular da-construction in the standard Macedonian language. When it is used in an independent clause, the da-construction has a wide range of modal meanings, the most common of which are imperative and optative. The interaction of the grammatical categories of person, number and modality in the da-construction leads to changes in its meaning and shows its functional potential to indicate the speaker's communicative intentions. The chosen semasiological approach to describing the da-construction is combined with the functional analysis and the communicative-pragmatic approach. The research material consists of about 200 examples gathered from contemporary Macedonian literary works and journalistic articles. 1. .Da-construction has a full non-defective conjugation paradigm with an imperative meaning, where the first singular verb form has a special status. Directive speech acts, where imperative forms are usually used, are not supposed to combine a speaker and an addressee in one person, which causes semantic modification of the da-construction with a 1Sg verb: initially related to the imperative analytical paradigm, it describes the speaker's intention to perform an action which he / she considers necessary. In addition, this type of construction marks a point in decision-making that is followed by the change of the speaker's cognitive status; the only exception is the da-construction including verbs of perception, which points to an indirect causation of the addressee. 2. Independent 1Sg da-constructions with speech verbs and cognitive verbs tend to become idiomatic in meaning, which causes their use as discourse markers. Functioning as metacommentary, they help the speaker to direct the dialogue according to his/her communicative intentions. 3. The interaction of grammatical categories in the optative da-construction transforms curses to vows that have a function to confirm the truth of the speaker's words and his / her commitment to face consequences in case of lying.