Osovsўka I. Utterances of Refusal: Structural, Semantic, Communicative and Pragmatic aspects (on the material of modern German language).

The dissertation focuses on structural, semantic, communicative and pragmatic aspects of utterances of refusal in modern German. The communicative essence of refusal utterances - the category of negation - has been defined; modifications of invariant meaning of the category of negation in the semantic structure of refusal utterances have been revealed. Functional essence of refusal speech acts has been determined; act criteria of its functioning have been described. The place of refusal acts in both traditional and non-traditional speech act classifications has been determined. Lexical and semantic operators served as a basic for refusal acts typology. The fund of lexical and grammatical means of expression of "refusal" meaning has been defined. Possible modifications of "refusal" illocutionary force in the direction of its intensification or relaxation have been investigated and described. The interdependence between pragmatic contents of refusal utterances and situation-bound and situation-independent characteristics of communication has been traced and described; an attempt has been undertaken to reproduce the speech portrait of the speaker who utters refusal realizing intention of rejection in a certain communicative situation.