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1. Introduction
There are two main ways to communicate messages linguistically: verbally and non-verbally. In verbal communication, the message is transmitted by means of such devices as stress, intonation and pausing. An example of stress is the word object which has different meanings when stressed differently, as in obˈject and ˈobject. The first is a verb which means ‘disagree’. The second is a noun which means ‘material thing’. An example of intonation is the expression What a beautiful day! which expresses different feelings when said with different intonations. With a falling intonation, it is said perfunctorily. With a fall-rise intonation, it is said enthusiastically. With a rise-fall intonation, it is said sarcastically. An example of pausing is the expression Don't eat that honey. When the pause is after that, that refers to an object and honey refers to a person, meaning ‘darling’. When the pause is after honey, honey refers to an object. So, the listener is ordered not to eat the honey. These devices are extensively covered in Roach (2009), Carr (2012), Odden (2014) and Kennedy (2016), among others.
In non-verbal communication, the message is transmitted by means of such devices as word choice, sentence structure and punctuation marks. An example of word choice is the pair freakish and freaky. Freakish describes character as in She dislikes freakish visitors, whereas freaky describes appearance as in She dislikes freaky clothes. An example of sentence structure is the sentence pair I bid him come in and I bid him to come in. In the bare infinitive, the bidding is direct and realised. In the to-infinitive, the bidding is indirect and non-realised. The two devices of word choice and sentence structure are extensively covered in Hamawand (2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2016). An example of punctuation marks is the sentence pair She is scared of two things: cats and dogs, and She is scared of two things – cats and dogs, which are not equivalent in meaning. The colon introduces a clause that clarifies what comes before it. The em dash generates a strong emotion. For a general treatment of punctuation marks, see Terban (2000), Truss (2003), Trask (2004), Lukeman (2007) and Casagrande (2014). For a cognitive treatment...