ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how a speaker establishes a relationship with those with whom he is communicating, and how he relates to the content of his message and presents the types of acts that speech involves. The interpersonal metafunction deals with relationships. These are relationships established by the speaker, either with his addressees, or with the message he is communicating. As it has been developed for English, the interpersonal metafunction distinguishes between a mood element, mood for short, and the residue. Modality is a linguistic resource whereby the speaker comments on the ideational content of his clause, claiming, rather than stating it as a fact, that it is possible, permissible and obligatory. French can express modality by the use of "auxiliaries", which in fact are finite and followed by an infinitive. Rowlett calls these "pseudo-modals". French has a number of lexical verbs which can be used to express modal meanings. These include obliger, paraître, sembler and permettre.
