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the more beneficial it is to the addressee, the more polite it is. This helps explain
why, for example, imperative mood is not necessarily associated with
impoliteness:
Bring me some water
vs.
Have another drink
. Next,
optionality scale
is used to rank options according to the degree of choice offered to the addressee -
the degree of politeness matches the degree of indirectness (tentativeness), and,
vice versa, increased directness results in greater impoliteness (e.g.,
Lend me your
car
vs.
Do you think you could possibly lend me your car?
). It appears that while
imperatives offer little option of whether or not
to comply with the action
requested (
Give me some change
), questions (
Have you got a quarter, by any
chance
?), hypothetical formulations (
Could I borrow some money?
), and ones
using negatives (
You couldn´t lend me a dollar, could you?
) provide greater
freedom to deny that request. Of course, politeness formulae (
please
) can always
be added to give extra politeness.
We should also differentiate between
Достарыңызбен бөлісу: 
