On Modality Of Modern Chinese

Masses of fundamental concepts and theories on semantics and cognitive-functional linguistics are utilized in this dissertation to probe into modality and the semantic system of modality that is conveyed modal verbs in Modern Chinese, and the interactive relationship between polysemic modal verbs in Modern Chinese and other grammatical categories, in order to establish a relatively complete interpretive system with grammatical forms of modality of polysemic modal verbs, hence improving the comprehension of modality expressions of modality and modal verbs in Modem Chinese to further extent.The essay includes eight chapters with more than 230,000 characters in total.In chapter one, the introduction consists in the objects for examining, the significance of the research, the range of argument, the approach of analyzing, the background of related theories and the explanation of the corpora's origin.After retrospecting the studies on modality from the perspectives of logic and linguistics, chapter two makes a comparison between the studies of modality in logic and linguistics by examining their connections and differences, and indicates the gap between the analysis of modality's form in logic and the practical situation of language in nature. What is more, this chapter also points out that the studies on modality in linguistics springs and develops by taking advantage of the fruits of modal logic studies albeit the existence of the disconnecting between the deduction in logic and language in nature. The essay also covers varied opinions from different linguistic views in history by unveiling their contributions, coupled with the defects still now existing, and focus on not only the systematic studies on modality from several literatures but also the past and current process, together with the achievements and problems in some scholars' studies of modality in Modern Chinese. By further stating the essential factors contained in the analyzed definitions and types of modality, the article defines modality as "The speaker's subjective attitude towards the factuality status of event or truth value of the proposition expressed by sentences." Additionally, the essay discusses a group of concepts on modality such as "subjective modality and objective modality", "mood and modality" and "realis and irrealis" in the hope of deepening the understanding of the essence of modality, and proves the validity of classifying modality into epistemic modality, deontic modality, anddynamic modality after analyzing several sub-categories of modality.Chapter three examines the prime way of expression in modality of Modem Chinese, namely modal verbs. Initially, the composition views from a new angle the range of modal verbs by researching the different names, various ways of categorization, the existence of varied functions and distinctive standards of classification for modal verbs given by up-to-date literature with the aid of prototypical-category theory in cognitive linguistics. On the basis of assuring the modal verbs' membership of certain controversial lexical items and analyzing the classification of modal verbs in current literature, the essay undertakes the work of sub-categorization for modal verbs in Modem Chinese. Different from English, in which polysemy of modal verbs is ubiquitous, modal verbs in Modem Chinese are featured as both monosemic and polysemic. Therefore, the essay concludes the semantic system of modality for modal verbs in Modem Chinese through the analysis and classification of semantic items of monosemic and polysemic modal verbs. In terms of how to apply grammatical method to differentiate the varied semantic items of polysemic modal verbs, the article proposes abundant grammatical dimensions in the course of differentiating by borrowing the results in this aspect and finally selects the polysemic modal verbs, the object for researching in this essay.The composition in chapter four studies the relation between the situation feature of main verbs in sentences and types of modality, exploring into the influence of the former upon the semantic reading of polysemic modal verbs. From the author's point of view, a natural relationship lies between not only static situation and epistemic modality, but also dynamic situation and root modality in the respect of concept structure. Consequently, with no relevance of other elements, polysemic modal verb are read by epistemic modality while co-occurring with the most typical static verbs, but by root modality when co-existing with the most representative dynamic ones. However, the validity of this explanation will be affected while concerning about other relevance.Chapter five probes into the relation of modality and the aspect of Modem Chinese, insisting that an organic and internal relationship be found between the aforementioned two terms, for both of them are connected to the concept of time, under the same grammatical sub-system, owning the overlapping parts in the form of expression and having co-occurrence interaction in modality and aspect marks in their generation of sentences. Through examining the co-existence of different kinds ofmodality and aspect marks, the article indicates modal verbs are read as epistemic meaning under the co-occurrence of static durative aspect "zhe" and polysemic modal verbs, with perfective aspect "le", experiential aspect "guo" and progressive aspect "(zheng)zai". But more complicated situation will appear as follows when polysemic modal verbs are co-existing with inchoative aspect "ql ldi", continuous aspect "xia qu",and tentative aspect (double verbs): Albeit "yinggai" co-occurring with these three aspects is read by unitary epistemic meaning, other polysemic modal verbs, influenced by other factors, might get different types of modalities under various circumstances. Furthermore, as for the ambiguity of polysemic modal verbs in the same sentence, led by the internal difference between "zhe" and "le", the essay unveils the comparative neat interaction between internal disparities of the two aspect marks and different meaning of modal verbs.In chapter six, the effect of negation on modal expression has been viewed in scrutinies. In the beginning, the article analyzes the main types and suppletive function of modal negation and makes clear the influence of the foresaid function on the filtering process of certain polysemic modals. "bu", as an external negation of modality, will affect the tendency of explanation of polysemic modal verbs, for the exact modal meaning can only be decided with the addition of other parameters. The complex situation is shown as following: Due to the truth that "m￡i" merely plays a negative role with modal verbs of dynamic modality, the essay holds the opinion that the external negation of "m￡i" upon modal verbs equals to the realis negation of dynamic modality and "m6i" has the function of filtering the epistemic and deontic modality in polysemic modal verbs. Moreover, generally speaking, the realis negation of dynamic modality is able to entail the realis negation of events. Evidently, the internal negation of "bu" has great effect on the semantic reading of "hui" and "yao", that is, when the proposition is negated, epistemic meaning can be obtained by these two polysemic modal verbs. And on the other side, the effect on the semantic item realization of the other polysemic modal verbs will induce tendency for the explanation of certain type of modal meaning hence other elements should be taken into consideration if exact reading is to be grasped. As for the influence of the internal negation of "m6i" on interpretation of polysemic modal verbs, it refers to the fact that when the proposition is opposed, modal verbs can solely be read with epistemic meaning no matter it is the negation of "y6u" or "aspect". The essay also focuses on the double negation of modality, thinking that "buMbu", "buMmei", and "m<§iMb￡i"...