A Cognitive Study Of The English And Chinese Modal Verbs CAN And NENG

Modal verb is regarded as one of the primary and effective devices for expressing modality in communication, English and Chinese modal verbs can and neng (能) enjoy a high rate of usages in both spoken and written language. The study on modal verbs has gone through a long time. With respect to modal verb, it refers to the speaker’s attitude and opinion on things or acts, or people add some emotive colors to the predicate of a sentence or an utterance, such as possibility, permission, willingness, necessity, volition, desire and so on. In fact, a lot of scholars have researched the English and Chinese modal verbs can and neng from different perspectives, such as the perspectives of traditional grammar, semantics, syntax and pragmatics. Most of these studies on modal verbs are synchronic.The present thesis incorporates diachronic study and synchronic analysis. It aims to make a descriptive analysis of the English and Chinese modal verbs can and neng in different historical periods, summarize path and regularity of semantic change of the two modal verbs, namely, general abilityâ†'root possibilityâ†'deontic permission and general abilityâ†'root possibilityâ†'epistemic possibility, and then discuss the mechanisms and motivations of meaning evolution of the two modal verbs based on conceptual metaphor, conceptual metonymy and grammaticalization.All in all, the present thesis makes a comprehensive analysis on the use and meaning development of English and Chinese modal verbs can and neng. It is supposed to provide a valuable hint to the further study of linguistic universals and is expected to supply some useful information in language teaching and learning.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One is a brief introduction about the motivation, objectives, research questions and organization of the thesis. Chapter Two reviews the previous studies on English and Chinese modal verbs can and neng respectively from different perspectives. Chapter Three outlines the theoretical foundation and framework of the present study. Grammaticalization theory, conceptual metaphor and metonymy will be supplied. Chapter Four analyzes the meaning changes, path and their changing regularity of the modal verbs can and neng in different historical periods, then makes a discussion about the mechanisms and motivations of semantic change of modal verbs based on grammaticalization, conceptual metaphor and metonymy. Chapter Five will provide a brief conclusion and implication.