Modern Chinese Hope Class Predicate Research

As a part of the propositional attitude predicate, the hope class predicate reflects people’s subjective emotional attitude in the process of daily communication in modern Chinese. In the past study, however, this kind of predicate was not considered as a specific research object which could be studied in-depth. Based on the facts of modern Chinese, this thesis, which combines with the theory of propositional attitude and the theory of speech act, analyzes the hope class predicate profoundly in modern Chinese from three dimensions, that is, semantic, syntactic and pragmatic.To begin with, the thesis offers the definition of the hope class predicate. In terms of the characteristic of propositional attitude predicate, it summarizes the semantic features of hope class propositional attitude predicates and three conditions which contribute to the formation of the hope class predicate sentence, thus the research object is determined. After that, it analyzes ontology characteristics of the hope class predicate sentence. And the looming situation of the hope class predicate sentence’s tripartite mainbody in statements is also analyzed carefully. As important parts of the hope class attitude predicate sentence, the mainbody of the hope class propositional attitude, the hope class predicate and subordinate propositional utterance are covered. Besides, the distinctive features of each part are also discussed detailedly.In addition, the thesis analyzes two special syntactical phenomena of the hope class predicate sentence, that is, negative sentences and indirect interrogative sentences. As for the negative sentences, it mainly analyzes the negative attitude held by the mainbody of the hope class predicate and sentence and transferred negation which appears in statements. Besides, common negative formation is summarized. As for the negative sentence, it mainly focuses on whether the indirect interrogative sentence can be governed by the hope class predicate sentence and reduction of interrogative function. These two parts are discussed in detail and reasons are provided.Furthermore, the thesis investigates the modal meaning of the hope class predicate sentence and modal types presented by it. According to motivation, modal types can be divided into speculation oriented modality, wish oriented modality and willingness oriented modality (including strong willingness oriented modality and weak willingness oriented modality). Among the three types, the motivation of wish oriented modality and willingness oriented modality are weaker than speculation oriented modality.Finally, the thesis discusses the pragmatic function of the hope class predicate sentence, which is, what indirect verbal behaviors are carried out by the speaker or the mainbody of propositional attitude and the reason why these behaviors are implemented.Under the guidance of current theories of linguistics, the thesis investigates the hope class predicate sentence in modern Chinese carefully based on the analysis of linguistic data of modern Chinese. These research findings will provide new perspectives for the research of modern Chinese, and also help learners understand and employ the hope class predicate sentence so as to promote the communication.