On The Interaction Of Modal Auxiliary Yinggai And Aspect Marker Le

Tense,aspect and modality are three major verbal categories which are closely related with each other.Mandarin Chinese is a language without overt morphological devices to mark tense,hence the importance of the research on its aspect and modality;moreover,few studies have focused on the interaction of modality and aspect in Mandarin Chinese,and there is no unanimity on the semantics of aspect marker le as well.So,this study takes modal auxiliary yinggai and aspect marker le as an example to figure out the interaction between modality and aspect in Mandarin Chinese,which may in turn provides some insights into the interpretation of le.The study focuses on three aspects: the semantics of yinggai,the semantics of le,and the co-occurrence restrictions and underlying mechanisms of their interaction.Firstly,we analyze the semantics of modal auxiliary yinggai in terms of its modal force and different flavors and try to interpret the temporal orientation of yinggai by examining its contribution to the temporal interpretation of the sentence.We claim that yinggai is a weak necessity modal that can express epistemic or priority modality in different contexts,and that priority yinggai encodes futurity in its semantics while epistemic yinggai doesn’t contribute to any temporal orientation of the sentence.Secondly,we explore the interpretation of verbal le and sentential le as well as the cases when they co-occur;we also examine the modality that arises in the sentences with le to determine whether it stems from the intrinsic semantics of le or not.We hold that verbal le signals completion of an event and embraces relative pastness into its meaning while sentential le emphasizes that the result state of an event holds at the time of evaluation.When two les co-occur,the construction emphasizes both completion and current continuation.Moreover,the modal-like flavor that arises in the sentences with le doesn’t stem from aspect marker le but pragmatic factors such as conversational implicature and mood.Lastly,we delve into the interaction of yinggai and le in terms of their cooccurrence restrictions and underlying mechanisms.We find that yinggai can have an epistemic reading when it occurs with either verbal le or sentential le,because both of them can settle the situation within the scope of yinggai.Besides,yinggai can express priority modality only when it occurs with sentential le because its inherent futurity intersects with the temporal reference of sentential le(i.e.present continuation)but conflicts with the pastness intrinsic to verbal le.Priority yinggai is licensed in its cooccurrence with verbal le only when the pastness denoted by verbal le shifts the modal perspective backwards.Our study links the temporal and the modal dimension to give a thorough interpretation and formal analysis of modal auxiliary yinggai and aspect marker le.Meanwhile,our in-depth exploration of their interaction enriches the studies on the interaction of modality and aspect in Mandarin Chinese.We also dig out some evidence for the interpretation of aspect marker le in terms of its interaction with modal auxiliary yinggai,which provides a new perspective for researches on aspect.