A Corpus-based Study On Modal Verbs With Tense And Aspect In English

This thesis,on the basis of the theory of modern English grammar,aims to investigate the distributions,syntactic features,and semantic connotations of the combination of modal verbs with both tense and aspect in English.Based on the empirical data from the British National Corpus and with a combined quantitative and qualitative method,the following findings have been arrived at:In terms of frequency distributions,there is a significant difference in the distribution of central modal verbs in English,with would ranking most and shall the least.As to the perspective of tense,there is no significant difference in the distribution between the past tense(48%)and the present tense(52%)of modal verbs,but their combination with the perfective aspect is significantly higher than with the progressive aspect.With regard to syntax,the combination of modal verbs and aspects manifests two remarkable collocational features.From the perspective of modal verbs,would is most frequently combined with the perfective aspect,while will is most frequently combined with the progressive aspect.From the perspective of the transitivity of the lexical verbs within both the modal perfective aspect and the modal progressive aspect,the lone transitive or the lone intransitive verbs occur less frequently,while the transitive&intransitive verbs account for the significantly largest proportion.In respect of the semantic connotations,when modal verbs are combined with perfective aspect,may,might,can and could mainly denote possibility;Must mainly expresses logical necessity;will and would are often paired with mental activity verbs to indicate prediction.But when combined with the progressive aspect,will and would in pair with physical activity verbs primarily express prediction;Must mainly expresses logical necessity;May,right,can,and could are the modals to denote possibilities.Therefore,the study of tenses and aspects with modal verbs in this thesis has both theoretical and practical significance.It not only provides a new theoretical perspective for the study of modal verbs,but also has an important guiding significance for the translation and teaching of the combinations of modal verbs with both tenses and aspects.