A Study On Modal Adverbs In Modern Chinese

Based on the "the double triangle" theory, using prototype and grammaticalization principles, this dissertation gives a definition to the term of MODAL ADVERB and the research scope of the modal adverbs. It has tied to classify those words which are difficult to be classified and explain why. Then the author brings out "subjective quantity" as a criterion to sub-classify the modal adverbs, because by way of this sub-classification it is easy to explore the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic rules of the modal adverbs. The dissertation includes eight chapters.Chapter One makes a research on the previous achievements on adverbial modal particles, then explains why this topic is chosen, especially the importance and the view for this research.Chapter Two discusses the term and definition of adverbial modal particles. After a comprehensive study of the literature on mood, the author thinks that it is better to give a broad definition to mood and modality, i.e., mood and modality means the speaker's subjective comment, inference and attitude to sentence proposition expressed with certain grammar form. On the basis of that, a definition to modal adverbs is brought out: adverbial modal particles are those used in an adverbial position to express mood.Chapter Three analyses the functional difference of disyllable particles and their ways of formation. After that, it takes "难道" (be it said that), "偏偏" (purposely), "简直" (completely), "也许" (perhaps) as study samples and induces nine criterions for judging different sorts of adverbial modal particles. These criterions are: (l)It can Only be used as adverbial, can't be followed by "地" (de). (2) It has flexible location in the sentence. It can lie before the subject of a sentence or lie between the subject and predicate. (3) It can be followed by " 是" (shi). (4) It can be modified by "不 " (bu) or "没" (mei), but can't be followed by "不" (bu) or "没" (mei). (5) It can't be duplicated as "X '不'(bu) X". (6) It can be used in a simple sentence. (7) It can modify numeral phrases, but is not limited by modifying numeral phrases. (8)It can't be used as adverbial in inquiring interrogative sentence. (9) It can seldom be used in attribute. According to these criterions, 40 adverbial modal particles fall into typical kind and 126 into untypical kind.Chapter Four discusses the reason why the particles "好" (hao), "太" (tai), "多" (duo), "多 么 " (duo me) are not included in the adverbial modal particles from the aspects of semantics, syntax, pragmatics and historical change.Chapter Five classifies adverbial modal particles, according to the criterion of subjective quantity, into four types, such as adverbs of subjective doubts, adverbs of subjective probability, adverbs ofrelatively grand subjective quantity and grand subjective quantity. Then it studies the co-occurring and constraining devices when more than one adverb are used in one simple sentence or complex sentence. It points out that there are five constraining devices for the co-occurrence of the adverbs, i.e., (1) marked and unmarked, (2) the degree of subjectivisation, (3) pragmatic prominence, (4) semantic collocation, and (5) clausal government. According to the statistical research on the sentence corpus made especially by Center for Chinese Linguistics PKU, of the five devices the pragmatic device is the most decisive, so the co-occurrence of the adverbs in one sentence usually follows the rule like: adverbs of subjective doubts >adverbs of subjective probability > adverbs of relative grand subjective quantity > adverbs of grand subjective quantity. It also finds out two unmarked matching patterns of modal adverbs with sentence types and the co-occurrence of sentence-terminal words for moods. The two unmarked matching patterns are as follows: 1 > modal adverbs with sentence types:unmarked pattern unmarked pattern unmarked pattern adverbs of adverbs of probability or adverbs of grand subjective doubts relative grand subjective quantity subjective quantity ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------?interrogative sentence interrogative sentence for guess or declarative sentencedeclarative sentence2, modal adverbs with sentence-terminal words for moods:unmarked pattern unmarked pattern unmarked patternadverbs of adverbs of probability or adverbs of grandsubjective doubts relative grand subjective quantity subjective quantity"W (ne) "HE" (ba) , "ft" (de)> "7" (le) ?tt" (de^ "T" (le)The two unmarked matching patterns prove the reasonability and effectiveness of the classification of the adverbial modal particles.Chapter Six studies the pragmatic features of adverbial modal particles based on a great set of particles which are classified by us. The following are of the key points: 1) adverbial modal particles are involved in the development of a paragraph, so they may appear in a phrase;2) adverbial modal particles are limitedly used as high-predicate, especially those with a high level of grammatification, strong cohesiveness of text, and the mono-syllable particles. 3) The expressive function of the particles has hierarchical features, which usually follow such series as: mono-lexical sentence > sentence initial > predicate-front position > object-inner position > attributive-inner position >complementary-inner position > subject-inner position. 4) Adverbial modal particles may become information focus or focus sensitive factor and even focus mark. There are three selective conditions for a particle to be the focus. The first is the one with grand subjective quantity feature can be the focus of the whole sentence. The second is the one that may function as a sentence or the predicate in a sentence is the focus of the sentence. The third is the one formed by way of repetition or reduplication usually becomes the sentence focus. Besides, most of the particles with grand subjective quantity feature may function as a trigger of presupposition and usually presuppose the fixed reality or that in the speaker's mind. On the contrary, the particles with the meaning of possibility and inevitability usually do not or seldom presuppose the fixed reality.Chapter Seven explores the grammaticalization devices of the mono-syllable adverbial modal particles. For instance, words such as " nT" (ke) "U" (dou) "&" (hai) "?&" (ye) "Wt" Qiu) "t" (cai) "#" (bing) "X" (you) can be used as modal adverbs because they are often used in the contexts such as rhetorical question, interrogative question, contrast and negation. An appropriate syntactic location is the cardinal proposition for their grammaticalization and subjectivisation.The last chapter is a conclusion which points out the progress in the research field of adverbial modal particles and the problems needing further research.