A Study On The Category Of Accidental Modality In Modern Chinese

The purpose of this paper is to establish the category status for the Mirativity in modern Chinese.We try to profile the category framework for the expression of surprise in Chinese and make a systematic description and interpretation of it.We give a classified description and detailed explanations for all the expressive forms in Chinese with the research findings of both abroad and China.Our study is based on the cognitive psychology,Functional Discourse Grammar(FDG)and Relevance Theory(RT)and some other related theories.This paper focuses on the analysis of the different expressions of Chinese mirativity from the perspectives of coding,understanding and using.Firstly,we include the Chinese expressions of surprise into a unified category,and make a classification according to different communicative function and means of expression;Secondly,we make a classified description and explanation of the main forms in the system;Finally,we summed up our studying results and generalize some strategies of the expressing and using.This thesis is mainly divided into two parts: theoretical research and concrete research.Besides the two chapters of introduction and conclusion,there is the part of theoretical introduction which is from chapter 2 to 4,part of systematic analysis from5 to 11,the chapter 12 is the part of theoretical improvement.Details follow as:Chapter 1: Introduction,which includes the background and significance of the study,an overview of previous studies and outline of research ideas and methods.Chapter 2:Definitions for the related concepts of mirativity.Firstly,we separate the mirativity from the category of the Evidential;Secondly,we define mirativity as Pragmatic Modality,a special category in the modality category;Finally,We discuss three groups of concepts related to the study of mirativity,such as the group of Modality,Mood and Tone,Counter-expectation,and the group of Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity.Chapter 3: Theories foundation.It mainly introduces the theoretical basis of the psychological and linguistic aspects of this study.We firstly classify the SURPRISE into smaller classes according to the foreign psychological studies.After that,we introduce the FDG,that is our grammar foundation of the study,and RT,which is the pragmatics foundation.Chapter 4: Framework of the mirativity.We try to profile the basic framework for the Chinese mirativity.First,the basic characteristics and criteria of the mirativity are analyzed,by which the scope of our research is determined;Secondly,the classification of the lower levels are confirmed from the perspectives of functions and forms;In the end,we introduce the expressive strategies and using strategies of the Chinese mirativity.Chapter 5: Intonation expression of mirativity.We focus on describing and analyzing the intonation that can be used to indicate surprise independently.We find that this kind of intonations usually accompanies the Yes-no Question or Signal Interjection.The characteristics of the specific intonation vary with the syntactic forms.This difference is usually influenced by the context and psychological stress.Intonation,an information structure marker,which is taken as emphasis operator in the sentence construction,is attached to the propositional content by procedural coding.Chapter 6: Primary interjection expression of mirativity.As the main object of our research,primary interjections are analyzed in the Model of Processes Elicited by Surprising Events(Psychological Schema of Surprise).By analyzing the relevancy between interjections and the cause of surprise,the representation of the follow-up sentence in different stages of the psychological schema,we summarize up a discourse model of the surprise expression.Chapter 7: Secondary interjections expression of mirativity.In this chapter,we take a secondary interjection‘hao jiahuo'as an example to study the path of its interjectionization.We figure out the usage of this mirative marker from diachronic and synchronic perspectives with the views of subjective quantity and intersubjectivity.Chapter 8: Expositive adverbs expression of mirativity.In this chapter,we focus on the characteristics of the expositive adverbs as a mirative marker in the discourse.We classify these adverbs into Unbridged and Bridged markers according to their representations of the different stages in Psychological Schema of Surprise.Unbridged markers indicate the stages of attentional refocusing and schema discrepancy check,and bridged markers indicate the stages of causal analysis and schema update.We analyze the typical adverbs of this two kinds markers in detail.Chapter 9: Discourse marker expression of mirativity.We illustrate that some discourse markers can be used for a mirative purpose.In this chapter,we find that the markers such as ‘zenme',‘zenmezhao',‘nicaizenmezhao'can be used to express speaker's surprise.Chapter 10: Idiomatic expression of mirativity.In the parasitic expressions of mirativity,there are some oral ways that possess conventional function.With the high-frequency using,their propositional meaning is no longer important in communication,and information intention is gradually replaced by communicative intention.A listener can tell the speaker's mirative attitude without complicated reasoning but context.Chapter 11: Illocutionary Discourse Acts expression of mirativity.This chapter focuses on the unmarked expression of mirativity in discourse communication.Our study about this part still carries out in the framework of the Psychological Schema of Surprise.We discuss that how we use Echo question,Yes-no question,‘zenme'question and exclamation to express surprise in different stages of our schema.Chapter 12: Mirative Strategies and Weak Compensation of language.This chapter is a brief summary of the mirative expression of the full text,which we call them expressive strategies and pragmatic strategies.By the analysis of these strategies,we find a possible rule in the language evolution,which we call it ‘Weak Compensation Principle'.Chapter 13: Conclusion.Sums up the full paper and puts forward the important role of SURPRISE in human cognitive development.