On The Relationship Between Modality And Negation In The English Language

Modality has always been one of the most pervasive and long-standing problems in logic, philosophy and particularly in linguistics.One of the forerunners who treated modality as a separate object for study was the great Greek philosopher Aristotle. Ever since the latter half of the last century, with the development of linguistics, a great number of linguists have written many accounts on modality. However, there is by no means agreement or uniformity on what exactly is meant by the term modality.Based on Prof. Yi Zhongliang's theory of the English modality (Foreign Language and Their Teaching, 2000,3), this dissertation explores the relationship between modality and negation in the English language. It points out that scope ambiguity of English modality and negation can be removed by three methods.The first method that can avoid scope ambiguity of English modality and negation is the modal supplementary method, in which two different modal auxiliary verbs are used.Scope ambiguity can also be removed by the use of stress-changing method, in which a light stress or a heavy stress is used. In this method, the light stress and the heavy stress are used to distinguish between wide scope of negation and narrow scope of negation. Generally, it is used in spoken language. If the negative word NOT receives a heavy stress, the negation has narrow scope; if the negative word NOT receives a light stress, the negation has wide scope. The first two are used widely in the English language in distinguishing between wide scope of negation and narrow scope of negation.As for the third method, we make an attempt to point out thatthere is a case in which the negation has two different forms: one is "-n't" and the other is "not". Scope ambiguity of English modality and negation can be removed by the use of these two forms. Generally, the form "n't" is used to denote wide scope of negation and the form "not" is used to denote narrow scope of negation.To sum up, this paper treats English modality as a separate syntactic category, explores the relationship between modality and negation in the English language and develops three methods in distinguishing between wide scope of negation and narrow scope of negation.