Conjectural Modality And Conjectural Modality Adverbs

This thesis, based on the theories of cognitive psychology and semantics, attempts todefine the conjecture, the conjectural modality, and the scope of the conjectural modaladverbs---one of the formal markers of the conjectural modality, establish the status ofthe conjectural modality in the mood system, and explore the syntactic natures andsemantic features of the conjectural modal adverbs. This thesis is composed of fourchapters except the part Conclusion and Limitation.Chapter One serves as an introduction. This chapter involves the research purpose,significance, theoretical basis, methods, the data sources and the achievements on thestudy of modality and modal adverbs home and abroad.Chapter Two focuses on the conjectural modality. Firstly, this chapter provides thetheoretical basis of analyzing the conjectural modality. Then, based on cognitivelinguistic theories, logics and cognitive psychology, the typical semantic features of"conjecture"are analyzed: [+mental activity,+thinking process, +inference,-determination, +true conclusion]. The conjecture and the conjectural modality aredefined for the first time: Conjecture refers to the phenomenon that the speaker infersthe conclusion, which is either true or false, or of which the truth value can not bejudged, from the facts, hypothesis, or subjective judgments. Conjectural modalitybelongs to the cognitive modality category, used by the speaker to express hisindeterminate subjective opinions on things (including people) and events. Finally, thestatus of the conjectural modality in the mood system is established.Chapter Three probes into 1) the inherent characteristic of the conjectural modaladverbs----the speaker-oriented sentential adverbs, and 2) the syntactic features of theconjectural modal adverbs----conjectural modal adverbs can not function as syntacticconstituents but the higher predication of the proposition.Chapter Four is contributed to the classification and the distribution of theconjectural modal adverbs. First, we discuss three criteria to recognize the conjecturalmodal adverbs. Then, based on these three criteria, we classify the conjectural modaladverbs into three groups: determinate group, indeterminate group and interrogativegroup. At the same time, we define the scope of the conjectural modal adverbs and offerthe reasons for the classification. Finally, we study the syntactic distribution of theconjectural modal adverbs, as well as the relationship between the conjectural modaladverbs and the persons, the tenses and politeness principles.In Conclusion and Limitation, we point out the significance and the limitation ofthis thesis and give suggestions to the further research on this subject.