The Study On The Chinese Modal Adverb Based On The Syntactic Distribution

Compared with other kinds of adverbs, the Chinese Modal Adverb(the CMA) is quite unique. Generally speaking, the adverbs locate between the subject and the predicate, but the distribution of the CMA shows some different characteristics. Through the self-analysis and the corpus-searching, this thesis investigates the distribution of CMA in modern Chinese language and induces five positions for the CMA: CMA+NP+VP, CMA,+NP+VP, NP+CMA+VP, NP+VP+CMA, independent usage. The distribution of some CMAs are fixed, while the others are flexible. Some scholars have expatiated on the flexibility of the distribution of the CMA, but their researches were fairly superficial. This thesis tries to go a futher step and focus on CMA in three questions which are : what kinds of factors influence the distribution of the CMA? Are there any differences among these factors? What are the functions when the CMA are on the different positions?The distributions of the CMA can be influencd by the phonetic, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic factors, etc. Based on a detailed analysis of the corpus and the contrast of the factors, this thesis validates several factors as belows which influence directly the distribution of the CMA: the monosyllable or polysyllable of the CMA, the degree of subjective meaning of the CMA, the degree of colloquial tone of the CMA, the general syntactic feature of the adverb, the referential or non-referential subject, the known or unknown subject, the length of the subject and the lingkage function in the context.When the above factors converge, these factors show differences in degrees, priorities and restrictions. In general, the dominant factor can lead to the main position of the CMA or the most legitimate sentence. This thesis presents a reasoning mechanism for the distribution of the CMA:Rule 1: Every CMA, if it has the general syntactic feature of adverb, has the position of NP+CMA+VP.Rule 2: Every monosyllabic CMA has the only position of NP+CMA+VP, while the polysyllabic CMA may have other positions.Rule 3: When the subject of the sentence is indefinite and expresses the universal semantic meaning, the CMA has the only position of CMA+NP+VP.Rule 4:1. The distribution of the CMA is flexible when the CMA expresses the obvious subjective meaning, while the distributions of the CMA is fixed when the CMA expresses the obvious objective meaning.2. The distribution of the CMA is flexible when the CMA expresses the obvious colloquial meaning while the distribution of the CMA is fixed when the CMA expresses the obvious written meaning.3. When the subject of the sentence is indefinite and expresses the partial semantic meaning, the position of CMA+NP+VP is more legitimate than other positions;4. When the subject is unknown for the listeners, the position of CMA+NP+VP is more legitimate than other positions, while the subject is known for the listeners, the position of NP+CMA+ VP is more legitimate than other positions.5. The longer the subject is, the more legitimate the position of NP+CMA+VP is.6. The positions are CMA.+NP+VP or CMA+NP+VP if linking up the chapters or sentences is needed in the context.Rule 1,2,3 are mandatory while rule 4 is liable.In addition, the factions of the five positions are slightly differentiated. All of the positons have the fuction of expressing their own mood. The CMA in front of the subject often expresses the speaker's subjective judgement or links up the chapters. The position of CMA,+NP+VP, NP+VP+CMA and Independent Usage can make the colloquial tone more obvious.In conclusion, this research will provide a new approach for the Chinese language theories and Teaching Chinese as a foreign language.