Force-dynamic Analysis Of English Modality

Modality has been studied for a long time while the notion of modality is vague andleaves open a number of possible definitions. The thesis opens a new inquiry into Englishlinguistics by demonstrating a unified approach to the study of English modality-the forcedynamics. Force Dynamics (FD) is a fundamental category that describes the way in whichentities interact with reference to force, which pervades language on several levels. Thisthesis is to present a force-dynamic study of English modality. It goes with twoassumptions, first, there is a FD model demonstrated in English modality; secondly, modalexpressions denote three different FD patterns. It intends to find out how modalities can beexpressed in the FD model, and how they differ in semantics, and to what extent they arerelated to force dynamics.This five-chapter article critically reviews recent works in the field of force andmodality. First, it describes the notions of modality and some basic concepts of forcedynamics in Talmy's accounts. And then it explores two different studies of modality inlogical and linguistic domains with the main focus on its classification and expressions.Secondly, it introduces root and epistemic interpretations of modality to suggest that thereare considerable variations in the degree of non-FD modal expressions. Within theframework of force dynamics, three FD treatments of modality are introduced, namely, thephysical-dynamic modal patterns, the psycho-dynamic modal patterns, and thesocio-dynamic modal patterns. It is concluded from the analysis that English modalityexhibits parallelisms between physical, psychosocial, and social reference while thephysical force dynamics is considered as the basic and the metaphorical extension topsychological and social references.In the treatment of modality in English, this thesis sketches how the force dynamicscan be denoted in modal system. As a consequence of this analysis, it will turn out that theconcept of force dynamics is a convincing and plausible approach to our assumptions.Although this paper has mainly discussed English modality in the FD framework, its focusis restricted on the modal auxiliaries. Actually, there are still problems unsolved. It ishoped that this study will provide a common thread for the future research.