The Modality Double Negative In Modern Chinese

This thesis probes into the double negative "bu M bu" construction in modern Chinese, characterizing the nature of this construction, comparing it with the positive counterparts to analyze the strength of its tone, and differentiating the semantic feature of the relevant expressions, so as to enhance the comprehension of the constructions of the modal double negation in modern Chinese.This thesis includes 6 chapters with about 60,000 characters in total.In chapter one, the introduction consists of the objects the significance of the research, the relevant background of the research, the approaches of analysis and the resource of the corpora's source.The second chapter argues about the theoretical problems of modality, including the concept of modality, the typs of modality, the range of the modal verbs. We define the members of "bu M bu" construction and prove that these words have access to the construction: "neng"([authority] [possibility]),"yao" [authority],"hui" ([promise] [possibility])," ying gai" [obligation]," ke yi" [authority]," yiding " [necessarity],"zhun" [promise],"ken" [willing],"gan"[courage],"keneng" [possibility],"de" [authority]," xiang" [willing,"xu" [authority].In the third chapter, on the basis of previous studies about distinguishing phrases with words, we prove that "bu xiang bu", "bu ken bu", "bu gan bu ", "bu yiding bu ", "bu yao bu ", "bu zhun bu ", "bu xu bu", "bu keyi bu ", "bu yinggai bu " are still phrases, and "bu hui bu ", "bu neng bu" lie in two forms, "bu de bu" have already become a word.The fourth chapter analyses the differences between "bu M bu "construction and the general affirmative sentence on the emantic content and tones. The same aspects of modal verbs double negative does not show up consistency in sentence tone. The epistemic modality that "bu keneng bu", "bu neng bu" express is stronger than the general sentence in tone. But "bu hui bu ", "bu yiding bu", "bu yinggai bu"are weaker in tone. The deontic modality that "bu neng bu", "bu de bu", "bu yinggai bu", "bu yao bu", "bu ke bu", "bu gan bu" express have weaker tone, but "bu hui bu ", "bu xu bu", "bu zhun bu" have stronger tone. The construction expressing the dynamic modality "bu ken bu", "bu xiang bu" have weaker tone.The fifth chapter probes into the distinction between "bi xu" and "bu neng bu". The difference mainly lies in their different modal sources.When the sentence highlight the objective reality of the environmental, "bu neng bu" is more frequently used; when it highlights the subjective will of the subject or the speaker, "bixu" is to be used. From different types of speech acts, we analyze the difference between "bu neng bu" and "bu de bu". In the "bu neng bu" sentence, the speaker wants the listener to act immediately under the deontic modality [necessarity], playing the role of instruction; In the "bu de bu" sentence, the speaker playing the role of informing, wants the listener to know that the subject makes an act because of the existence of the deontic modality [necessarity].The sixth chapter is the conclusion, summarizes the main ideas of the thesis.