A Comparative Analysis On The Modals "Neng, Hui, Keyi" In Mandarin And DAI In Thai

It is always difficult for the linguistic learners to learn about the ambiguity of language. DAI and "neng,hui,keyi" are polysemous words, which cause misleading in communication process. This essay aims at comparing the differences of semantic and sentence structure between DAI of Thai and "neng,hui,keyi" of Chinese. The research findings not only could assist Thai student in mastering the three modal verbs—"neng,hui,keyi" of Chinese, but also provide reference in teaching Thai and Chinese.Regarding by the latest research findings in modal, a comprehensive comparison analysis of DAI of modern Thai and "neng,hui,keyi" of modern Chinese in semantic representations has been established, Syntactic functions and other aspects in term of syntax and semantic theories were demonstrated in this paper.Data showed that there are three implications of DAI,including "get" as a verb, "has opportunity" as a fore-auxiliary-verb and "ability" or "license" as an after-auxiliary-verb. DAI as an after-auxiliary-verb is very similar to "neng,hui,keyi" in expressing "ability" and "license", However, there are differences of sub-categories in expressing "ability" between DAI and "hui", which can not be used instead of "may".In addition, it is not totally similar in syntactic structure of DAI and "neng,hui,keyi", for example, "neng,hui,keyi" can be used as predicate alone while DAI cannot.This thesis is comprised of six chapter.The first chapter is introduction which explaining the meaning and background of this study, research methodology and information resources.The second chapter was literature review.It described prior researches that have been done in the area of DAI and "neng,hui,keyi".The third chapter, the distributions and functions of DAI were analyzed.The comparison and analysis of DAI and "neng,hui,keyi"in term of semantic were explained in the forth chapter.Consequently,the syntactic structure of DAI and "neng,hui,keyi" were investigated in the fifth chapter and the data was summarized in chapter sixth.