Modality Types Of Modern Chinese Modal Adverbs

Most Chinese modal adverbs have gone through the stage of grammaticalization. They have different fictitious mechanisms and fictitious degrees, different fictitious and notional meanings, and their syntactic features and flexibility of syntactic position also show significant difference. This poses great difficulty for people to study their internal correlation and individual features. Nowadays, scholars have shown growing interest in their types of mood and semantic subjectivity. However, there is no definite and unified explanation for the concrete connotation of "subjectivity" of model verbs and its manifestations.According to Systemic Functional Linguistics, "subjectivity" reflects the interpersonal function of the language, and the interpersonal function of English is mainly achieved by mood and modality. In light of analysis on English modal adjunct and their connotations in Systemic Functional Linguistics, based on the meaning-expression features of Chinese modal adverbs, we summed up three different modal meaning-expression types, i.e. sentence-modality type, discourse-commenting type and context-reasoning type. On such basis, we gave description on the internal semantic system and semantic connotation of each type of modal adverbs. We believe that, the sub-classification of model adverbs based on modal meaning-expression types not only complies with the meaning-expression types of English modal adjuncts, but also in line with the meaning-expression features of Chinese modal adverbs. This classification gives us a clear insight into the "subjectivity" of modal adverbs, and full understanding about the concrete manifestation of semantic subjectivity in language.This thesis is composed of six chapters. The main contents of each chapter are as follows:Chapter 1:introduction. This chapter gives a comprehensive overview about research situation of modal adverbs. People have always been trying to explore the common and different meanings among modal adverbs from various aspects, such as macroscopic view, individual cases, grammaticalization and taxonomy. Due to the unbalanced meanings among modal adverbs, an increasing number of scholars are trying taxonomic study on modal adverbs, in attempt to sort out the semantic relations among modal adverbs. Generally, people classify modal adverbs by mood, pragmatic meaning and modal meaning, etc. However, due to the fictitious and abstract meaning of modal adverbs, and people’s unclear knowledge of modal meaning, the classification results turn out to be too complicated to be summarized in a unified model. In my opinion, the classification of modal adverbs shall proceed from the "subjectivity" feature of their meanings and a clear understanding of "subjectivity". The summary of connotations of English modal adjuncts in Systemic Functional Linguistics has provided us reference for determining "subjectivity" of Chinese modal adverbs and their modal meaning-expression types. Moreover, the basic concepts of "mood, modality, semantic presupposition, pragmatic presupposition, natural focus and contrastive focus" have been clearly defined in this part, and 128 modal adverbs are defined as the study objects of this thesis.Chapter 2:lexical manifestation of mood and modal types. According to Systemic Functional Linguistics, modality, mood and tone are three sub-categories of the "subjectivity" of language. Modality belongs to semantic category, and mood is the grammatical expression of modality and the grammatical or lexical form to perform the interpersonal function of the language. In English, the modal meaning can be expressed by modal verbs, modal adjectives, modal adverbs and modal adjunct, among which, modal adjunct, i.e. interpersonal adjunct, has similar syntactic function and semantic connotation to Chinese modal adverbs. This chapter has introduced the interpersonal adjunct theory in Systemic Functional Linguistics, followed the example of modality-type classification of interpersonal adjunct in Systemic Functional Linguistics, and classified Chinese modal adverbs into three modality types, i.e. "sentence-modality type, discourse-commenting type and context-reasoning type" based on the unique features of Chinese language. "Sentence-modality type" corresponds to the "modality" and "intensity" of mood adjunct; "discourse-commenting type" corresponds to comment adjunct for commenting propositions; "context-reasoning type" is exclusively owned by Chinese language, this type of modal adverbs have lost their word meaning but with significant pragmatic meaning, their modal meaning totally relies on context reasoning, and they possess additional pragmatic meaning as well.Chapter 3:"Sentence-modality type" modal adverbs. "Sentence-modality type" modal adverbs can be divided into two sub-types, i.e. "modality" and "intensity" sub-types, which are closely combined with the mood constituents in sentences. Modal words in English include modal verbs and modal adverbs, and modal adverbs assist modal verbs to express modal meaning. Based on the similarity of meaning-expression systems of modal verbs and modal adverbs, following the example of the classification of English modal verbs in Systemic Functional Linguistics, we classify 50 modern Chinese modal adverbs into three sub-types, i.e. cognition type, morality type and dynamic type. We study the semantic systems of the three sub-types, involving semantic hierarchy, negative forms and co-occurrence rule. And we find out that modal verbs and modal adverbs show semantic complementarity in the same modality type; modal verbs and modal adverbs have different negative forms; the co-occurrence of modal words shall follow the rule of "cognition type> morality type> dynamic type"; the modal meaning of modal verbs is selected according to the context, while the modal meaning of modal adverbs is selected independently by the speaker.In addition,12 "intensity-type" modal adverbs can determine the mood of the sentence, strengthening the affirmative or negative tone, modality of the sentence by fictitious lexical meaning and the stress on words.Chapter 4:"Discourse-commenting type" modal adverbs. "Discourse-commenting type" modal adverbs often occur in discourse describing certain incidents, with presupposed meaning. The presupposed meaning can be directly expressed, or implied in the discourse and derived by reasoning. Whether it’s explicit or implied meaning, the presupposed or commenting-type modal adverbs will form a certain fixed semantic relation in the proposition. According to the features of semantic relations, we can classify "discourse-commenting type" modal adverbs into four sub-types:the first sub-type is those with fixed semantic structure, e.g. "expection, result"; the second sub-type is those with fixed semantic structure, e.g. "prerequisite, conclusion"; the third sub-type is those confirming the presupposed meaning of speaker, with a certain cognitive modal meaning; the fourth sub-type is rhetorical adverbs with pragmatic presupposed function. Based on semantic structure, expression mode and subjectivity, we have summarized the semantic system of 49 "discourse-commenting type" modal adverbs. In addition, we have analyzed the different pragmatic meanings of those modal adverbs with the same semantic structure and expression mode. The modal meaning expression types of "discourse-commenting type" modal adverbs are similar to that of commenting-type adjunct in English, but the modal connotation and expression ways of modal adverbs have shown the unique characteristics of Chinese language, i.e. some adverbs have richer semantic connotations, including solidified semantic structural information, which adds certain textual function to these adverbs.Chapter 5:"context-reasoning type" modal adverbs. In the paper, "context-reasoning type" modal adverbs include monosyllable modal adverbs, i.e.“才、就、都、并、又、也、还、可、�'”and disyllable modal adverbs, i.e.’‘可是、还是、只是、就是、不过、反正、甚至、总算”.We have analyzed the modal meaning-expression features of these 17 "context-reasoning type" modal adverbs one by one, and believe that the fictitious meaning of these modal adverbs have generally gone through the context solidification process. They absorb the semantic structure and semantic characteristics of the context, and indirectly show the attitude and comment of speaker toward the focus and presupposition by pointing out contrastive focus, focus topic and activating presupposition, etc. Moreover, some adverbs have other verbal functions, e.g. to express surprise, defense, refute and urge, or intensify or weaken the tone of the sentence. All these are the concrete manifests of the subjectivity of "context-reasoning type" modal adverbs.Chapter 6:conclusion. This chapter has summarized the modal meaning-expression features of "sentence-modality type, discourse-commenting type and context-reasoning type" modal adverbs. This part gives an overview of the internal semantic system of Chinese modal adverbs, and summed up the semantic relations and difference among modal adverbs. In addition, we believe that, Chinese modal vocabulary is much richer than English modal vocabulary. In particular, the modal meaning-expression ways of "discourse-commenting type and context-reasoning type" modal adverbs embody the unique characteristics of Chinese language, while metaphors of modality are frequently used in English to express similar modal meanings.