The Syntactic Structure Of Modal Verbs In Chinese

This thesis investigates the syntactic properties of modal verbs in Chinese and puts forward a new proposal for the syntactic structures of modal verbs in order to account for the following two conflictive issues:(1) Incompatibility between root modal verbs and aspect markers.(2) Inability of epistemic modal verbs to occur in nonassertive contexts.Based on a careful reexamination about the previous researches, we propose a new proposal that root modal verbs originate in ASPP and have complementary distribution with aspect markers, while epistemic modal verbs are in COMP and have complementary distribution with nonassertive contexts.In previous studies, assumptions from different perspectives have been made over the years to account for the difference between epistemic modal verbs and root modal verbs. Ross (1969) suggested that it is rather determined in the lexicon, which epistemic modals are lexically one-place (intransitive) predicates, corresponding to raising verbs, while roots are two-place (transitive) predicates, corresponding to control verbs. McDowell (1987) claimed that the difference between epistemic and root modals is determined at the level of insertion; epistemic modal verbs are merged somewhere within the IP level, and root modal verbs, somewhere within the VP. Papafragou (1998) also proposed that the distinction is determined contextually in the semantic/pragmatic component and does not reflect a lexical or syntactic difference. The above proposal can explain some problems, such as the succession of modal verbs, while they cannot adequately account for the above two facts. We also argue that the distinction of epistemic and root modal verbs reflects a syntactic difference.Within the framework of Government and Binding, by comparing modal verbs with aspect markers, we make modal verbs related to aspect markers and conclude that root modal verbs originate in ASPP and have complementary distribution with aspect markers; they take VP as their complement. Based on the two arguments that epistemic modal verbs cannot occur in nonassertive contexts and the asymmetry of negation of modal verbs, we claim that epistemic modal verbs are in IP and move to the position of CP, and they have complementary distribution with nonassertive contexts; they select IP as their complement. The established...