"Probably", "maybe", "maybe" And "maybe" Speculate On The Evolution Of Semantic Paths

"Dagai"," Yexu","Huoxu" and "Keneng" are conjectural mood adverbs that are often used in modern Chinese language.This article mainly discusses the evolutionary path of speculative meaning from the formation of these four words to the end of Qing Dynasty.In the first part,from the diachronic point of view,the process of "Dagai","Yexu","Huoxu" and "Keneng" becoming speculative modal adverbs and the motivation of their formation are studied.In the second part,we choose the synchronic plane in the diachronic process to make a comparative analysis of the semantic features of "Dagai","Yexu","Huoxu" and"Keneng" after they become speculative modal adverbs.This paper compares the four words from the perspectives of the subject of conjecture,the objective motivation,the semantic certainty,the object of conjecture and the result authenticity,points out the different semantic emphasis and tendency of the four words,and tries to explain the reasons for the differences.In the third part,the author summarizes and sorts out the origin of "Dagai","Yexu","Huoxu" and "Keneng" and the similarities and differences in the direction of the speculative meaning after the formation of the word,and further describes the evolution path of the speculative meaning of the four words.Through investigation,we come to the following conclusions:The common characteristics of "Dagai","Yexu","Huoxu" and "Keneng" speculative semantic path evolution are:1.The semantic features that play a leading role in the process of becoming speculative modal adverbs are all[-Certainty];2.They all represent the subjective speculation and estimation of uncertain things in sentences,and the truth and falseness of conclusions are uncertain;3.They all have different degrees of tables The pragmatic function of euphemism.The differences are:1.The inferential meaning of "Dagai" mainly comes from the determinacy of the noun,and it still retains the semantic feature of the noun[+Totality]after it becomes a modal adverb.[+Generality]affects the selection of "Dagai" conjecture object and conjecture basis.The specific performance is that the conjecture object mainly estimates the general situation of things and estimates the time and number.The conjecture basis tends to estimate the general situation of things.The subject and basis of "Dagai" are relatively objective,and the objective motivation is relatively high.The subject of speculation also has a positive tendency to the result of speculation,and its semantic certainty is also high,and the result of speculation is close to the truth.2."Yexu" not only keeps the[+Subjective][-Certainty]of "Xu" but also the[+Similarity]of "Ye",which makes the Adverb " Yexu" have the most obvious difference with other adverbs:two sentences led by Yexu" can appear in one sentence at the same time."Yexu" is subjective in the subject and basis of speculation,weak in objective motivation,low in semantic certainty,and no tendency of truth or falsehood in the result of speculation.3.The speculative meanings of "Huo" and "Xu" are both derived from[-Certainty].After the words of "Huoxu" are changed into modal adverbs,there are strong uncertainties in objective motivation and semantic certainty.The conjecture of "Huoxu" usually has no basis,and the conjecture subject is not sure about his conjecture,and the conjecture result has no tendency of true or false.4.The dominant semantic features of the lexicalization of "Keneng" into adverbs are[-Certainty]and[+Possibility].The expression of "Keneng" focuses more on "possibility"when expressing the meaning of speculation.[+Possibility]emphasizes the judgment of"whether something can happen" on the basis of the speculative basis.The speculative subject and the speculative basis of "Keneng" are relatively objective,with strong objective motivation and semantic certainty,and the speculative results tend to be true.In the conclusion part,the limitations of this paper are explained.There are three main limitations:first,this paper only studies the evolution path of speculative meanings of four words,and there are many words belonging to speculative modal adverbs,which can be further investigated;second,this paper focuses on the evolution of semantics,without detailed research on syntactic features and pragmatic functions,which may be able to explain the evolution of speculative meanings;third,the samples can not be completely studied It covers all use cases from ancient times to near ancient times,and the number of "Huoxu" and "Keneng" samples collected is small,so there is still room for supplement in the corpus.In this paper,diachrony and synchrony are combined to make a comprehensive and profound comparison of the evolution similarities and differences of "Dagai","Yexu","Huoxu" and "Keneng".