语义地图框架下英语“can”和汉语“能”的情态共性研究

本文是一篇英语论文，本文基于自建语料库包含了汉语情态动词“能”和英语情态动词“can”的 3000余个实例，分别对其语义演变进行了定性和定量分析并绘制语义地图，以发现两者在语义演变过程中的相似。

CHAPTER ONEINTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study
Modality is the most pervasive linguistic form to express human feelings,thoughts and commitments. Therefore, the study of modality catches much attentionof scholars from logical, philosophical and linguistic perspectives ever since Aristotle.It is even further studied by linguistic scholars from the viewpoints of semantics,pragmatics, typology and cognitive linguistics. Unfortunately, while most ofresearches are conducted from synchronic approach focusing on semanticclassification and semantic description, few are done on dynamic and diachronicchanges of modality.
Despite of the fact that both English and Chinese modals have great similaritiesin terms of synchronic polysemy and diachronic semantic evolution, many scholarshave touched on difference studies, and their results fail to explicate the connectionbetween the semantic meanings of the two modal verbs and the motivation behindthese commonalities. In addition, a large proportion of the previous studies areapproached from different perspectives such as traditional grammar, semantics,pragmatics cognitive linguistics, the typological study. However, these analyses areweak in terms of range and depth. In modern linguistic researches, the study oflinguistic universals has become a main stream from the perspective of typology. It isgenerally accepted by linguistic typologists that linguists should not focus too muchon the characteristics of a single language, but attempt to dig out the commonfeatures of most human languages and to explain their universalities by putting asingle language into the pot of the other languages all through the world.
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1.2 Purpose and research questions of the study
In both English and Chinese, modal verbs are first of all polysemous, so to speakmodal verbs can maintain more than one sense. On the other hand, different modalverbs possess similar semantic evolution path. Some studies show that English andChinese modal verbs show great similarities in polysemy. How does the polysemy ofmodal verbs come into being on the synchronic plane? Are there any connectionsbetween these various modal meanings? And why do English and Chinese modalverbs show great similarities? The answers to these questions are able to deepen theunderstanding of the linguistic universality.
Modern linguists come to realize that focusing on a single language is not theright way to linguistic generalization study, while the pergence to the linguisticuniversals to analyze the common properties of a wide range of languages can bemore persuasive. In order to view this, the English model verb “can” and Chinesecounterpart “neng” are chosen to be the research targets in the present study, forthe reason that the polysemy of both English and Chinese modal expressions haslong been recognized and explored. For example, English model verb “can” has beenresearched to have the meanings of “ability”, “possibility”, “permission” and“imperative”, while Chinese model verb “neng” has a wide range of senses like“ability”, “possibility”, “imperative” and so on. It is surprisingly seen that some sensesof the two modal verbs are overlapped in the meanings like “ability” and“possibility”.
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CHAPTER TWOLITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Definitions and classifications of modality
“Modality” is defined differently by scholars from various perspectives, thus itsclassification is of persity. Lyons (1977) defines modality as “the speaker’s opinionor attitude towards the proposition that the sentence expresses or the situation thatthe proposition describes” (Lyons, 1997, pp.451-452). Saeed (2000) regards modalityas a tool for the speaker to express different accredit degrees of an event and heclassifies the modality into deontic modality and epistemic modality. Palmer (2001)gives the definition of modality as “the grammaticalization of speakers” (subjective)attitudes and opinions” (Palmer, 2001, p.16), with the belief that subjectivity is theonly criterion for modality. In the meantime, Halliday (2000) holds that modality is alinguistic expression that refers to the area of meaning that lies between positive andnegative polarity in the field of Systemic-Functional Grammar. The existence of thepersity of definitions for the term “modality” indicates that modality is still acontroversial issue, even though much effort has been made. There is nostraightforward and consistent way to define modality. In this thesis, given thepurpose of the present research, Palmer’s definition is taken, considering modality asa linguistic phenomenon which focuses on the subjective features of a sentence suchas “necessity”, “permission”, “probability”, etc.
Modality has been classified into different categories. As early as the 20th,Jesperson (1924) classifies categories depending on the criterion of “element of will”:deontic modality, having “element of will” and epistemic modality, having no“element of will” . Palmer, one of the representative scholars in this field, has beendevoted to the study of modality from the year 1986 to the year 2001, who (2001)believes that modality can be pided into epistemic modality and non-epistemicmodality, among which non-epistemic modality is also called root modality for thereason that it is widely known that epistemic modality is developed fromnon-epistemic modality (root modality), and root modality is derived from notionalverbs which contain empirical meaning. Later, Palmer reclassified modality: dynamicmodality, deontic modality and epistemic modality, which is of great significance tomodality research. Dynamic and deontic modality represent unrealistic events thathave not yet happened, while epistemic modality focuses only on the speaker’sattitude towards the truth value or fact status of propositions.
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2.2 Previous studies on modality from synchronic perspective
2.2.1 Synchronic studies on modality from syntax
The scholars in the west have contributed greatly to the study of modality inthe west. Lewis (1918) perfects modal logic with symbolic logic which marks thebeginning of modern modal logic. Consequently, linguists realize the significance ofmodality. Modality has been considered as a grammatical category or a semanticcategory. This section reviews the previous studies on modality, with its emphasis onthe perspective of syntax.
Researches on modality within the domain of grammar are approached from twosubcategories: traditional grammar and Transformational-Generative Grammar (TGG).Traditional grammar studies the position of modal auxiliaries and their relationshipwith other words in sentences (Quirk et al. 1985, p.219). In traditional grammar,modality is classified into three domains, namely, the primary auxiliaries (e.g. be,have, do), the modal auxiliaries (modal verbs like must, will, shall, can, may, will,must, etc.), and the semi-auxiliaries (like dare, need, ought to, used to) (Zhang , 1997,p.410).
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CHAPTER THREE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY........21
3.1 Semantic map........................21
3.1.1 Semantic map and its advantages..............................21
3.1.2 Semantic map of modality.............................. 22
CHAPTER FOUR A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE SEMANTIC MAPS OF ENGLISHMODAL VERB “CAN” AND CHINESE MODAL VERB “NENG”......................28
4.1 A diachronic analysis of English modal verb “can”............................28
4.1.1 Semantic Changes of English modal verb “can” in Old and MiddleEnglish......................................... 29
4.1.2 Semantic Changes of English modal verb “can” in Modern English.................... 36
CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSION......................... 59
5.1 Major findings................................ 59
5.2 Implications: theoretical and practical..........................60

CHAPTER FOURA COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE SEMANTIC MAPS OF ENGLISHMODAL VERB “CAN” AND CHINESE MODAL VERB “NENG”

4.1 A diachronic analysis of English modal verb “can”
In the history of language development, great changes have undergone insemantic functions of English modals. It is therefore vital to conduct a diachronicstudy that observes the semantic development and changes of the modals. Englishmodal verb “can” is definitely one of the cases. The long-term development oflanguage inevitably forms different stages. As this study is a diachronic study, itfocuses on the dynamic development of the semantic changes of English modal verb“can” in the long history. Therefore, the present study pides English history intofour periods attempting to view the overall picture of its features in evolution. Inorder to clearly describe the path of the evolution, sense development history ofEnglish language can be pided into four stages in light of previous studiesconducted by linguists. They are:
1. Old English : 450 A.D. -1150 A.D.
2.Middle English: 1150 A.D. - 1450 A.D.
3.The Early Modern English: 1450 A.D. -1750 A.D.
4.The Late Modern English: 1750 A.D.- till now
Based on the corpus of English modal verb “can” in each stages, this paperstudies its semantic development and traces the reasons for semantic developmentsand changes.
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CHAPTER FIVECONCLUSION

5.1 Major findings

4) meanwhile “root possibility” meaning of English “can” and Chinese “neng”develops to epistemic possibility which expresses a subjective attitude of o person; 5)both the epistemic modality and deontic modality develops from dynamic modality.
reference(omitted)