英语论文网

traditional grammar, semantics, generative grammar, pragmatics, semiotics, cognitive grammar to systemic-functional grammar.  And  a  large  number  of  constructive  accomplishments  have  been  achieved. However, there is no consensus among scholars about the definition of modality  yet. Lyons  (1977:  541)  points  out that modality refers to people’s opinions and attitudes towards  propositions  expressed  with  language  or  circumstances  described  by  a proposition. According to A Comprehensive Grammar of English Language (Quirk et al., 1985), modality reflects the speaker’s judgment on the authenticity of propositions. Palmer  (1986:  16)  regards  modality  as  the  grammaticalization  of  the  speaker’s subjective  attitudes.  In  addition,  Halliday  claims  that  modality  refers  to  the  space  of meaning that lies between yes and no – the intermediate ground between positive and negative  polarity  (Halliday  &  Matthiessen,  2004:  618).  However,  no  matter  how different  the  definitions  are,  it  is  almost  widely  accepted  that  modality  conveys  the users’  attitude  or  opinion  towards  a  certain  proposition  or  the  situation  that  the proposition implies. 
.........

2.2 Studies on Modal Verbs 
This section mainly falls into two parts. The first is concerned with the studies on modal verbs abroad and the second part is concerned with the studies on modal verbs at home.As an important way of  expressing modality, modal verbs in  English have been extensively researched and described by scholars abroad from different perspectives. Cook (1978: 5) points out that “English modal verbs constitute a problem for the student  of  English  as  a  foreign  language  and  the  problem  lies  in  the  recognition  and proper  use  of  the  meaning  underlying  the  English  modal  verbs”.  He  studies  the modals can, may, must and have to, with their negative and past tense forms.  Coates (1983) studies modal verbs based on LOB corpus (Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen Corpus)  for  written  English  and  the  SEU  corpus  (the  Survey  of  English  Usage)  for spoken  English.  Coates’s  study  recognizes  the  indeterminacy  of  the  meanings  of modal  verbs  and  later  adopts  the  fuzzy  set  of  Zadeh  (Fuzzy  sets  were  introduced  by Zadeh  and  Klaua  in  1965  as  an  extension  of  the classical  notion  of  set.  They  permit the  gradual  assessment  of  the  membership  of  elements  in  a  set)  to  define  a  class  in which  the  translation  from  membership  to  non-membersh本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。