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3.2.1 The Continuity and Discreteness in Language........ 33
3.2.2 The Continuum of Modal Meanings ........35
3.3 Analysis of Prototypical Features of English Modal Verbs........ 36
3.4 Gradience of modal verbs with root meaning........ 47
3.5 Analysis on Gradience of Epistemic Modality........ 58
3.6 Conclusion........ 66
4.Applications in English Teaching and Learning........ 68
5. Conclusion ........73

4Applications in English Teaching and Learning

In modem English teaching, the content of modal verb is a hot issue anddiscussworthy. But, when it comes to modality，the grammar books, especially most ofthe Chinese grammar book, has dealt with the meanings of modal verbs chaotically, i.e.put their meanings in a chaotic order and never distinguish what the deontic meaning isand what the epistemic meaning is. The following picture is about the prevalentgrammar books for English teaching and learning write the modal verbs as this: ) this arrangement neglected categorical property，and it is necessary to let both theteachers and the learners know thai very modal verb has categorical property，i.e.within all the meanings of a modal verb, there exists the center meaning——the rootmodal meaning and the peripheral meaning—the epistemic one, and any other usageof the modal verbs. The contents of modal verbs in nowadays grammar books (or we say traditionalgrammar books) can easily confused English learners. And this thesis will try to beresponsible for avoiding the confusions.
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Conclusion

This thesis starts from the literature review of the study of modality from differentlinguistic schools，analyzing their merits and demerits. In chapter one, after discussingthe former studies of modality, we find out a viewpoint that this thesis should focus on:the continuity and subjectivity of modal verbs.Almost every word has more than one meaning, so does modal verbs. What is thereason for the phenomenon of polysemous words? It is about categorization anddecategorization. Simply，categorization is classification and decategorization isreclassification. After the processes of categorization and decategorization, we candistinguish the modal verbs with prototypical modal meanings and those with peripheralmodal meanings.When it comes to modality, we should bear in our mind that modality is intrinsicallygradient. So in chapter 3，we first establish a schema that is use to present the continuityof the English system. And what grasp our attention in this schema is the typicalmodalizer~the modal verbs. So，the innovation of this chapter is that we discussed thencreated the gradiences of deontic modal verbs and dynamic modal verbs. The theme thatruns through the deontic gradience is obligative factor; the modal verb that has thestrongest obligatory meanings is the central member in the gradience; and those wit^relatively weaker obligatory meanings are listed in the peripheral positions. The themethat runs through dynamic gradience is volitional and ablitive factor，the modal verbwhich has strongest volitional and abilitive meaning is considered as the centralmember of the gradience, because the act of volition should be supported by ability thatcan make the act become true. And those with relatively w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。