Chapter 1 Introduction 1
1.1 Basic Concepts 1
1.2 The Classification of Modality in Modal Systems 4
1.3 Summary of Basic Categories 6
1.4 Organization 7
Chapter 2 Classification of Modality 10
2.1 Propositional Modality 10
2.2 Event Modality 14
2.3 An Alternative Analysis 17
Chapter 3 Modal Systems and Modal Verbs 19
3.1 Modal Systems 19
3.2 Modal Verbs 25
3.3 Modal Systems and Other Categories 28
Chapter 4 Modality in Chinese 33
4.1 Former Research 34
4.2 The Status of Modal Verbs 40
4.3 Criteria for Modal Verbs 46
4.4 Modal Verbs in Chinese 48
4.5 Summary 51
Chapter 5 Succession of Modal Verbs 52
5.1 Basic Concepts 52
5.2 The Succession of Modal Verbs 55
5.3 Polysemy ofModal Verbs 61
5.4 Summary 68
Chapter 6 Modality and Aspect 69
6.1 Modality and Aspect Markers 69
6.2 The Co-occurrence ofthe Epistemic Modality and Aspect Markers 72
6.3 The Co-occurrence of the Root Modality and Aspect Markers 74
6.4 Other Factors Influencing the Interpretation of Modality 75
6.5 Conclusion 80
Chapter 7 Modality and Negation 81
7.1 Former Studies 81
7.2 The Interaction of Modality and Negation 84
7.3 Modal Suppletion Strategy(MSS) 86
7.4 Negation Placement Strategy (NPS) 88
7.5 Mixed Strategies 89
7.6 Conclusion 91
Chapter 8 Syntactic Structure of Modal Verbs 93
8.1 Former Studies 95
8.2 Aspect and Modal Verbs 97
8.3 Epistemic Modal Verbs as CP 103
8.4 ANew Proposal 111
8.5 Summary 117
Chapter 9 Conclusion 118
References 122