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1、EnglishModals1.HistoricalOverviewWithinthephilosophyoflanguageoverthelastdecadeorso,mostlinguisticstudiesofmodalexpressionsbeginandendwithananalysisofmodals.ThemodalsofEnglishderivefromaspecialclassofverbsinGermanic(theancestorofEnglishandtheotherGermaniclangu
2、ages).ModalshavealwaysdifferedfromordinaryverbsinGermanic,andinthecourseofhistoryofEnglish,theyhavedivergedfromverbsevenfurther,tothepointwheretheynowbelongtoasyntacticcategoryoftheirown(Siewierska,1991).Infact,itisthetraditionalcentralityofsyntaxinlinguistics
3、thathadledtothemodalshavingbeensingledoutbylinguistsasthepre-eminentvehiclesfortheexpressionofmodalityinEnglish,sincemodalsaretheonlymodalexpressionswhichconstituteareasonablywell-definedclassandbecausetheestablishmentofmodaldistinctionsinEnglishdependsalmoste
4、ntirelyonmodals.2.DefinitionofModalsInsomewhatsimplisticterms,theauxiliaryiseverythingintheunderlyingsentencefromtheendofthesubjectnounphrasetothebeginningofthemainverb.Eitherpastorpresent,theauxiliaryiscomposedofvariouskindsof"helping"verbs,whichmayormaynotbe
5、presentinanyparticularsentence.２５Asamatteroffact,thethreetypesof"helping"verbsarethemodalauxiliary,theperfect,andtheprogressive(Wardaugh,2003).Itispossibletoexpressanattitudeorevaluationofasituation.Forexample,wecanindicatethatanactionisprobableorthatitiscontr
6、ary-to-fact:wecanindicatethatthereispermissionoranobligationtodosomething.Modalauxiliariesareusedinordertogivethespeaker'sorwriter'spointofview.(p.115)ThetermModalisnearlyalwaysusedbylinguiststorefertoasyntacticallydefinedsubsetofauxiliaryverbswithformalproper
7、ties.Theseauxiliaryverbsarecan,could,may,might,must,oughtto,shall,should,will,wouldandhadbetter.Modalauxiliaries,infact,arespecialauxiliaryverbsthatexpressthedegreeofcertaintyoftheactioninthesentence,ortheattitudeoropinionofthewriterconcerningtheaction.Inrelat
8、iontothedefinitionofmodals,Feigenbaum(1985)statedthefollowing:3.FormalCharacteristicsofModalsAlthoughsomescholarshavequestionedwhetherthemodalsshouldbeplacedinaseparatecategoryfrom
