Modals as Verbs in Chinese: A GB Perspective

Modals as Verbs in Chinese: A GB Perspective

Chinese, like many other languages, has a set of words called modals which indicate the speaker's attitude toward the proposition expressed by the sentence. This set of words has been acknowledged to express two types of modality, i.e., epistemic modality and deontic modality. Epistemic modality is the modality which makes judgments about the possibility or necessity of propositions; deontic modality is the modality which indicates permission, obligation, ability or disposition. According to this distinction, modals like yinggai 'should', keyi 'may' and hui 'will, can' may indicate either the epistemic modality or the deontic modality. Modals like keneng 'possible' can only express the epistemic modality and those like gan 'dare' and ken 'willing' can only express the deontic modality. In this paper, we will discuss some of intriguing issues about the syntax of modals within the framework of Government and Binding. It will be argued that Chinese modals, whether interpreted as epistemic or deontic, should head a VP projection and are primary predicates of the clause. In addition, Chinese modals can be divided into two types, i.e., raising modals and control modals. Three pieces of evidence will be given to support this classification. In our raising analysis of Chinese modals, it will also be suggested that in Chinese CP may be transparent for the ECP.