Title: Indeterminacy of English Modal Verbs' Meaning
Abstract: As the main embodiment of modality,modal verbs have been studied and discussed by many scholars.Many studies have been done on English modal verbs and on their meanings from different aspects,but there are much fewer studies on the indeterminacy of English modal verbs' meanings.Coates divides English modal verbs into Epistemic and Root modals,and puts much emphasis on the study of indeterminacy of English modal verbs.She classifies indeterminacy into gradience,ambiguity and merger.Based on this classification,this paper tries to discuss the indeterminacy of English modal verbs' meaning from the aspects of semantics,hoping to promote the development of semantics,applied linguistics and the teaching and learning of foreign languages.
Publication Year: 2009
Publication Date: 2009-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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