Abstract
“Can,” “Could,” or “May” in Chinese? A Usage-based Perspective Gleaned from Diachronic Corpus Analysis
Highlights
Modality as a semantic category revolves around the notions of ability, desire, possibility, obligation, permission, etc
Armed with theoretical advances in the domain of modality, this study focuses on four modal items in Chinese: 能 néng, 可能 kěnéng, 可 kě, and 可以 kěyǐ
There are 886,015 tokens of 可 kě found in the Center for Chinese Linguistics (CCL) corpus, which include the other two target words formed with 可 kě, i.e., 可以 kěyǐ and 可能 kěnéng, and a non-target word, 可是 kěshì ‘but.’ Since 可以 kěyǐ and 可能 kěnéng are two of the four target forms, they were analyzed separately and excluded from the study of 可 kě
Summary
Modality as a semantic category revolves around the notions of ability, desire, possibility, obligation, permission, etc. Frequently used, pose difficulties even to advanced L2 learners (Tyler, 2012). Bybee et al (1994) propose a diachronic and dynamic approach to modal verbs. They believe modal verbs are best viewed as a set of diachronically developed and related functions. Tapping into both historical and contemporary corpora, this study employs a diachronic methodology, the framework of modality proposed by Bybee et al (1994), to investigate the Chinese modals—能 néng ‘can, could, may,’ 可能 kěnéng ‘can, could, may,’ 可 kě ‘can, could, may,’ and 可以 kěyǐ ‘can, could, may.’
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