Abstract
This article focuses on the investigations by Li Jinxi (New Grammar of the National Language. Li Jinxi collected works. Heilongjiang Education Press, Harbin, 1924), Lü Shuxiang (Outline of Chinese Grammar. The Commercial Press, Shanghai, 1942a, Outline of Chinese grammar. Collection of Lü Shuxiang’s works. Liaoning Education Press, Shenyang, 1942), Wang Li (Modern Chinese Grammar. Series in Chinese grammar. The Commercial Press, Beijing, 1943, The theory of Chinese grammar. Collection of Wang Li’s works. Shandong Education Press, Jinan, 1944) and Gao Mingkai (On Chinese Grammar. Kaiming shudian, Shanghai, 1948). The aim is shedding light on their notable anticipations of contemporary theories on modality. It will be shown that those works were not confined to a language-specific discourse but had the depth and vastness of the best General Linguistics tradition. After an introduction on the relevant seminal tenets on modality, the article presents five sections focussing on a different critical issue as analysed in the literature above. Namely, the attitudinal theme and the relation between sentential and verbal mood (Sect. 6.2); the illocutionary and propositional levels of modality (Sect. 6.3); the notion of modals as a semantic category (Sect. 6.4); the distinction between modalities of moral duty and mere necessity (Sect. 6.5); modal interdefinability and negation scope (Sect. 6.6).
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Notes
- 1.
As stressed in Sparvoli (Forthcoming), this terminology can be traced back to three seminal concepts of Chinese traditional thought: substance (tĭ 体), function or activity (yòng 用), intrinsic nature, quality or property (xìng 性).
- 2.
The translations of the Chinese texts quoted in this article are all mine.
- 3.
The relevant passage is: “Logical modality: By logical modality I mean: first, the links between subject and predicate and, hence, [the links] between each stream of thought—sentence—through logical categories such as being, nothingness, becoming, possibility, necessity, conditionality, causality, etc. In our language, it roughly coincides with the sphere of action of auxiliaries, modal adverbs and sentential conjunctions. Modality is logical, i.e. objective, it contrasts with the subjective, psychological [modality] which affects the emotional attitude of the speaker towards the content of the speech” (von der Gabelentz 1891: 495–496).
- 4.
For a survey of the grammars consulted by Li Jinxi, see Pellin (2009: 256–7).
- 5.
I am alluding to the well-known definition by de Haan: “Mood is therefore the grammaticalized expression of modality, just as, say, tense is the grammaticalized expression of time.” (2006: 33).
- 6.
As is evident from the explanations provided in the first section of Chap. 16 (entitled “Expressing doubt”, 传疑 chuán yí), the author refers to terms that are analogous to illocutions as mentioned in contemporary pragmatics, such as: ‘Total questions’ 疑问 yíwèn, ‘rhetorical questions’ 反诘 fănjié, ‘conjectures’ 测度 cèdù, ‘assertions’ 直陈 zhíchén and ‘imperatives’ 命令 mìnglìng.
- 7.
On the Yīngwén jǔyú and the influence of Kerl’s grammar on Wang Fengzao’s work, see Pellin (2009: 100ff).
- 8.
When referring to monosyllabic modals, Wang Li uses the term zì 字, which he explicitly employs with the meaning of “character” (Wang 1984 (1944): 12).
- 9.
For the author’s definition of ‘aspect’ tài and ‘voice’ tĭ (English in the original), see Chapters 7 and 8, respectively (Gao 1948: 374ff, 379ff).
- 10.
The reasons for those discrepancies between the different editions deserve a separate investigation. At present, I can only underline that they suggest a shift from a philosophical to a more pragmatic account of modality (based on the use, i.e. expressing possibility). In this, the political climate of the period might also have played a role. As emphasized by Abbiati (1993), a political campaign initiated by Zhou Zumo 周祖谟 (1954) was targeting the linguistic circles; under such pressure, Gao Mingkai (1958) presented a critique to “the bourgeois idealistic ideas in the linguistic work”, refuting the French linguistic tradition that had previously inspired him.
- 11.
In Portner’s model, the other priority modalities in addition to the deontics are: bouletic, teleological (goal oriented). If we set aside the bouletic modals (whose reading is often a deontic suggestion), priority modals can be analyzed as a division of words, which are used to convince someone to prefer something over something else. The rationale upon which the preference is based can be therefore divided into three main domains: moral obligation, practical necessity and desire.
- 12.
Here is the relevant passage, on the anankastic xū and děi: “须”字表示环境或情况所需要, 是主观中稍带客观。现代可说成”须得”, 或单说”得”。“Xū expresses what is required by the environment or by the circumstances, it confers an objective nuance to a subjective qualification. Nowadays it can be expressed also as xūděi or simply děi.”.
- 13.
English in the original. Both Wang Li and Gao Mingkai gloss each modal notion with its English equivalents.
- 14.
- 15.
Li Jinxi locates yào among the anankastics. In this regard, it must be noted that this modal is an “ambivalent item”. It behaves as described by Von Wright (1963a: 158) with reference to must. Just like must, the Chinese yào is anankastic in the affirmative and deontic in the negative.
- 16.
“In the negative form yào takes on the meaning of a warning “要的否定转成禁戒意” (Ibidem 104), as in (3). The negative form of xū 须 (‘have to’) instead takes on the meaning of ‘possible not to’ kĕ bù “‘须’的否定 转「可不」之意” (Li 2007 (1924): 133).
- 17.
These constructions express inevitability, that is, the highest level of certainty or necessity (Ibidem 132). They include: bù dé bù 不得不, bù néng bù 不能不, bù kě bù 不可不 (‘not possible not’ ¬◊¬), and bùmiăn不免 (‘inevitably’). They are placed in the bìrán division, hosting the description of bì. As this class of expressions includes various compounds of bì (with meaning of bìxū), and considering that in negative form it specializes as an anankastic modal, the resulting division is spurious: the examples illustrating assertive sentences are epistemic, while those in negative form are anankastic.
- 18.
Original: “若将「他不可不去」改为「他非去不可」, 或「他不去不行」, 都是「他若不去,就不可行」这种复式句的缩约” (Li 2007 (1924): 133).
- 19.
This analysis of the “fēi… bù kě” construction as a covert conditional was resumed by Lü (1942), in the section on double negation, §14.62.
- 20.
Kurtz (2011: 343) commented on this phenomenon: “The Chinese discovery of European logic shortly before 1900 and the rapid naturalization of the discipline in the final decade of the Qing dynasty proved how swiftly a new and unfamiliar science could be integrated into China’s conceptual space once sufficiently influential voices were found to sing its praises”.
- 21.
The original passage, at the end of Sect. 14.55, reads “或然和必然不像可能和必要那样完全对立。可能尽管强化, 不会变成必然, 但这里所说的必然, 实即高度的或然” (Lü 1944 (1942): 200). In current terminology, it could be expressed as follows: “Unlike [participant external] Possibility and Necessity, Probability and Certainty seem not to be complete opposites. The highest degree of Possibility cannot turn into Necessity, but what we here call Certainty, in fact corresponds to a high degree of Probability”.
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Sparvoli, C. (2019). Modality in General Linguistic Investigations Conducted in China Prior to 1949. In: Meisterernst, B. (eds) New Perspectives on Aspect and Modality in Chinese Historical Linguistics. Frontiers in Chinese Linguistics, vol 5. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1948-8_6
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