This study compares the usage of the several selected epistemic modals as hedging devices-could,think,you know and maybe-in the corpus of English conversation on asking for/offering advice by a group of Chinese sophomores of English major and in that of the native speakers,i.

This text explains this by analyzing the fuzzy quality of demarcation line, namely between the modal verb and general verb, especially the psychological verb; and between the modal verb and adverbial word,especially the adverbial word of notes and commentary quality.

This paper attempts to use "just" as a medium to study the interweaving relations and set relations when modal verbs, just and phrasal verbs appear in a sentence at the same time, and explores a new way toward lexical study.

The comparison shows that modal verbs and metaphor of mood are distributed unevenly in Chinese and English editorials.

The text is intended to distinguish the frequently used yet very confusing modal auxiliaries can,could,may and might in meaning and tense.

Because of the peculiar functions and characteristic complexity possessed by modal auxiliaries, this dissertation constitutes an attempt to present a panoramic view about the way in which modal auxiliaries are used by Chinese learners of English.

Scholars have been making a deep study of the English modals in an attempt to find out their common qualities and establish a model to sum up and generalize their meanings.

In cognitive grammar proposed by Langacker,tense and modals are called grounding predications,serving to ground the profiled process,i.