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Based on the theory of Radical Construction Grammar and Register Grammar, this thesis aims to investigate rhetorical adverbs which is a very special class in the Chinese modal system. The selected adverbs to be researched are "Qi", “Nandao” and “Mofei”. Firstly, by reviewing the literature through a macroscopic vision of the modal system, the uniqueness of rhetorical tone and adverbs is indicated, and a brief comment on previous studies will be provided. Then, some concepts that will be used in this thesis, such as mood, modality, “yuqi”,“fanwen”and “fanjie”, will be clearly defined. In this part, we put forward a completely different view from all previous studies, that is, “mood” does not exist in Chinese language, and what we traditionally called “yuqi” corresponds to modality in western linguistics, in addition, we delimit the four modal meanings and the respective tones of rhetorical sentences in Chinese. In the third part, we connect Radical Construction and Register Grammar, and take the complementary perspective of these two theories as the diachronic investigation method of the rhetorical adverbs. Finally, it’s proved that the change of construction can always bring the change of modal meaning, and different modal meanings are expressed in different constructions. However, after the modal meaning has been normalized and gradually stabilized, the correspondence becomes less obvious. Although this thesis is an experimental study, it is based on a solid theoretical foundation, and the results are valid, I hope to bring some benefits to the study of modal adverbs and the whole Chinese modal system.
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