A Preliminary Study on Modality of Chinese

In this paper ,modality construed as a pragmatic notion, is classified into two categories with respect to markedness: unmarked modality and marked modality. The latter is further divided into strong modality,neutral modality and weak modality. Based on this classification, a variety of marked expressions indicating modality are examined. In conclusion, this essay argues that there are still many problems with the conventional classification of modality, which requires re-examination