I 华中科技大学硕士学位论文 Abstract This paper makes a detailed research for five groups of modality adverbs from the point of teaching Chinese as a foreign language. These modality adverbs are: “pianpian”, “dao”, “suanshi”, “queshi”and“shizai”, “fenming”and“mingming”. The article consists of seven parts. Part I gives a brief account of the current situation of studying Chinese modality adverbs, and illustrates the importance and necessity of studying every modality adverb in teaching Chinese as a foreign language. Part II gives an all-round study of modality adverb “pianpian” in syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Part III sums up all the tones that modality adverb “dao” can express, finding that all the tones that “dao” contains are derived from its basic meaning that is “to contrast”, then analyzes the errors that foreign students often make during their learning Chinese, and proposes some teaching suggestions. Part IV concludes all the tones that modality adverb “suanshi” can express, finding its basic meaning is “to classify”, and connects the inner links of “suanshi’s” basic meaning and tones. Part V mainly carries on the contrast with Modality adverb “queshi” and “shizai”, discussing the characteristic of sentence structure, implied meaning, and pragmatic circumstance of “shizai”. The conclusion is that “shizai” contains the subjective feelings and emphasizes the people’s psychological process but “queshi” only emphasizes the truth
