這篇論文旨在呈現三種漢語「得」字的不同句法地位和語義功能，其為表
可能的「得」、要求的「得」和允許的「得」。雖然，它們同為情態詞，但三者
的語法功能和行為不盡相同。

本文就以上議題，主張提出三個分析方案。第一，因為可能的「得」和允
許的「得」都是輕音節，所以它們都是附著詞。但是，要求的「得」是個重音
節，並不須依附其他詞彙，所以要求的「得」並不是依附詞。第二，帶有不同
語義功能的「得」在句法結構上呈現不同的地位。從結構來看，由高到低的
為：要求的「得」、允許的「得」、可能的「得」。允許的「得」帶著一個AspP
補語 (complement)，允許的「得」是ModP 的中心語，同時帶著一個VP 補語，
而可能的「得」是DeP 的中心語，也帶著一個VP 補語。

此外，本文也將進一步分析可能的「得」、要求的「得」和允許的「得」的
語意。可能的「得」表示可能性，要求的「得」展現必要性(deontic
necessity)，是說話者的要求，而允許的「得」展現說話者禁止。

This thesis shows that the potential de, the demand dei and the permissive de are
modals. They occur and behave differently.

I propose that the potential de and the permissive de are clitics because of their
prosodic lightness, whereas the deontic dei is not a clitic and can stand alone due to its
prosodic heaviness. For syntactic position, the modal de constructions from high to
low are the deontic dei, the permissive de and the potential de, respectively. The
deontic dei takes a higher AspP complement; the permissive de as the head of ModP
takes a VP complement; the potential de as the head of DeP takes a VP complement.

Moreover, I also show the semantic properties of the modal de constructions. The
potential de indicates possibility; the deontic dei denotes a deontic necessity, a
demand expressed by the speaker; the permissive de usually expresses prohibition
imposed by the speaker with the present of the negation bu.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ii

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 4
2.1 Sun (1996): The Grammaticalization of de in the History of Chinese 4
2.2 Wu (2004): The Potential de 13 2.3 Wang (2017): The Potential de as a Functional Head 20

CHAPTER 3 THE POTENTIAL DE 24
3.1 A Comparison between the Resultative de with the Potential de 24
3.2 The Interpretation of the Differences between Resultative and Potential 28
3.3 The Potential de construction and neng construction 33
3.4 The Syntactic Structure of the Potential de 40
3.5 The Semantic Properties of the Potential de 42

CHAPTER 4 THE DEONTIC DEI 50
4.1 A Comparison between yao ‘want’ and dei ‘must’ 50
4.2 A Comparison between the Deontic bixu and the Demand dei 56
4.3 The Structure position of the Demand dei 58
4.4 The Syntactic Structure of the Demand dei 62
4.5 The Semantic Properties of the Demand dei 64

CHAPTER 5 THE PERMISSIVE DE 79
5.1 A Comparison between bu keyi ‘not permitted’ and bu de ‘not allowed’ 80
5.2 The Structure Position of the Permissive de 87
5.3 The Syntactic Structure of the Permissive de 91
5.4 The Syntactic Structure of Three Modal de Constructions 92
5.5 The Semantic Properties of the Permissive de 94

CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION 102

References 105

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