"Can," "Could," or "May" in Chinese? A Usage-based Perspective Gleaned from Diachronic Corpus Analysis

This study analyzes four linguistic forms related to modality in Chinese: 能 néng, 可能 kěnéng, 可 kě, and 可以 kěyǐ. They have overlapping functions and posit great challenges to Chinese as second language (L2) learners. Through examining diachronic corpus data, this study finds that the functions associated with 能 néng, 可能 kěnéng, and 可以 kěyǐ generally fall into three categories:能 néng indicates agent-oriented modality, 可能 kěnéng expresses epistemic modality, and 可以kěyǐ denotes enabling conditions or speaker-oriented modality. The boundaries of these three types of modality overlap; hence, selecting the most appropriate form is challenging for L2 Chinese learners. 可 kě requires special treatment due to its unique syntactic features such as its occurrence in passive voice constructions and set phrases. The results of the corpus analysis can help with teaching and learning these four modal words in a more precise way.