Introduction

This book addresses intensification and modal necessity in Mandarin Chinese (hereafter, Chinese). Intensification is used in this book to describe the speaker’s emphasis on a proposition, because, by emphasizing a proposition, the speaker intensifies the degree of his/her confidence and affirmativeness toward the truth of a proposition, cf. the distinction between ‘weaker’ and ‘stronger’ declarative discussed in Palmer (2001: 68–69). Modal necessity discussed in this book refers either to the speaker’s certainty regarding the truth of an inference, judgment, or stipulation (that is, epistemic necessity), or to the speaker’s certainty concerning the obligatoriness of a proposition, based on rules or regulations (that is, deontic necessity).