This dissertation has discussed Chinese modal verb yao and the Corresponding Korean modal suffixes “-ya ha-”, “-ryeo-go ha-”, “–l geos-i-”, “-gess-”.
Chinese “yao” expresses many modal meaning, that is three modal meanings—Necessity, obligation and intention. The modality expressions of the two languages can correspond semantically, but the actual correspondence could vary depending on other sentence constituents, such as person of subject, combination with other constituents, word order when combining other modal expressions etc.
When “yao” express deontic modality—obligative, it corresponds with Korean Deontic modal suffix “-ya ha-”; When “yao” express Dynamic Modality—volitive, according to the constrains of syntactic, it corresponds with Korean Dynamic Modal Suffixes “-ryeo-go ha-“, “-l geos-i-“, “-gess-”. When “yao” express epistemic Modality—deductive, according to the constrains of syntactic, it corresponds with Korean epistemic Modal Suffixes “-l geos-i-“, “-gess-”.
Based on scholars' present researches, this paper analyzes modal meaning and syntactic feature of Chinese Modal Verb “yao” and the corresponding Korean Modal Suffixes “-ya ha-”, “-ryeo-go ha-”, “-l geos-i-”, “-gess-”, and then compares the differences of their syntactic semantic,such as person of subject, combination with other constituents, word order when combining other modal expressions etc.