ǰ�� AcknowledgementsChapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Research Orientation 1.2 Rationale 1.2.1 The Importance of Modal System 1.2.2 The Importance of Modal Acquisition in Child Language Research 1.2.3 The Deficiency of Previous Studies on Chinese Modal Acquisition 1.2.4 Summary 1.3 Scope 1.4 Organization of the Book Chapter 2 Modal Acquisition 2.1 Modality 2.2 English Modal Auxiliaries 2.3 Chinese Modal Auxiliaries 2.3.1 Terms and Modal Forms Proposed by Chinese Linguists 2.3.2 The Syntactic Characteristics of Chinese Modals 2.3.3 The Semantic Characteristics of Chinese Modals 2.3.4 The Pragmatic Characteristics of Chinese Modals 2.4 The Acquisition of Modality 2.4.1 Previous Studies of Modal Acquisition in English and Other Languages 2.4.2 Previous Studies of Modal Acquisition in Chinese 2.5 Theoretical Accounts of L1 Modal Acquisition 2.5.1 Perkin's Explanation 2.5.2 The Theory of Mind Hypothesis 2.5.3 Caregiver Input and Acquisition of Modality 2.5.4 A Converging Constraints Model 2.6 Research Questions 2.7 SummaryChapter 3 Methodology 3.1 Case-study Methodology 3.1.1 Defining Case Study 3.1.2 Advantages and Disadvantages of Case Study 3.1.3 Justification for the Application of Case Study Method 3.2 The Subject and Settings 3.3 Data-collection Procedures 3.3.1 The Handwritten Diary 3.3.2 The Audio-recordings 3.3.3 The Video-recordings 3.4 Data Transcription and AnalysisChapter 4 Features of Modals in the Child's Data and in the Caregivers' Data 4.1 The Acquisition of Modal Forms in the Child's Data 4.1.1 The Emergence of Chinese Modal Forms in the Child's Data. 4.1.2 Distribution of Modal Forms in the Child's Data Across Time Periods 4.1.3 Summary 4.2 The Acquisition of Semantics of Modals in the Child's Data 4.2.1 The Semantic Category of Modals for the First Occurrence in the Child's Data 4.2.2 Distribution of Semantic Categories of Modals in the Child's Data Across Time Periods 4.2.3 Summary 4.3 The Acquisition of Syntactic Structures of Modal Utterances in the Child's Data 4.3.1 Distribution of Syntactic Structures of Modal Utterances in the Child's Data Across Time Periods 4.3.2 Sentence Types and Semantic Categories of Modals in the Child's Data 4.3.3 Subjecthood and Semantic Categories of Modals in the Child's Data 4.3.4 Summary 4.4 A Comparison of the Features of Modals in the Caregivers' Data and in the Child's Data Across Time Periods 4.4.1 Distribution of Modal Forms in the Caregivers Data and in the Child's Data Across Time Periods 4.4.2 Distribution of Semantics of Modals in the Caregivers' Data and in the Child's Data Across Time Periods 4.4.3 Distribution of the Syntactic Structures of Modal Utterances in the Caregivers' Data and in the Child's Data Across Time Periods 4.4.4 SummaryChapter 5 General Discussion 5.1 Summary of Major Findings 5.2 Discussion ReferencesAppendix The First Five Occurrences of Modals in the Child's Data