A Contrastive Study On Chinese And English Adverbs

Adverbs play a rather important role in Chinese and English. The concept of Chinese adverb was introduced by Ma Jianzhong whose book "Ma Shi Wen Tong"imitated English grammar. Therefore, there must exist some relations between Chinese and English adverbs. Mr. Zhu Dexi proposed that characteristics can be exposed only by comparison and there is no characteristics without comparison. Although there is a long history in Chinese and English adverbs research, most of them have been limited to the ontology research, and especially confined to describe and analyze the phenomenon about a certain single adverbs. Even if there is a comparative study, it is only between two native adverbs, lacking in cross-language contrast.Hence, under the direction of the theories of comparative linguistics and linguistic typology, a more comprehensive cross-language analysis and research into Chinese and English adverbs has been made from the aspects of comprehensive research and specific language application. As a result, some similarities and differences between Chinese and English adverbs have been found and the conclusions are shown as follows:Firstly, in terms of quantity, it is much more in English adverbs than that of Chinese adverbs.Secondly, from the perspective of combination, Chinese and English adverbs all can be combined with nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.It is of unconventional usage for the combination of adverbs and nouns in Chinese, while in English it has become a fixed expression in the process of language use. However, the frequency of this usage is quite small. In addition, by means of the combination of adverbs and nouns, a kind of specific pragmatic effect can be achieved in Chinese, while in English it is mainly used to show stress. As for the concurrences of adverbs, there exist differences in category and some certain regularities in sequence both in Chinese and English. In addition, there still exist some differences in semantic orientation due to the different adverb category.From the perspective of the concrete combination forms of adverbs with adjectives and verbs, they are quite different in Chinese and English. During the process of adverbs combined with adjectives and verbs, a special pragmatic effect can be achived in Chinese because of the differences of the adverb’s position, while it does not exist in English.Thirdly, as for the sole use of adverbs, no clear morphological signs can be found both in English and Chinese. They are all only limited to the informal oral language. Also in the practical language use, it will be subject to the restrictions of some factors such as the context. Generally speaking, in aspects of the sole use of adverbs, it is larger in amount, broader range in applications and more flexible in Chinese than that in English.Fourthly, in Chinese and English, there are many adverbs with different word classes concurrently, i.e. trans-class (the same morphology with different word classes). Generally speaking, it is more complex for English adverb in trans-class aspect than that in Chinese. As to the common phenomenon of trans-class between adjectives and adverbs, there exist lots of pragmatic differences, for a special pragmatic effect can be achieved in Chinese by using the adverb with word class of adjective concurrently, which makes the the expression more vivid and concise, while it doesn’t exist in English. However, when it comes to the issue of word class discrimination on adverb trans-class, it is more complicated for Chinese than that in English. The word class can be determined only by its grammatical characteristics of pure adverbial in English, while in Chinese, besides this kind of measure, some other ways may still be used such as combination with the adverb connotation.In this dissertation, based on the Chinese and English language fact, a relatively comprehensive comparative analysis and study of English adverbs has been made by means of some linguistic theories, such as contrastive linguistics and linguistic typology theory etc. As a result, similarities and differences in different extent are indicated in aspects of definition, classification, and actual use of Chinese and English adverbs. In summary, the differences between Chinese and English adverbs are greater than the similarities between them. The fundamental reason is due to the difference between Chinese and English, their respective language distribution, assumed function and frequency of occurrence.