On The Form And Function Of Qualitative Meaning In Modern Chinese:A Systemic Functional Approach

Qualitative meaning,termed as "quality" in the Cardiff model of systemic functional linguistics(henceforth SFL),is one of the most basic cognitive categories of human beings.Previous studies on the lexicogrammatical realizations of quality and its subcategories are not adequate in that the existing studies on grammar have focused substantially on verbs,nouns,and clause grammar,with much less attention attached to the grammatical realizations and functions of quality group.In addition,current studies on quality are primarily centered around adjectives,with other realization forms left almost untouched.Against this background,this study employs the theoretical ideas of SFL such as system,function,and transitivity to investigate the semantics of quality and its lexical realizations in Chinese,aiming to reveal a clearer picture of the lexical realization forms of quality in modern Mandarin Chinese.The study also seeks to construct a system network that contains the lexicogrammatical instantiation of quality in moderrn Mandarin Chinese.For this purpose,this study takes the SFL approach to grammatical structure description to analyze the potential structural components of quality group that instantiate quality in Chinese.It combines the functional syntax and functional semantics of Sydney grammar and Cardiff grammar patterns within SFL to describe and explain the syntactic functions of quality group in a comprehensive way.First of all,with a "top-down" perspective of SFL,this study examines the"lexicogrammar layer" from the "semantic layer" of language,focusing on the lexicogrammatical instantiation of quality,with an aim to provide a panorama of the linguistic forms for the semantic category of quality.It is found that quality in modern Chinese can be realized in many forms in lexicogrammar,among which quality groups are the primary lexical forms that instantiate quality in Chinese.In addition,some nouns have lost their referential meaning through the process of decategorization,and they are used to express the descriptive meaning with the support of some lexical and syntactic forms.Moreover,the study has found that some verbs in modern Chinese,with the support of some lexical forms,can also be used to instantiate the semantic category of quality due to the high frequency of their daily use.It is one of the important forms of characterizing qualitative meaning in modern Chinese.On this basis,this study also gives a detailed description of the subcategories of quality in modern Chinese.Therefore,under the guidance of systemic functional theory,this study attempts to construct a preliminary system network of quality in modern Chinese and its lexicogrammatical forms.Secondly,drawing on the syntactic description method in SFL,this study investigates the lexicogrammatical instantiation of quality in modern Chinese and has distinguished the potential structural components within the modern Chinese quality groups,which mainly include "pre-degree temperer","post-degree temperer","apex trigger","scope",etc.This study also discusses the patterns of various potential components in the specific use of quality groups.The research shows that there are many types of potential components in quality groups,each having its own features.In addition,based on the theory of the relationship between different levels of language,this thesis has proposed the concept of the quality group complex and discussed its potential components.It is hoped that the discussion of the internal structural components of the quality groups will shed light on a deeper understanding of the complex structural components of the quality groups.Thirdly,from the point of view of functional syntax and semantic analysis of SFL,this thesis studies the syntactic functions of the quality groups in modern Chinese at the level of group and clause respectively.The study has found that quality groups can be used to fill the premodifier and the classifier in nominal groups,the predicator extension of quality predicator,and main verb extension.At the level of clause,the groups that instantiate the semantic of quality of Things can be freely used to fill Subject and Complement of a clause,for they can be modified by the degree temperer words.The study argues that this is one of the essential functions of the quality groups,rather than the so called"nominalization" of it.In addition,some of the quality groups in Chinese can expose the predicator of a clause,but there are considerable differences between the quality group predicator of the clause and the verbal predicate clause.Therefore,the present study discusses the quality group predicator of a clause in detail.Based on the above findings,this study constructs a system network of the transitivity processes of quality group predicate clauses,expanding the transitivity theory of SFL.Finally,the present thesis makes a detailed study of the "mismatch modification" phenomenon of quality groups in modern Chinese,and discusses the different types of transitivity processes and participant roles from the perspective of transitivity theory.On the whole,this study takes a comprehensive view of semantics of quality and its lexicogrammatical instantiation in modern Mandarin Chinese from the perspective of SFL.Hopefully,this study will deepen the understanding of the lexical realizations of quality.The formal description of the lexical system network of quality can shed lights on the information processing and sentence generation.It can also provide reference for semantic lexicon compilation and revision.Based on the functional syntactic perspective,the present thesis describes the internal potential structure and syntactic functions of the quality groups in modern Chinese,which could contribute to the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language in practice.