Study On Supremum Adverbs In Contemporary Chinese

"Supremum" is the concept of set theory in mathematics.For example,given the set "positive even numbers from 1 to 10",then "8" is the supremum of the set,and "2" is the inferior of the set.The value interval of the set X is less than or equal to the supremum,and greater than or equal to the infimum.Semantically,adverbs with expressive function of supremum are supremum adverbs.In modern Chinese,there are six supremum adverbs in total,namely," Ding duo,Zhi duo,Zui duo,Chong qi liang",etc.Based on previous studies and guided by three plane theories and cognitive linguistics,this paper will study this sub-category of adverbs from the macro and micro levels.Except for the introduction and conclusion part,this article is divided into five chapters:In the introduction part,we first introduced the origin of the topic,the definition and scope of supremum adverbs.Subsequently,we reviewed the literature of previous studies on adverbs of supremum,sorted out some of the problems left over from the existing studies,and determined the main writing goals of this article.In addition,we also introduced the theoretical basis,research methods and corpus sources used in this article,and explained related symbols.Chapter one is the definition of the nature of supremum adverbs.Regarding the nature of supremum adverbs,academic circles have not yet reached a conclusion.Multiple definitions of nature coexist.Among them,the theory of range adverbs and modality adverbs dominate.In this chapter,we first judged the nature of supremum adverbs based on the criteria for defining range adverbs and modality adverbs.We believe that whether it is based on semantic standards or syntactic standards,it does not seem to be too controversial to define the nature of supremum adverbs as range adverbs.But at the same time,we also believe that part-of-speech is essentially a prototype category.When the speaker’s subjectivity is involved,the nature of supremum adverbs can shift from the category of range adverbs to the category of modality adverbs,and this kind of nature shift is inherently related to the type of attributes of pragmatic magnitude it modifies and quantifies.Specifically,when the supremum adverb modifies the quantity magnitude and range magnitude,it is close to the ranks of the limited range adverbs in terms of syntactic distribution and semantic orientation.When it modifies the degree magnitude,under certain syntactic,semantic,and pragmatic conditions,it can show the nature of modality adverbs,but because it still retains the limiting function of the proposition,so it is not a member of typical modality adverbs,but an atypical member.Chapter two is about the semantic characteristics of supremum adverbs.Part-of-speech is a prototype category.Adverbs of the supremum form a aggregation with the meaning of [+maximum],which has both common features and individual differences in semantics.In addition to the categorical semantic component of[+maximum],the common semantic features of supremum adverbs are also expressed in [+magnitude],[+negative],[+less than or equal to],[+weakly controllable],etc.The individual semantic difference of supremum adverbs is mainly manifested in the binary opposition of the three semantic features of [±subjective],[±expect],and [±limit].The semantic difference is mainly due to the internal structure of each member.The common and individual semantic features of supremum adverbs are not only reflected in the syntax,but also have certain restrictions on the pragmatic features and pragmatic functions of this type of adverb.Chapter Three is about the syntactic features of supremum adverbs.In this chapter,we first examined the characteristics of location distribution of supremum adverbs.From the perspective of subjectivity and expressive function,we explained the differences in the location distribution of the internal members of supremum adverbs.Subsequently,we examined the syntactic composition characteristics of supremum adverbs.we mainly examined the combination of supremum adverbs with the verbal components,adjective components,substantive components,quantitative components,other adverbs,similar adverbs,aspect markers "zhe,le,guo",modal particles,conjunctions and other components.We explaind the syntactic limitation of supremum adverbs when combined with the above components in terms of semantic features and pragmatic functions.Chapter four is the pragmatic analysis of supremum adverbs.In this chapter,we first examined the distribution characteristics of the sentence category,distribution characteristics in realistic/unrealistic sentence,and distribution characteristics of style of supremum adverbs.Start from the semantic features,we explaind the pragmatic limitations of supremum adverbs in the above distribution.When investigating the distribution characteristics in realistic/unrealistic sentence of supremum adverbs,we divided the sememe of "maximum" in the real/unrealistic sentence into three allosemes,That is,"the speculation of maximum","the command or promise of maximum" and "the statement of maximum".Subsequently,we discussed the pragmatic functions of supremum adverbs from the aspects of presupposition triggering,focus highlighting,subjective expression,and textual connection,and explained the functional differences of supremum adverbs from the perspective of semantic features and cognitive pragmatics.Chapter five discusses the asymmetry of supreme and inferior adverbs by taking "at most" and "at least" as examples.In this chapter,we first examined the asymmetry of "at most" and "at least" at the semantic,syntactic and pragmatic level,and analyzed the asymmetry between the two from the perspectives of semantics,pragmatics and cognition.Subsequently,based on the marked theory,we judged “at most” as a cognitively marked item,and “at least” as an unmarked item.From a cross-language perspective,the asymmetry was verified.In the concluding part,we summarized some basic works done in this article and the conclusions drawn,and pointed out the innovations and deficiencies of this article.