A Comparative Study Of Pre-Modifier Order Of Chinese And English Nouns

How to use Chinese and English pre-modifiers in a correct order has long been a tough problem; therefore, many a scholar has done investigations into the pre-modifier word order of nouns. The pre-modifier order of English nominal phrases, concluded by Quirk and his colleagues, has been acknowledged by most people. However Chinese pre-modifier order in noun phrases has not been so clear. Although lots of Chinese linguists have done researches in this area, they have not reached an agreement yet.This thesis aims to work out whether there are differences between pre-modifier sequences of Chinese and English nominal phrases. To achieve this goal, three hypotheses about Chinese pre-modifier word order are set in advance. They are:Hypothesis 1: Attributives with"de"come before those without it;Hypothesis 2: As to the 14 groups, PC>T>P>DP>Q>S-P>OA>N>Y>SHW>ShSt>C>TP>A (What each of them represents is given in the body);Hypothesis 3: multi-syllable words come before monosyllable ones.PC, T and the like are the classification on Chinese pre-modifiers. Relative positions of each of them are calculated so as to draw a general conclusion on the order of them. The analysis is carried out comparing data from Touring China with the above hypotheses. Does Chinese data agree to them, too? Are there any exceptions? After surveys on Chinese data are finished, a few adjustments are made to hypothesis 2.The analysis of English data by Mao Wei is cited because she has done tremendous work to analyze lots of data from English scenery originals. Then, comparisons are done between Chinese and English pre-modifier order in noun phrases. Both similarities and differences are concluded in this thesis. The author utilizes different cognitive strategies and thinking modes of Chinese and English to construe them.This thesis finds out that unstable qualities of heads take precedence of stable ones; modifiers with less amount of information come before the ones with more.