A Study Of Multiple Attributes And Their Word Order In

Until now, the achievements of Austroasiatic languages within China as special studies on multiple modifier are few, even less is on the orders of multiple modifier of Blang language. This paper chooses Lava, a dialect of Blang language, spoken in Manghai, Mengban village, Jinggu Dai and Yi Autonomous County of Pu’er City in Yunnan province, with a focus on the noun phrase and its word order rules. First, the author here via introspection and checked by native older speakers practically item by item to get the rich corpus, then based on the previous research achievements and under the theory of distance iconicity motivation of cognitive linguistics. This paper first studies the single modifier, then the multiple modifier and its word order with the noun phrase of the language systematically, and finds the following rules:(1)the total word order of multiple modifiers with the noun phrase of Lava is:headwords+descriptives+restrictives.(2) including the following two sequences:the general word order sequence with descriptives is:nouns or distinctives> simple adjectives> complex adjectives(">" table "appear preferentially"). The general word order sequence of restrictive modifier is:possessive words> verb phrase> demonstrative words> quantifiers.(3) modifiers without the structural auxiliary vei33> modifiers with vei3Finally, the following conclusions are drawn:the distance between the modifier and the headword is determined by the conceptual distance between them.This paper consists of five chapters. The first chapter introduces the background of the research.Including the introductions of the Blang people and their language, the research significance, research methods and theoretical basis.The second chapter mainly discusses the single modifier in Lava, a dialect of Blang language. The single modifier can be classified into prepositive modifiers and postpositive modifiers. The prepositive modifiers can and only can be quantifiers, and postpositive modifiers are mainly composed of nouns, verbs and adjectives, distinctives, demonstrative words, quantifiers, possessive words and so on. The quantifiers is a special modifier component, it can be a prepositive modifier separately, and can be used as a postpositive modifier. As the prepositive modifier, the focus is on the headwords, and when as the postpositive modifier, the focus is on the quantity of the headwords. In addition, when possessive words are used as postpositional modifier, it can append the structural auxiliary vei33 or not between the headwords and possessive words depends on the alienability and the constraints of the degree of life. When the expression of inalienable possessive relationship, it is not necessary to append the structural auxiliary vei 33; When the expression of alienable possessive relationship, there are different expression forms according to the different degrees of life:When the possessor is a person, even if the expression of alienable possessive relationship, it can append vei33, but it is not necessary to append vei33 between possessive words and headwords; When the possessor is an object, it is usually not essential to append vei33. From the perspective of cognitive, this puzzling exception is closely associated to the behavior mode of cognitive subject and the things be owned and the cognitive path of people recognizing.The third chapter discusses the word order of multiple modifier. It can be divided into three parts.The first part is the classification of modifier. According to the criteria for classification of lexical category, the author divides the modifier of Lava into descriptive modifiers and restrictive modifiers of two categories. And nouns> adjectives and distinctives act as the descriptive modifier, verbs> demonstrative words、quantifiers and possessive words act as the restrictive modifier.In the second part, the author finds the following word order sequence of descriptive modifier through comparing with each other of two modifier,that is: nouns or distinctives> single syllable adjectives> complex form of adjectives. This word order sequence has the following three characteristics:1. the attributive components, are composed of nouns and distinctives that represents more stable, objective, hypostatic property of things, are closest to headword.2. when several modifier, are composed of adjectives which represent property, modify the headword meanwhile, the modifier without vei33 are in the former, the modifier with vei33 are located behind.3.when several modifier without vei33 modify the headword meanwhile, the modifier which reflects solid inner nature of things is more close to the headword.In the third part, the author discusses the restrictive modifier and finds the following general word order sequence:possessive words> verb words> demonstrative words> quantifiers. Possessive words are generally the most close to the headword, and the phrase which is consisted of demonstrative words and quantifiers is usually the most far away from the headword.In the fourth chapter, the author explores the word order while the descriptive modifier and restrictive modifier modify, restrict or describe the headword meanwhil, and attempts to explain the inner word order rules of Lava with the theory of distance iconicity motivation.The author analyzes the structure levels and semantic scope of the noun phrase firstly,summes up the word order rules of multiple modifier as the following three rules: (1) descriptive modifier> restrictive modifier.(this is the total rule) (2) modifier without the structural auxiliary vei33> modifier with vei33. (3) when several modifiers without vei33 modify, restrict or describe the headword meanwhile, the word order generally is:nouns or distinctives> simple adjectives> possessive words> demonstrative words> quantifiers.Then from the view of cognitive orientation and semantic logic relation, the author explains the reasons that restrict the inner word order rules of multiple modifier of Lava’s noun phrase, which under Haiman’s theory of distance iconicity motivation. These rules can be summarized as a principle:the distance between the modifier and the headword is determined by the distance of the concept between them. The word order and position of Lava’s multiple modifier exist distance iconicity with semantic relation, which is close or distant, between multiple modifier and the headword, that is, the modifier which are more close to the headword tend to be more stable, reflecting inner, hypostatic property of the head.The fifth chapter is "conclusion", the author summarizes the main points of this paper, then puts forward the shortcomings of this paper and the problems which will be solved.