On The Conversion Of Word Class From Two-Syllable Adjectives To Verbs In Chinese Based On CCL Corpus

The research of word-class shift is a linguistic phenomenon that has been paid much attention to by linguists. According to Si Xianzhu(2009), the so-called word class shift refers to the phenomenon that certain word class can be directly used as another word class without any form change on the original word. As far as this research concerns, it discusses the phenomenon that some adjectives can be directly used as verbs.The adjective represents the nature and state of the entity, while the verb indicates the behavior and action of the entity. Both the adjective and the verb can be used as a predicate, that is to say, they have many similarities in terms of grammatical function. Research shows that there are two standards to classify the adjective and the verb:whether adverbs like "很" can be added in front of the word; whether an object can be taken in the back of the word. In other words, if a word has an adverb like"很" in the front, the word is an adjective (except for psychological verbs), and if a word takes an object in the back, the word is a verb.Until now, word class shift library has not been set up. There is no comprehensive collection and calculation as for how many two-syllable adjectives have undergone conversion in Chinese, not to say research on other aspects such as the distribution and frequency. In order to get a more comprehensive understanding of the adjective to verb word class shift situation, based on the fifth edition of "The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary"(CCD) and the Center for Chinese Linguistics PKU (CCL), this study searches the two-syllable adjectives that can be used as verbs directly and then displays their frequency. At the same time, foregrounding, a concept in stylistics and its corresponding translation method are introduced to give a comprehensive description and interpretation.This thesis firstly gives a brief introduction of the research background, significance, objectives, methodology and the layout of this thesis. Then related studies on the word-class shift and adjective-to-verb conversion are reviewed. After elaborating the tools CCD and CCL, the author writes with great detail as for the process of collecting those adjectives which are converted into verbs. After introducing the characteristics of the original adjectives and the verbs converted, the author shows the distribution and frequency law. In order to explain the adjective to verb word class shift phenomenon, foregrounding theory, a concept in stylistics, is introduced. The author also puts forward the method to translate this conversion phenomenon. In the conclusion part, major findings and limitations of the research are pointed out and suggestions are put forward for further study. Key words:Conversion; the Adj.-to-V. Conversion; Foregrounding; Translation CLASS NO.:...