Study On The "Adjective+Quantifier" Structure

"Quantifier" is one distinctive word in modern Chinese, and the previousresearch on the origin, development and role of quantifier have been quite rich. Dueto its particularity, quantifier may be used along with other parts of speech. In theprevious study, there have been a number of papers on the structure of "Numeral+Adjective+Quantifier "as well as" Numeral+Adjective+Quantifier+Noun".However, the research on the structure of "Adjective+Quantifier" are done seldom.What’s more, there are different versions about the definition of the nature of thestructure, and the "adjective","quantifier" which could be into it has been notgeneralized and arranged in accordance with the uniform standard. This thesis, whichis based on former research, and aims at " Adjective+Quantifier ", attempts toprobe the differences between the structure of " Adjective+Quantifier" and "Numeral+Adjective+Quantifier+Noun", and the character of the adjective andquantifier in the objective, hoping to provide some references for the further studyof modern Chinese grammar system.By analysing the nature of the "Adjective+Quantifier" structure, we summarizedthe structure mainly has three properties: the heterogeneity character, thenon-count character and the special character."The heterogeneity character " isreflected in the structure consists of two different levels of grammatical unit. Themost common grammatical unit is "Adjective+quantifier" structure phrase. With thecontinuous development of the language, the structure gradually develops as a word.It can be used alone. Transition exists between the two phenomena, two differenttypes of grammar can have a same linguistic form at the same time."The non-countcharacter" is reflected in the comparison with "Numeral+Adjective+quantifierstructure,"Adjective+quantifier" structure lost the limit of "the numeral", and itonly has the character of quantifier, and no character of count."The specialcharacter" is reflected that "Adjective+quantifier" structure has the same characteras adjectives, and it can also describe the nature of other things.By dividing the “Adjective+Quantifier” structure species, we summarized8 kinds of "Adjective+Quantifier " structure types according to different characters ofadjectives. The three types of structure:"the whole/all+quantity","big/small+quantity","long/short+quantity" are the most typical. Through surveying therespectively combined conditions、grammatical forms and the grammatical functionsof them, this article found that different characters of words will affect theconstruction of the whole "Adjective+Quantifier " structure and meaning. After that,the paper investigated the combination conditions of the adjectives and quantifier inthis "Adjective+Quantifier " structure, and than try to explain the reason from acognitive perspective."The whole/all+Quantifier " structure has the widest range of modification, so"whole/all" can be used with the most quantifier types, including time quantifiers,verb quantifiers and noun quantifiers."whole+Quantifier" and " all+Quantifier "presents the symmetry basically. However, because "whole" reflects the semanticfeature of [+complete][+separable] and "full" reflects the semantic feature of [+a fullrange][+complete], the different emphasis will also affect the use of the structure of"S" type in the use process. For example,"full" cannot be used to modify collectionof quantitative measure words.The range of "The large/small+Quantifier " structure is relatively wide, but it isgenerally confined to the space category, so the only type can be used with "big/small" together is noun quantifiers. Two the same semantic category caused thebasic symmetry. However,"large" can be accepted better than "small" in peoplescognition. So in the use process it will also appear the phenomenon with the "big"and without "small", such as "kind of" cannot be used with "small".The range of "The long/shirt+Quantifier " structure is smaller than "The large/small+Quantifier " structure, generally it is only used to describe the stripquantifier. But when the other quantifier were stripped, it can also be used with "thelong/short". For example, round-shaped quantifier "particle" can be used with "long/short", and the usage of "medium grain" even appeared.At last, the thesis discusses semantic selection and pragmatic functions of the "Adjective+Quantifier "structure. According to the different structure of different nature,"S" type semantic orientation can be divided into two types: single pointingand two-directional pointing. The single pointing only point quantifiers, andtwo-directional pointing also point quantifiers and noun. The pragmatic basicfunctions can be divided into the table amount, tracing and modality.