Semantic Functions And Syntactic Analysis Of Verbal Classifiers In Mandarin Chinese

In the past,the study of classifiers was dominated by nominal classifiers.The research on verbal classifiers was relatively neglected.In recent years,the study of verbal classifiers has been paid more and more attention,but most of the researchers have studied the classification and definition of verbal classifiers.There are few studies on the syntactic and semantic aspects of verbal classifiers.This thesis aims to study the semantic functions and syntactic analysis of verbal classifiers from the syntactic and semantic aspects of verbal classifiers.In the study of modern Chinese,the predecessors defined verbal classifiers as the unit words that measure the amount of verbs with the help of numerals.At the same time,the predecessors all agreed verbal classifiers at least consist of special verbal classifiers and borrowed verbal classifiers.Special verbal classifiers,the kind of verbal classifiers is specially used to denote the unit of the action,for example,ci in kanyici.Borrowed verbal classifiers are mainly borrowed from other words,especially nouns,to express the amount of the action,such as yan in zhayiyan.This thesis insists on the new classification of verbal classifiers which not only includes the two main types of verbal classifiers mentioned above,but also includes a third type of verbal classifiers called durational verbal classifiers,used to measure the duration of an action,such as tian in paoyitian.Secondly,on the semantic study of verbal classifiers,the main view of the predecessors is that verbal classifiers have two semantic functions,recording duration and recording frequencies.Moreover,as for the syntactic study of verbal classifiers,the predecessors mainly analyze the order between verbal classifiers and objects,the collocation relations between verbal classifiers and verbs and the analysis of the V + numeral + V structure.On the basis of summing up the research of predecessors,this thesis puts forward that there is a third semantic function of verbal classifiers,recording events.In this way,based on the latest classification of verbal classifiers,verbal classifiers mainly have three semantic functions:1)recording frequencies,namely to record the times actions occur or repeat;2)recording duration,used to record the duration actions last;3)recording events,mainly to record an event.The verbal classifier cannot be used alone,so the syntactic analysis of verbal classifiers must be combined with verbal classifier phrases to analyze.In this thesis,by analyzing the syntactic distribution of verbal classifier phrases in different sentences,it can be concluded that verbal classifier phrases can act as a syntactic component such as the subject,object,complement,adverbial,attributive and so on.