A Semantic Study Of The Adverb Ye In Mandarin Chinese

Since the early eighties of last century,the high-frequency adverb ye has been discussed and studied under different frameworks such as semantics,syntax,historical evolution and language comparison,including both the Chinese language itself and the foreign languages as well.The research on adverb ye has made a significant progress at home and abroad.There are diversified opinions in the academic field concerning the meaning of the adverb ye.From the macroscopic respect,it can be divided into two main categories.The one group holds that the adverb ye is meaningless while the other argues that the adverb ye has its own meaning.Furthermore,this group can be subdivided into ?basic use theory? and ?multiple use theory?.Ma Zhen(2004)is in favor of the former theory and argues that the adverb ye has only one basic meaning,namely,resemblance.The representative for multiple use theory is Jing Shijun(1980)who proposes the meaning for adverb ye is complex and he also summarizes eight meanings for ye.First of all,it is certain that the adverb ye has meaning for itself and the basic meaning is resemblance.After analyzing the practical language materials for adverb ye,the meaning of resemblance is not enough and partial.Tasi(2006)points out that ye is an additive adverb and presents the formal expression for ye,but problems still exist in his explanation.The aim of this thesis is to make an attempt to construct a more re asonable and accurate meaning classification and formal expression for ye by analyzing and summarizing other scholar ?s work.The three main goals are as following:(1)What is the part of speech of particle ye? How to differentiate the focus adverb ye from typical additive adverb hai?(2)What are the semantic orientation and syntactic structure of adverb ye?(3)How to make a more reasonable meaning classification and formal expression of adverb ye? and how to apply them to explain language materials?Through analyzing,this thesis concluded that Chinese particle ye is an adverb.It also pointed that adverb ye is a focus additive rather than an additive adverb by comparing with typical additive adverb hai.Secondly,the semantic orientation of adverb ye can be forward or backward.If it is backward,the adverb ye occupies the position of adjunct,and if it forward,ye occupies the argument position of topic phrase.Lastly,this thesis summarized the merit and demerit of Ma Zhen and Tasi ?s analyses,and combined with the structured meaning theory of Krifka(1991)and scalar implicature of Hirschberg(1991)to propose the reclassification the meaning of the adverb ye.According to the sentence structure and semantic orientation,the meaning of adverb ye can be divided into three groups,resemblance in compound sentences,exhaustiveness in simple sentences,and euphemism(not mentioned in this thesis).