A Study On The Word Order Of Multiple Adjective Attributives In Modern Chinese

It is common for more than one adjective to modify a noun to form modifier-head structure,which has always been one of the focuses of linguistics.In this paper,the combination of two and three adjective attributives is the main research object,We investigate and analyze the combination structure,syllables,semantics and other aspects of attributive adjective,focus on the characteristics of the word order of multiple adjective attributive combination,and explain the word order tendency of adjective attributive combination cognitively.The main body of this paper consists of four parts:In the first part,we analyze the relationship between multiple adjectives and multiple levels when multiple adjectives are used together,and investigate the combinatorial structure relationship between multiple adjectives and head-noun and the relationship between multiple adjective attributive.In the second part,we investigate the prosodic features of the attributive word order of multiple adjectives.We find that:when multiple adjectives are used together and the number of syllables of each adjective attribute is different,the word order of adjective attribute is basically arranged in the order of "the one with more syllables→the one with fewer syllables",which is specifically manifested as "multi-syllable→two-syllable→ onesyllable".In the third part,we divide adjectives into three semantic types:perception,evaluation and psychology,and investigate the semantic word order of attributive combination of these three types of adjectives respectively.Among them,the situation of perceptual class is relatively complex,while the semantic word order of evaluation class and psychological class is relatively simple.By analyzing the data,we summed up the dominant semantic word order of attributive adjectives:/quantity evaluation adjective/→/Other evaluation adjectives(?)psychological adjective/→/perceptual adjective(Asigst→Asmell→Ataste→Atouch;Alarge and small→Acolor(?)Adimension→Ashape)/.In the fourth part,we mainly use the iconicity of language signs and the principle of cognitive prominence to explain the word order phenomenon of multiple adjective attributive.Firstly,we investigate the influence of linguistic iconicity on attributive word order of multiple adjectives from three aspects:distance iconicity,quantitative iconicity and sequential iconicity.Secondly,under the observation of cognitive prominence,combined with the life degree and appellation characteristics of adjectives,we find that the word order tendency of multiple adjective attributives is as follows:"adjective attributive with high life degree→adjective attributive with low life degree","non-appellation adjective attributive→appellation adjective attributive".