A Comparative Study On The Denoting Of "Sum Up" Modal Adverbs "Zhongyu" And "Zongsuan"

It has been received massive attention from scholars which is the studies of case and comparative on the summarizing modal adverbs “Zhongyu” and “Zongsuan”.However,concluding the previous studies we found that there still being some deficiencies in the semantic and pragmatic respects on the studies of“Zhongyu”and“Zongsuan”.Therefore,in this thesis,we focus on comparing the deffirences between “Zhongyu” and “Zongsuan”in the syntax,semantic,pragmatic and diachronic respects systematically,throu gh using the theory of the Three-dimensional Grammar,the angle of “mandarin-ancient Chinese”of the big triangle theory and the discourse correlation of the semantic grammar theory.The whole paper is divided into six chapters:The first chapter is an introduction,which introduces the reason for choosing the topic,the current situation of the study,the content of the study,the research method and the sources of the corpus.The second chapter is a syntactic comparison,analyzing the similarities and differences of “Zhongyu”and “Zongsuan”from two perspectives: intra-sentence distribution and constituent co-occurrence.In terms of sentence distribution,the adverbs“Zhongyu” and “Zongsuan” are mostly found between the main and predicate components of single sentences,in the post-clause of continuous and transitive complex sentences,and in the middle of chapters,and occasionally in progressive and causal complex sentences.The word “Zhongyu”can also be found in selective clauses,while“Zongsuan” can also be found in hypothetical clauses.In terms of co-occurrence,both words can be found in the structure of “temporal component + Zhongyu / Zongsuan +component that completes the action or state ”.However,there can also be components describing the character of people and things in the sentence “Zongsuan”;before“Zongsuan”,there can be dynamic components showing the course of events;after“Zhongyu”,there can also be negative verbal phrases indicating that the action is not completed or the state is not realized.The third chapter is a semantic comparison,which systematically compares the similarities and differences between “Zhongyu” and “Zongsuan” from two perspectives:discourse association and core semantics,and revises the semantic framework of the two words.This chapter argues that the discourse association of “Zhongyu” is “suggesting the result”,and the core semantic meaning is “the speaker subjectively determines that it has taken a long time”.The discourse association of “Zongsuan” is “quantifies the result”,and the core semantic meaning is “the subjective attribution of the nature and result by the speaker”.On this basis,the existing semantic framework of the two words was adjusted,and the semantic differences between the two words were systematically compared.The fourth chapter compares the similarities and differences between “Zhongyu”and“Zongsuan”from four perspectives: anticipation and subjectivity,subjective quantity and emotional color.In terms of expectation and subjectivity,this chapter shows that the sentences in which “Zhongyu” is found do not all contain the speaker’s expectation,while the sentences in which “Zongsuan”is found always contain the speaker’s expectation,so the subjectivity of “Zongsuan” is higher than that of “Zhongyu”.In terms of subjective quantity and emotional color,the quantitative and qualitative analysis shows that“Zhongyu” contains a subjective quantity and its emotional color is neutral.The word“Zongsuan” can contain two subjective quantities,or different sizes of subjective quantities.Its emotional color is a mixture of positive and negative emotions.The fifth chapter compares the similarities and differences between“Zhongyu” and“Zongsuan” from the perspectives of semantic evolution and evolution mechanism.The modal adverb “Zhongyu” evolved from a cross-layer structure,and its semantics has undergone two evolutionary paths: “end meaning → death meaning” and “end meaning→ final meaning → expression tone”.The mechanisms of evolution are metaphor,reanalysis and lexical subjectivization.The semantic meaning of “Zongsuan” evolved from a phrase and went through the process of “counting meaning → concluding meaning → expression tone”.Metaphor,subjectivization,reanalysis and pragmatic reasoning are the main motives for the semantic evolution.The last chapter is the conclusion,which summarizes the main conclusions of the paper and points out the shortcomings of the paper.