A Study On The Development And Evolution Of Cantonese Dialect Adverbs Since The 19th Century

Adverbs are a major category of vocabulary,and Cantonese dialect is an important part of Chinese.The exploration of adverbs in Cantonese dialect can enrich the research content of Chinese adverbs.In the past,the investigation of adverbs in Cantonese dialect mostly focused on the description of synchronic approach,but the development and change of adverbs in Cantonese dialect can be found better by the longitudinal comparison.By combing and summarizing Cantonese literature written by Western missionaries and Chinese scholars from the early 19 th century to the middle of the 20 th century,this paper investigates the use of Cantonese adverbs in this period,and compares the early Cantonese adverbs with the modern ones,reveals the development of the adverbs,describes the main evolution process,and probes into the development motivation.This paper is divided into seven chapters.The first chapter is the introduction,which briefly introduces the research content,purpose,significance,method and innovation of the article,and summarizes the research status of Cantonese dialect adverbs in synchronic and diachronic evolution.The part of corpus explanation shows the source of corpus from the first half of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century.The stylistic part defines the research scope of this paper.Chapter two to chapter six are the main part of this paper,which discusses the development and evolution of adverbs of range,degree,time and frequency,negative adverbs and modal adverbs respectively.The first section of each chapter describes the main members and basic usage of these adverbs in Cantonese dialect in the first half of the19 th century.The second section focuses on the diachronic evolution of the adverb members with great changes or characteristics in the past two hundred years.In the range adverbs part,the main narrative objects include: "ham bang ling,ham,sai,zing,all,again,also,tim",etc.In the adverb of degree part,the main objects are: "dak zi,sat sau,gei,gam soeng haa,zi,zung" and so on.The main narration objects of the adverbs of time and frequency include: "ngaam ngaam,bat lau,zeot zi,sin,gan zyu,zung,faan" and so on.In the negative adverbs part,the main narrative objects include: "m,mei cang,mo,mei,m hou,m sai",etc.Modal adverbs part,the main narrative objects include: "gan,sin zi,sat,m tung,zik cing,zik tau,cin kei,dak dang,zyun dang,hou coi" and so on.The seventh chapter is the conclusion,which summarizes the main research contents and points out the shortcomings of this paper.