English-shaped Repair Structural Comparative Study

Based on the theories and methods of modern linguistics, this dissertation probes into the regular pattern and characteristics of the adjective- noun structure in both Chinese and English (hereinafter referred to as'C-E AN') to reveal their universality and individuality. For example, the similarities and differences of AN in Chinese and English in following aspects:the types of AN, the semantic collocation characteristics of AN, syntactic function of AN, as well as the word order of adjective modifiers, etc.This work is the first comprehensive study of the C-E AN structure. It tackles points that had never been studies before, such as the causes, similarities and differences of C-E AN structure, and offers an in-depth analysis of questions that had been studied before but not thoroughly, such as the comparison of multi-attribute order between Chinese and English, and a further explanation of its causes from a viewpoint of Cognitive Linguistics.The main methods the dissertation adopts include:1. comparison, which is used to probe into similarities and differences of C-E AN structure from of static & dynamic aspects, and microscopic & macroscopic views; 2. documents index, which is used to obtain language materials home and abroad to complement the defects of the author's research; 3. examples, which are practical and useful to explain the problems of the research.Although linguistic phenomena of this area are extensively described, the present study does not always provides complete analyses. Since, in both Chinese and English, semantic relations of adjective-nouns are difficult to classify and prove, especially the mutual selection and collocation of adjective-nouns in both language are troublesome to compare and study. The corpus studies on Chinese-English adjective-noun collocation are not deeply involved in this dissertation, which is the direction for further research.This paper is divided into nine chapters. Main contents of each chapter are as follows.Chapter One:Introduction. This chapter expounds the research meaning and values, introduces guiding principles, research methods, main contents and source of materials of the paper, and then defines the research range of AN in Chinese and English.Chapter Two:A Research Survey. This chapter offers a summary of the main contribution to AN studies in Chinese and English followed by a brief introduction to the previous research on noun, adjective and AN structure of both Chinese and English.Chapter Three:A comparison of nouns and adjectives in Chinese and English. This chapter presents the similarities and differences of Chinese-English nouns and adjectives. The use of adjectives as modifiers is attached great importance to compare followed by semantic characteristics, formations, inflections (like reduplicate), compare modes, grammatical functions, and so on and so forth.Chapter Four:A comparison of modifier position of C-E AN. This chapter points out that the adjectives are mainly brought to the front of nouns in both languages, and that there are conditions under which can nouns be followed by adjectives. A particular emphasis is put on the case of English:under what conditions can adjectives appear in the post-position, and what differences are there between pre-modifiers and post-modifiers. This chapter puts forward finally the different translation ways from English to Chinese resulting from the different characteristics about modifier position of C-E AN.Chapter Five:A comparison of connection markers of C-E AN. This chapter provides a description about connection types of C-E AN. A particular emphasis is put on the following:three types of Chinese adjective-noun connection, the different classifications of adjectives, and occurrence of de in these three types. Due to different connection types of C-E AN, the chapter finally provides an analysis on English native speakers'mistakes in learning Chinese AN.Chapter Six:A comparison of syntax functions of C-E AN. This chapter discusses the similarities of C-E AN on syntax functions, such as being subject, object and attribute. Differences are especially stressed on being predictive, complement, clause and apposition.Chapter Seven:A comparison of multi-attributes in Chinese and English. This chapter offers a description and a classification of different attributes in both languages from respectively grammatical, semantic and structural relation. Particularly, a distinction of multi-attributes is made between Chinese and English from macroscopic and microcosmic views, leading to cognitive motivation of word order of multi-attributes. The chapter lastly discusses translation practice of multi-attributes in Chinese and English.Chapter Eight:A comparison of adjective-noun selection and collocation between Chinese and English. This chapter, for one thing, compares the similarities and differences of adjective-noun selection and collocation between Chinese and English from various perspectives, such as cultural background, extended meanings and habitual collocation, etc.; for another, discusses semantic orientation of adjectives in AN structure of both Chinese and English.General conclusion:this chapter includes an overview of the main points of the dissertation and summarizes the typological similarities and differences of C-E AN, and tries revealing the causes and mechanism of the differences. It also points out the incomplete aspects of the dissertation and gives directions for further research.