A Formal Semantic Study Of Time Adverbs In Modern Chinese

Adverb is one big category of lexis in modern Chinese among which time adverbs are a significant constituent, accounting for 30% of the total adverbial group. Up till now, studies on modern Chinese adverbs of time are conducted on traditional grammaratical levels. Few studies have been seen about the formal analysis through semantic perspective which proves to be a necessary path to natural language research assisted with artificial intelligence.In this dissertation, we will make a profound analysis of the formal semantics of time adverbs based on relevant theories, including those of interval semantics, tense logic, event semantics, categorical grammar, type theory and so on. With abundant examples, this dissertation attempts to construct a fragment of modern Chinese addressed to time adverbs..This dissertation is composed of seven chapters. Chapter I is the introduction, including significance of selected topic, main theoretical evidence, source of corpus, research outline, research focus and difficulty.Chapter II presents the frontier studies on time adverbs. Firstly, a literature review is made to introduce studies on definition, classification and syntactic functions of modern Chinese time adverbs. Secondly, influential studies on modern Chinese time system are expounded. Thirdly, we also make a review of the achievements in the field of formal semantics in modern Chinese studies. The research methodology of this dissertation is suggeste at the end of this chapter.Chaptersâ…¢,â…£andâ…¤focus on the formal semantic analysis of modern Chinese time adverbs,which are divided into three groups:adverbs of time, frequency, and sequence,followed by a detailed discussion about the three groups of time adverbs respectively by formal semantic means. Each chapter describes the semantic features, classification and scope of the specific group of time adverbs, and makes a formal semantic analysis with a similar procedure. First of all, by analyzing the semantic features of a specific time adverb with examples from corpus, we define its selective restrictions of sentence forming, including the rules for selection of phase type, events and so on. Thereupon, the syntactic rules of this time adverb are concluded. Then, related logical interpretation rules for the translation of natural sentence into logic language are given. Finally, semantic interpretation of the time adverb in the light of Model Theory is presented. When analyzing its syntactic rules, we take the following into consideration:its designating of verbs and its co-occurrence with time point and section expressions, other time adverbs, dynamic auxiliary verbs "zhe","le","guo" and negative lexis, etc.Chapter VI manifests a fragment of modern Chinese with time adverbs based on previous chapters. This fragment consists of syntax, time logical language L and translation rules.It simplifies some aspects of current fragments of Chinese. As the focus of the study, the semantic characterization of modern Chinese time adverbs is realized by integrated approaches. In addition to the semantic interpretation of these adverbs, we also discuss issues such as deductive relations between time adverbs, their deductive semantics and so on. The whole process of the generalization, translation and formal semantic interpretation of a sentence are also demonstrated with concrete examples.Chapter VII is the conclusion,where research processing of this dissertation is summarized, some rules are disclosed, the innovations and the deficiencies are both dealt with.In the last section, based on the time adverbs analyzed in this dissertation, we construct a semantic annotation table for modern Chinese time adverbs in the hope of promoting future research.