A Contrastive Study Of Adjectival Class In Chinese And English

This dissertation, based upon the typological theories on word classes, makes a contrastive study of syntactic and semantic features of adjectival class in Chinese and English and identifies the linguistic property of adjectival class in both languages. This research has compensated for some weaknesses in previous studies by considering the word class system of a language as an organic mechanism in which different word classes interact with each other. Therefore, we should observe adjectival class with a dynamic view, which is of great importance to investigate the languages of flexible word class system, e.g. Chinese. The whole dissertation consists of six chapters as follows:Chapter1is mainly a review of the previous studies on word class and makes some remarks on the advantages and disadvantages of them. At the end of the chapter, the theoretical framework, the research plan and objectives for this dissertation are raised.Chapter2first presents a bird’s view of the potential types of word class system in human languages, and then lays much emphasis on the relation between nouns and verbs in Chinese and English and clarifies some critical moot points, which theoretically contributes to the following investigation of adjectival class in this dissertation.The major work of Chapter3concentrates on the demarcation of adjectival class with regard to noun, verb and adverb in Chinese and English and tries to crystallize the word class identity of adjective in both languages, which further proves that Chinese has a flexible word class system while English a rigid one. As a result, the absence of a specialized adjectival class in Chinese constitutes a sharp contrast with adjective in English. The end of this chapter holds that the primary distinction of Chinese word class system lies between depictive and super-noun while the differentiation between noun, verb and adjective is comparatively less important.Chapter4analyzes the syntactic and semantic features of adjective in Chinese and English with reference to predicate position. The chapter first demonstrates that Chinese adjective behaves much closer to verb so that it tends to function directly as sentence predicate. In comparison, English adjective, which, like its noun, can be the sentence predicate with the help of copula verb, tends be the modifier in predicate largely due to the fact that English has a specialized adjectival class. Considering the entire word class system of Chinese and English, the primary distinction in predicate of Chinese is between depictive and non-depictive while the primary distinction in predicate of English lies between verb and non-verb.Chapter5focuses on the modifier function of adjective in Chinese and English. Firstly, the extension test can prove that the ’AN’ construction in Chinese is strongly prone to be a word while the equivalent construction in English to be a phrase. Secondly, the’A de(的) N’construction in Chinese is a relative clause modifying a noun which conforms to the language universal discovered by previous studies and also re-states the fact that Chinese adjective is a subcategory of verb. Lastly, this chapter, in the light of markedness theory, analyzes the syntactic and semantic properties of adjective as modifier. The conclusion is that the primary distinction in Chinese still lies between depictive and non-depictive while that in English between verb and non-verb. Moreover, it is proved again that adjective in Chinese functions much closer to verb, and English adjective closer to noun, which remains consistent with our earlier conclusion related.Chapter6presents a generalization of the major points of view of the dissertation, pointing out some weaknesses in this study and making an expectation for the future research.