The Collocation Of Degree Adverbs With Verbs In English And Chinese

Over the past three decades, research on collocation has thrived with the development of corpus linguistics. The collocation of lexical items has been studied from two major perspectives: one focuses on the extraction and delimitation of collocations while the other focuses on the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic restrictions on collocations. Studies of the first type have usually been quantitative and based on large text corpora, whereas those of the second type have usually been qualitative. However, few qualitative analyses of the constraints on collocation have been based on large corpora of authentic text. And due to the idiosyncrasies of lexical items, research of the second type is mostly confined to case studies involving only a few words, which makes their generalizations quite restricted.The present study focuses on the collocation of degree adverbs with verbs. It demonstrates the value of using a corpus approach to extract significant collocations from authentic language data and demystify the restrictions on collocations. This study consists of three parts: the first is to extract of typical collocations of degree adverbs with verbs in English and Chinese from BNC Baby and LCMC and reveal their collocation patterns; the second is to analyze the semantic, syntactic and prosodic restrictions on this type of lexical collocation and make some generalizations about the interaction between degree adverbs and their verb collocates on the basis of the quantitative data; the third is to make a comparison between English and Chinese with regard to their collocational patterns of degree adverbs with verbs, understanding their differences and similarities, and ultimately achieving a better understanding of both languages.Using empirical methods to retrieve collocations, the present research has revealed multiple findings. The major findings of this study are:Firstly, the (un)boundedness of verbs either in terms of degree or in time must harmonize with the semantics of degree adverbs that they collocate with. Degree adverbs can be divided into totality and scalar degree adverbs on the basis of their functions. Totality degree adverbs (e.g. maximal degree adverbs and approximatives) collocate with verbs or verb phrases with a feature of boundedness, whereas scalar degree adverbs (e.g. boosters, moderators and minimal degree adverbs) collocate with verbs which are unbounded. This principle of type-matching is valid in both English and Chinese and governs most collocations of“degree adverb + verb”. Meanwhile both English and Chinese allow for mistype-matching as well. The semantic conflicts between degree adverbs and the verbs that they modify can be repaired by a type-shifting operation called scalarity coercion. Generally it is the verbs that acquire the semantics of (un)boundeness to restore the harmony of the phrase. Chinese seems to be more tolerant for mistype-matching than English.Secondly, the collocation of degree adverbs with verbs is also subject to syntactic restrictions. A lexical item not only tends to co-occur with certain lexical items, but also tends to occur in a certain position or with a particular grammatical function. Chinese degree adverbs can function as complements of degree and degree adverbials, whereas English degree adverbs can function as degree modifiers and adjuncts. These grammatical functions impose restrictions on the word order of degree adverbs and verbs. In addition, Chinese degree adverbs are found to collocate with certain periphrastic constructions and modal auxiliary verbs, but their English counterparts are seldom or never found so.Thirdly, apart from semantic and syntactic restrictions, the collocation of degree adverbs and verbs is subject to the restrictions of prosody as well, although its role varies across languages. Chinese attaches great importance to rhythm and may even violate syntactic rules in pursuit of rhythmic beauty. In contrast, English places syntax before rhythm although it also values the rhythm of language. In Chinese the number of syllables imposes a restriction on collocations. Generally, the unmarked collocation of degree adverbs and verbs is the combination of monosyllables with monosyllables and disyllables with disyllables. In the case where there is no monosyllabic or disyllabic alternatives, function words shi (是‘be’) and de (地) may be added to degree adverbs to achieve rhythmic effects. In contrast, the constraint of prosody or the number of syllables of words on English collocations is yet to be established.