A Study On The Degree Measurement Of Modern Chinese Adjectives

Quantity is an important semantic category,and has restrictions at levels of words and sentences.Graduation is an important feature of adjectives.This thesis will conduct a systematic analysis of adjectives’ graduation mainly from perspectives of cognitive linguistics,semantics,functional linguistics,and pragmatics.The first part is introduction,and the last part is conclusion.The main body part consists of seven chapters.Chapter one focuses on the classification of adjectives and their feature of graduation.Quantity is characterized by relativity,graduation,fuzziness,dependence,and temporariness,and graduation is the most important one.Quantity can also be objective or subjective.Quantitative adverbs of the objective type can be classified into low,medium,high,and superlative adverbs,and those of the subjective type into low,high,superlative,and excessive adverbs.Accordingly,adjectives can be classified into two categories: quantified adjectives which can be modified by quantitative adverbs of the objective type,and non-quantified adjectives which cannot be modified by quantitative adverbs of the objective type.The former type’s graduation is boundless,gradable,and implicit,and the latter type’s graduation is,in contrast,bound,non-gradable,explicit,and subjective.However,non-quantified adjectives with different degrees of graduation are not unanimous in collocating with different types of quantitative adverbs;and,due to structural differences and differences in the encoding of quantities,quantified adjectives are different in the degrees of graduation.Chapter two studies the means of quantification of non-quantified adjectives,including morphological,syntactic,and rhetorical methods,duplication,and idiomatic structure.Morphological methods mean the addition of a quantity-expressing element,which changes a non-quantified adjective into a quantified one.Duplication also operates at the level of words,and itself is quantitative in nature.Syntactic methods mean the employment of quantitative adverbs,indexical pronouns,adjectives and phrases with a sememe of quantity,a zero-adjunct,a reference point,or sometimes a number.Rhetorical devices include metaphor,overstatement,repetition,which have the function of amplification and express the superlative degree.Some idiomatic structures are also quantitative in function,and mainly express the superlative degree as well.The different methods or linguistic elements express different degrees of graduation.Chapter three analyzes the co-existence and duplication of quantity expressions and twice quantification of adjectives and their motivations.Co-existence of quantity expressions refers to the phenomenon that two adverbs of different degrees of graduation are used together,and duplication differs in that the two adverbs are of the same degree of graduation.Twice quantification differs from the above two in that the quantifications are of different means.All of them lead to the addition of quantities,and this abnormal phenomenon is,in fact,semantically,pragmatically,and cognitively motivated.Chapter four discusses the relation between adjectives’ graduation and syntactic slots,mainly about the interaction between adjectives with different degrees of graduation and modifiers,adverbials,predicates,and adjuncts.And it is shown that mono-syllable non-quantified adjectives can be used as modifiers directly,and two-syllable ones and quantified adjectives have to be followed by “de” when used as modifiers.As far as adverbials are concerned,adjectives functioning as adverbials which semantically point to objects must be of quantified type,while adjectives functioning as adverbials which modify predicates can be both of quantified and of non-quantified types.And the latter type is more prone to attention as it gives emphasis to graduation.As for predicates,non-quantified adjectives cannot be used predicates alone,except in antithesis,dependent clauses,a structure where a pause or an inserted element is used between the subject and the predicate,or an exclamative clause,and quantified adjectives,generally speaking,can be used as predicates alone.But there are some differences between adjective predicates with a “de” and those without a “de”.And it is found that the higher the degree of graduation,the stronger its predicative function,and a correlative markedness pattern can be established between the degree of graduation and the strength of predicative function.Adjective complements can be classified into four types: resultative,probable,degree,and stative.And the first three types are mainly non-quantified adjectives,and the last type is mainly quantified adjectives,which shows that the first three types have no requirements with the featuring of graduation.Chapter five examines the relation between adjectives’ graduation and interrogative and exclamative clauses.Quantified adjectives are semantically quantified,and has no need for interrogation.Therefore,they cannot be interrogated in interrogatives.As for exclamatives,non-quantified adjectives can make up exclamtives alone,which cannot apply to quantified ones,as their definite quantifications conflict with the superlative degree of graduation of the exclamative.And exclamatives made out of adjective phrases require that the adverbs used in it be subjective and superlative.Exclamatives form a scale according to the markedness: one word exclamatives > marked exclamatives > unmarked multiple word exclamatives(A > B means A is stronger than B).Therefore,it can be safely concluded that different sentence types require different degrees of graduation.Chapter six investigates the relation between graduation and negation.Non-quantified adjectives can be freely used in positive and negative clauses with the exception of some with high degrees of graduation.Quantified adjectives,generally speaking,cannot be used in negative sentences,as they have definite quantification.And it is found that adjectives with or without adverbs of quantification correlate with adjectives being or not being negated,which means graduation and negation are grammatically consistent.“F+A”(“F” stands for adverbs of quantification)can take two forms in the case of negation: “F + bu +A” and “bu + F + A”.The former is a complete negation of “F+A”,while the latter is the down-grading negation.The first form applies to all adverbs of quantification,and the second form depends on the correlation of “bu” and “F”.If the two are highly compatible,the form is legitimate;otherwise,it is not.Chapter seven provides a description and analysis of the dynamism of adjectives’ graduation.And it mainly focuses on four expressions,including “nitian”,“baobiao”,“A de/dao ku” and “A de/dao mei pengyou”.All of them are internet catchwords,and are structurally accountable,and cognitively and social psychologically motivated.In addition,the conclude provides a summary of the main contents,and makes clear the thesis’ s contributions.Shortcomings are also mentioned,which need further studies.