The Dynamic Characteristics Of Chinese Adjectives And Their Syntactic Representations

Quite a few articles have been written on the dynamic characteristics of adjectives, but most articles have paid attentions only to the case that dynamic auxiliaries or directional verbs are added behind adjectives. The paper, on the basis of previous achievements, makes a comprehensive observation about the semantic and syntactic characteristics of adjectives' dynamic characteristics, from the point of the relations between semantic meanings and syntactic representations.The paper's main body includes four sections.The first section defines the significance of the dynamic characteristics of adjectives. The dynamic characteristics of adjectives are different from those of verbs and belong to the syntactic categories which are concealed inside and evoked outside. They refer to the changes of semantic meanings of adjectives in particular syntactic conditions. And according to the way of changes of semantic meanings, the dynamic characteristics of adjectives can be subdivided into three categories: qualitative change, quantitative change and continued nature.The second section explores the qualitative change category and its semantic meanings and syntactic representations. In this part, the qualitative change is further classified into five categories: (1) notable slow qualitative change;(2) obscure slow qualitative change; (3) sudden change in some syntactic conditions; (4) sudden change with combination of semantic meanings; and(5)unfinished qualitative change. Their typical syntactic representations are: "jian jian A le" , "(yi jing) A le" , "yi xia zi A le" , " (yi xia zi) A le" , and "kuai A le" .The third section explores the quantitative change category and its semantic meanings and syntactic representations. In this part, the quantitative change is further classified into two categories: resultant quantitative change and quantitative change in process. Their typical syntactic representations are: "geng A le" and "yue lai yue A (le) " .The fourth section explores the continued nature category and its semantic meanings and syntactic representations. In this part, the continued nature is further classified into two categories: unfinished continued nature and finished continued nature. And unfinished continued nature is subdivided into three categories: (1) continuation from the past to the present; (2) continuation in process now ; (3) continuation from the present to the future. Their typical syntactic representations are: "A + the period + le" , "A zhe " , and "A xia qu" . The typical syntactic representations of finished continued nature are: " A guo (+the period)" and "A le + the period" .There are some new achievements in this paper. (1) It firstly makes a comprehensive observation about the semantic and syntactic characteristics of adjectives' dynamic characteristics. (2) It examines the differences of dynamic characteristics between adjectives and verbs, and classifies the semantic meanings of adjectives' dynamic characteristics. (3) It explores the syntactic conditions of adjectives' dynamic characteristics.