The New Study Of The "Adverb+NP" Structure In Contemporary Chinese

The 1960s witnessed the beginning of discussions over adverb+NP structures by grammatists. The discussions roughly fall into two stages. Discussions at the first stage focus on whether adverbs can be applied to modify NP, which is either totally rejected or viewed only as specific phenomena by most scholars. With the prevalence of adverb+NP, scholars begin to acknowledge the structure; hence discussions at the second stage mainly probe the intrinsic factors of the structure.Based on the previous researches, this dissertation firstly prove that adverb+NP are not specific phenomena by means of statistics, description and interpretation. In the following chapters, the adverb+NP structures are subclassified and analyzed of their inner semantic features and causes. It is believed that semantic transitions between adverb and NP are the micro causes for adverb+NP structures, while the essential characteristics of Chinese words and expressions, i.e. their multi-funtionality, form the macro causes for the structures. It is therefore concluded that, viewed from Chinese itself, adverb+NP structures are by no means any abnormal exceptions in contemporary Chinese, but rather ordinary grammatical structures in line with the essential characteristics of Chinese words and expressions.