A Comparative Study Between Adverbial Clauses In German, English And Modifier-Head Structure Sentences In Chinese

Complex Sentences are the object of the comparative study in German, English and Chinese, among which Chinese modifier clauses have significant differences compared with adverbial clauses in the rest languages resulted from contrastive linguistic and mental factors, and as for the latter two ones, despite the cognate birth of Western German Language Family, the different developmental processes have stamped them distinct features. The paper is to compare the similarities and especially the dissimilarities in respects of structure and meaning under the theoretical light of Halliday's Functional Grammar, then to proceed with the illustration of the detected facts based on Discourse Principle proposed by Qiu Shude, and finally end up with the analysis of linguistic and mental factors behind. Divergent from the conventional research method likely to divide the concerned sentences into several semantic groups, the paper is to adopt the deductive method and to display an inclusive and overall study in the hope to approach generality and comprehensiveness. The study is expected to shed some light on the teaching and acquisition of syntax.The paper is to be divided into five sections:The paper starts off in the first section with an introduction of the study of comparative linguistics, emphasizing the status qua of comparative researches on complex sentences, which, later find specific definitions from the points of traditional and functional studies of grammar. The writing purpose and the arrangement of contents are also attached in this part.The second section concerns the comparative study in terms of the structure of complex sentences. In the light of functional grammar theories like Theme-Rheme pattern, the writer compares the two types in turn after categorizing the constructive patterns into typical and atypical types. The connective and comma are also discussed about their structural characteristics.Considering that connectives and the connected clauses often vary in their absolute meaning for their relation of interacting and mutual effecting, the writer will associate the other part when taking on the comparative research on the separate implication of the connective or the clauses. Another striking difference is the information sequence of clauses, which will find a telling explanation in the light of Given-New pattern.In the following section, the writer illustrates all the findings in respect ofpragmatics; Qiu Shude's ideas on Discourse Analysis set the stage for that. Moreover, linguistic and mental factors that give rise to the detected facts are to be explored since Zhou Zhipei suggests that they collaborate to determine how a language form is like.The paper ends with a conclusion in the closing section.