A Semantic Study Of "Qianhou","Zuoyou","Shangxia"

In this paper,we systematically study semantics of"qianhou,zuoyou,shangxia", including space, time and approximate number ("qianhou"can't mean approximate number),The full text pluses preface to have five parts totally:The first part is introduction,This part is mainly about the study scope and object.It introduces the present research on locative words in the past and nowadays. Finally,it introduces the sources of corpus.The second part pays attention to the semantics of "qianhou", "zuoyou","shangxia"as the representation of space position.The situation which inspects from us looked, "qianhou", "zuoyou","shangxia"expression space position mainly divides into two kinds: First, position significance; second, scope significance. The former refers to the combination significance of "qianhou", "zuoyou","shangxia". In other words "qianhou" refers to the position of"Front"and"Behind", "zuoyou" refers to the position of"left"and"right","shangxia"refers to the position of"Above"and"Below"; the latter refers to the fusion significance of "qianhou", "zuoyou","shangxia", that is to use two opposite directions"Front"and"Behind", "Left"and"Right","Above"and"Below"to refer to the whole range of space."Qianhou", "zuoyou","shangxia"has two kinds of position significance: On the one hand, extroverted position significance; on the other hand , own position significance. When chooses the reference point of "qianhou", "zuoyou","shangxia"position significance expression is not by no means willfully, but is must restricted by the characteristics of the object chosed. We use"N"to represent the none which refers to the reference, and the semantic feature of the"N"is for〔+ visible〕〔+in objects〕〔+ static〕.When representing space scope, we can summarize the semantic characteristic of the structure "qianhou" as〔+ horizontal direction〕〔±scope big〕, the semantic characteristic of the structure "zuoyou" is for〔+ horizontal direction〕〔-scope big〕, and the semantic characteristic of the structure"shangxia"is for〔+ vertical direction〕〔±scope big〕.The third part pays attention to the semantics of "qianhou", "zuoyou","shangxia"as The representation of Time position.The expanding of "qianhou", "zuoyou","shangxia"structure from the space position to the time position, is a metaphor process which is based on human universal cognition experience, and the structure of "qianhou", "zuoyou" are not only used for to express the whole continual time interval, but also express the intervallic time interval, however, the structure of"shangxia"can only express the whole continual time interval.In the expression of whole continual time interval, the above three also have several differences. The structure of"'qianhou'+ when quantity phrase"which expresses the time quantity is relatively small, the structure of"when quantity phrase +'zuoyou'"which expresses the time quantity can be more or less, but the entire structure expresses a section of time quantity indefinite estimate time interval, the structure of"'shangxia'+ when quantity phrase"which expresses the time quantity is quite big, which generally is several hundred years or several thousand years, we use〔+a large time quantity〕differentiates"'qianhou'+ when quantity phrase"and"'shangxia'+ when quantity phrase", and with〔+determination of time quantity〕differentiates"'qianhou'/'shangxia'+ when quantity phrase"and"when quantity phrase +'zuoyou'".In expresses in the isolating time interval,"the de facto point of reference +'qianhou'/'zuoyou'"also has the difference, "zuoyou" can only can only with quantity type table time words and expressions matching, "qianhou" can also with the intrinsic time words and expressions, the nouns of activities or events, the nouns of natural phenomenon and the VP matching.The forth part,The representation uncertainty of "qianhou ", "zuoyou","shangxia"."qianhou" has not further changed to express uncertainty, so we only discuss "zuoyou"/"shangxia", which express uncertainty, and analysis the semantics of the structure "zuoyou"/"shangxia", which uncertainty separately. We have found the examples of the structure "zuoyou"/"shangxia", which express uncertainty in the Beijing University corpus completely, and carries on the statistics to the language materials. we discovered "zuoyou" is much higher than"shangxia"in the frequency of the use, and has the different tendency separately, "zuoyou" is often used in expressing the thing quantity,"shangxia"is often used in expressing person's age.The fifth part is remaining ory. Our synopsis ground explained a textual research value with some helps,mainly is outward Chinese language teaching aspect,this text can provide of foundation help.Tallied up put forward still treating to continue the problem for studying.