A Study On The Degree Word "Lao"(老) In The Northeast Dialect

The degree category is ubiquitous in language. The expression of degree depends on degree words. In the northeast dialect, there are many degree words. One of them is"lao(老)", which is widely used and distinctive. This paper depicts and analyzes"lao"comprehensively in the northeast dialect through three planes theory and the method of synchronic and diachronic. The paper includes five sections.The first section is the definition of"lao". The degree word"Lao"is divided into three according to the degree meaning and its grammatical quality."lao1"(老1)is a degree adverb equal to"Jiqi(极其)"and"Tebie(特别)"."Origination Category Theory"is used to classify"lao1"which is different from mandarin."lao2"(老2)means"a lot of"and"lao3"(老3) inserts verb-object verbs and verb-object adjectives, which modifies the verbs and the adjectives and represents degree. They are both adjectives. The attributes of"Lao"are verified on the basis of the semantic features of"lao".The second section is the comprehensive description of"lao1"in terms of syntactic plane, including the combination ability, the syntactic function and the new tendency in the application of"lao1".The third section is the syntactic analysis of"lao2"and"lao3", which describes the syntactic function of them, the combination ability of"lao2"and the special syntactic position of"lao3".The fourth section is the pragmatic analysis of the degree word"lao", which points out the special expressive effects of"lao"in the northeast dialect.The last section is the horizontal and vertical comparison of"lao". The horizontal comparison refers to the comparison with mandarin and other dialects. In the end, we analyze the process of grammaticalization of the degree word"lao"and conjecture the origin of degree adjective"lao".