A Contrastive Study Of Chinese "Shenme" And English "What"

Interrogative pronouns are playing a decisive role in referring to and transmitting interrogative information in questions, which has been attracting attention from researchers of different schools. Up till now, scholars have carried out tremendous descriptions, explanations in this field to explore deeper structures. Western researchers care more about the formulation and theoretical structures which can be applied deductively to all the languages, expecting to find a well-knit frame that can be universally suitable. They hope the same for interrogative pronouns in spite that each individual grammatical mechanism would get in the way. However, there are few relevant empirical studies at home. Domestic linguists prefer to conclude from a number of facts. But the focus on description and classification hasn't reached to some certain consensus of theory.In this thesis, we are trying to make a better combination of theories and language facts. Shenme and what are corresponding interrogative pronouns which are typical in the category, so the study of the two words may be of critical importance. We try to make comparative descriptions and explanations by using the general theories of contrastive linguistics and cognitive linguistics. In order to achieve the integration of phenomenon description and theory explanation, the similarities and differences are built on and progressed from abundant language facts we collect from modern works and authoritative data bases.The thesis makes a comparative analysis between shenme and what. We have mainly examined the interrogative and non-interrogative usages of the two words in details. When analyzing the usages one by one, we investigate the semantic meanings and pragmatic values of the idioms and some other fixed patterns.Shenmen and what are linked together on their very basic interrogative usages which the two words were originally born for. At this point, they share high similarities. With the development of languages, non-interrogative usages of shenme and what are slowly extended from their interrogative usages. However, the developments have been characterized by different features. Shenme tends to enrich its semantic usages, while what is inclined to develop its morphological values.We hope this comparison between shenme and what can lead our way to dig out more connections between Chinese and English interrogative pronouns and it can provide linguistic typology on interrogative words with a new perspective.