On Comparison Between The Chinese Interrogative Pronoun 什么 (Shenme) And Its English Counterpart "What"

Comparative analysis between Chinese words and its English counterparts is often seen in the grammar–oriented articles or books, which focuses on the subtle differences between words and phrases. After all-sided comparison is done, their conformities and nonconformities are presented in full picture."什么(Shénme)"and"what"are chosen as the objects of comparison, first because their uncertainty in interrogative sentences, and their big disparities in so many other levels as the second reason.As far as the commonplaces are concerned, the Chinese interrogative pronoun"什么(Shénme)"and the English equivalent"what"both possess the function of indication and substitution. In terms of forming interrogative sentences, they apply the same function. This thesis intends to proceed the comparison between the two elements with three different levels: the syntactic form, the semantic form and the pragmatic form.For the syntactic similarity,"什么(Shénme)"and"what"can both be taken as a subject, an object and an attribute. Since"what"usually appears at the beginning of the sentence, there's difference between Chinese and English as a subject. But as for the distinction,"什么(Shénme)"can be used between two repeated predicates. Meanwhile, the combinational interrogative forms"什么(Shénme) +x"and"what +x", and the duplicate form of"什么(Shénme)"and"what"are also deliberated upon."什么(Shénme)"and"what"both bear the same semantic relation, i.e. person, object and act, but"what"conveys a wide range of meanings when forming the questions. Combined with psychological verbs, they carry the meaning of asking for reasons or purposes, often with certain emotional coloring. Merging with prepositions is another kind of combination method, among which we choose"Wèi Shénme(为什么)"and"what for", as they take the similar form.In the last chapter, it will be generally divided into two segments-the interrogative and the non-interrogative one."什么(Shénme)"and"what"can be used on its own in a context, which conveying interrogation, surprise or negation. The intonation of"什么(Shénme)"used in the sentence is a decisive matter in terms of the pragmatic meanings, while meanings differ from where "what" is situated: at the beginning or at the end of the sentence. The usage of negation, exclamation, empty indication, all-inclusive indication, reduplication and enumeration are made up of the main body of the non-interrogative segment. All the usage mentioned above are shared with the two languages. As the usage of negation, two languages rely on the information which is given later or on the context, moreover, we can tell the usage from some common expressions in the English language. For the usage of exclamation, two languages bear differences.The usage of empty indication and all-inclusive indication are commonly seen in the"什么(Shénme)"sentence, but they apply restriction on "what". In terms of reduplication, the pramatic meaning in"什么(Shénme)"is richer than the one in "what". As for the enumeration,"什么(Shénme)"can be put at the beginning or at the end of the sentence, while "what" can only be used at the end.