A Study On The Duality Of Modern Chinese Adverbs

The phenomenon of modern Chinese adverb being used alone as a sentence was first put forward and researched by Lu Jianming. After that, there are a few researchers focused on the problem. Luo Yaohua is one of their representatives. Liu Jianming’s study of adverb being used alone as a sentence is from the overall discussion to one by one describes. Luo Yaohua’s research is based on syntax,semantics and pragmatics, discusses a lot of details. We will learn from Liu Jianming’s research idea in this paper, both the overall discussion with one by one discussion. The details which have been fully discussed by Lu and Luo are will no longer here in this article. What we will discuss here are the problems which have been involved but not yet fully discussed in the previous studies. Except the introduction and conclusion, this paper is divided into four parts altogether:First, we adopt new standards and methods, to select and list 83 adverbs. Each of them can be used alone as a sentence in modern Chinese.Choose new standards to measure who are typical and who are not very typical in these adverbs. And then,rules are summarized according to the sequence. On the typicality of adverbs being a sentence alone, the adverbs which express subjective evaluation are more typical than the adverbs which state objective fact. In addition to this, usually the adverbs with negative meanings are more typical. What’s more, the adverbs with tactful tone are more typical than adverbs with directly tone.Second, in the 83 adverbs which can be used as a sentence alone, 58 adverbs have been described by Lu Jianming. In this paper, we will research the other 25 adverbs to describe them one by one. We will study on every single adverbs from the following aspects: whether it is in the context of dialogue, it can be overlapped or not,what kind of modal particles can follow it, what kind of its expression effect, is it omitted expression or not, how to supplement the omitted words, and so on. Based on these, we summarize some common details of adverbs which can be used as a sentence alone: most of these adverbs express the complete semantics in the omitted form, some can make a sentence together with modal particles or other auxiliaries,some can be repeated, and some are flexible of their positions in a sentence, even as the senior predicates in the sentences.Third, we discuss how the adverbs which can be used as a sentence alone match the modal particles. Most of the adverbs which can be used as a sentence alone canmatch the modal particles, and some of them can match more than one modal particle.The adverbs can certainly be used as a sentence without the modal particles, except the word “Ben lai”. “Ben lai” relies on the modal particle “Ma” to make a sentence.“Ben lai ma” can be a sentence, but “Ben lai” is just a word. To make a sentence,match the semantic of “Ben lai” and “Ma” and express some tone, we can only use“Ben lai” and “Ma” together. Strictly speaking, since “Ben lai” must be followed by“Ma” to make a sentence, it should not be included in the adverbs which can be used as a sentence alone. But the situation is very special, so we also research “Ben lai” in this paper.Fourth, we explore some phenomenas related to the adverbs which can be used as a sentence alone. Adverbs which can be used as a sentence alone are different from adverbs which can be used as the predicates, some adverbs can do this alone can not be separate as predicate, some can be as the predicates alone. Some adverbs can be used as a sentence alone but they can not be used as the predicates. Some adverbs can not be used as a sentence alone but they can be used as the predicates. If an adverb is flexible of its location in a sentence, it may not be able to make a sentence alone. If an adverb can make a sentence alone, it may not be flexible of its location in a sentence.The adverbs which can be the first words in sentences aredifferent from the adverbs which can make sentences alone. The adverbs which can make sentences alone mostly appear in spoken Chinese. The sentences omit the other words. We can find the missing words from above or below in the context. Why an adverb can make a sentence alone? The key of the answer is that, an adverb which can make a sentence alone contains all of the semantics we need to know in this sentence.