Modern Chinese Adverbs Research

In this thesis, we focus on the conception, the classification of Adverbs as well as the problem of typical Adverbs and borderline Adverbs in modem Chinese. First of all , we take the syntactic function as the principle standard , the semantic feature as the reference to summarize the definition of Adverbs In modem Chinese, the Adverbs mainly serves as the adverbial (including the sentence adverbial) ,the complement or the independent clause while it can modify, restrict and evaluate the verb predicate, adjective predicate or the whole sentence. On the base of this definition, we determine the approximate scope of the Adverbs and differentiate the Adverbs from verb, adjective, temporal noun, pronoun. Secondly, we discuss the inner classification of the Adverbs . According to the its variability of syntactic position and the modify relationship with other syntactic components , we divide the Adverbs into two categories the component-function Adverbs and the catenative-function Adverbs. We also do the re-classification and quantifiable distribution statistics of these two kinds of Adverbs. We found that the chief syntactic function of the Adverbs is acting as the adverbial while 30% of Adverbs can play the part of sentence adverbial, complement or independent clause On the other hand , we put forward three superior semantic classifications of Adverbs modify Adverbs, restrictive Adverbs and evaluative Adverbs . In accordance with the different significance of the Adverbs, we re-classifty these three kinds of Adverbs into "modality Adverbs", "pattem Adverbs", "temporal Adverbs", "degree Adverbs", "scope Adverbs", "assess Adverbs" and "mode Adverbs" and obtain the relevant quantifiable distribution statistics. The grammatical features of Adverbs are very complicated , it can be regard as the synchronic middle state expression of the language diachronic-changing process. We combine the synchronic syntactic function and semantic feature with the diachronic grammaticalisation locus , divide the Adverbs into "typical Adverbs" and "borderline Adverbs". We also analyze their syntactic feature and semantic property ,draw the corresponding conclusions.