The Investigation Of Definite Expressions Of Chinese "Zhe" And "Na" By Comparing Chinese With English

Scholars in the field of Chinese linguistics believed that Chinese demonstratives "Zhe" and "Na" have developed some functions that belong to definite markings. In Chinese language, we usually use bare nouns when we need to express definite noun phrases, and we cannot use "Zhe" and "Na" in all the situations of definiteness. Then what factors affect the definite expressions between bare noun and "Zhe/Na"? Whether "Zhe/Na" have develop to the stages of definite markings? We try to answer these two questions by comparing Chinese with English.In this paper, we divided the functions of definite markings into six types:situational, anaphoric, shared specific knowledge, frame-based association, shared general knowledge and unique entity. Compared to bare noun, the proportions of "Zhe/Na" in the six types are 40%in situational,12% in anaphoric,4%in shared specific knowledge,1%in frame-based association, and we cannot use "Zhe/Na" in shared general knowledge or unique entity.To answer the first question, we found that the degrees of identifiability are the most important factors that affect definite expressions between bare noun and "Zhe/Na". First, the degrees of identifiability are different between different types of functions. Second, there are three elements that influence the degrees of identifiability in type three(anaphoric), which are the distance between the definite noun phrase and the antecedent, whether the definite noun phrase maintain its head and the grammatical position of the definite noun phrase. If a definite noun phrase enjoys a higher degree of identifiability, we prefer to use bare noun; if a definite noun phrase enjoys a lower degree of identifiability, we prefer to use "Zhe/Na".To answer the second question, we take a look at a table which we got from our study, In the table, we can see the stages of English definite article "the" and Chinese "Zhe/Na" in the developed order of definite markings: From the table we found that "Zhe/Na" stayed in the early stages, they shared a lower proportion compared to bare nouns, and the degrees of identifiability still has influence on the use of them. Consequently, we believed that "Zhe/Na" indeed has some functions that belong to definite markings, but they have not developed to the stage of definite markings yet. They are only in the early stages of the developed order of definite markings. In addition, as "Na" can be used in shared specific knowledge and frame-based association, "Zhe" can only be used in anaphoric, we believe that "Na" has developed faster than "Zhe".