A Tentative Study On Four-Character Format With Two Negative Words In Chinese

The commonly seen four-character forms "wu...wu..." and "wu...bu..." are verbal phrases with two negative words in Chinese. For the sake of narration, the author just record the form of "wu...wu..." as "wu A wu B". There are two forms of "wu...bu..." and the author record them respectively as "wu A bu B" and "wu A bu A" The "wu A wu B" format and "wu A bu B" format are most common, but the format "wu A bu A" is a form of dialect which can not been usually seen in Mandarin. In the three formats, A is all a monosyllable adjective, which means "very A". This paper, adopting the combination of the method of quantitative and qualitative, description and interpretation, analyses and probes in to these three formats with the use of "three planes" theory. The author unfolds his discussion in five chapters.Chapter Ⅰ:Introduction. I narrate from five aspects, that is sense of this topic, situation of the study, range of the study, source of the corpora and method of the study. This will not only make the features of such two negative four-character forms with "wu" be noticed and understood, but have some illuminating meanings for the research of other forms. Moreover, the research is helpful to the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language, and really plays a positive role in the research on the dialect grammar. The research on forms have been more and more popular during the recent years, and there are already many researches on "bu A bu B","mei A mei B" and "fei" but there are few ones on such forms as "wu...wu..." and "wu...bu...", which leaves the author large space to conduct her research.Chapter Ⅱ:Researches on the "wu A wu B" format. This chapter emphasizes on the "wu A wu B" format. The author draw the conclusion that the structural characteristics and semantics structure of this format is complex from the discussion of such five aspects as structural features, syntactic functions, semantic structure, pragmatic analysis and diachronic study. Mostly, A and B are the same part of speech as nouns, verbs, adjectives, numerals, pronouns and distinguish words. From the stylistic point of view, they are the same as written or spoken language. Most of the "wu A" and "wu B" are parallel structures, and there are a small number of use cases which is not the same. If the relationship between "wu A" and "wu B" is verb and object, then the relationship between "wu" and "A" is mostly verb and object, and the same is true with the "wu" and "B". Sometimes the "AB" in this format is a compound word when the negative word "wu" involves both "A" and "B" thus emerging the format "wu A wu B". Moreover, the arrangement of "A" and "B" is not haphazard, instead it always follows the sequence of transfer order and justice. The basic semantic meaning of this format is "neither A, nor B", and "no AB", as well as "no matter, regardless, in spite of","nothing" and many other extended meanings. Speaking from the syntactic function, this format mainly serves as attributive and adverbial, but also subject, predicate, object and complement in a sentence. With the nature of concise and productive, this format has the pragmatic function as strengthens the tone. And seen from the diachronic study, the format first appeared in the Zhou Dynasty’s "Book of History".Chapter Ⅲ:Researches on the "wu A bu B" format. This chapter focuses on the "wu A bu B" format, and makes a comparative analysis between the two formats "wu A wu B" and "wu A bu B". The author also make the study of this format from such five aspects as structural features, syntactic functions, semantic structure, pragmatic analysis and diachronic study. This format can be divided into three different types: firstly the ordinary type, secondly "the" word-type and thirdly "one" word-type. Furthermore, the most arrangement of "A" and "B" also follows the sequence of transfer order and justice, but its structure and semantic meaning is not as complex as the former format. Both formats can be used as subject, predicate, object, attributive, adverbial and complement in a sentence, but "wu A bu B" mostly serves as predicate. The pragmatic functions of "wu A bu B" are the same as "wu A wu B" and both of them first appeared in the Zhou Dynasty’s "Book of History". It is certain that there are some differences between them. For example, the "wu A wu B" format is generally a negative response while the other one is usually affirmed. And another example is that the part of speech of A and B in a majority of the "wu A wu B" format is the same, while the condition is opposite in the other format.Chapter IV:Researches on the "wu A bu A" format. This chapter will concentrate on the dialect format----" wu A bu A", and extend this format to the "wu A ba A " format, which has the same meaning as the original format, that is to say " very A, extremely A". This format can only be used as predicate, attributive, adverbial and complement in a sentence, among which attributive and adverbial are the most. This format means a deep degree with a subjective evaluation of the speaker such as praise, exaggerated humor, irony, discontent, etc. Seen from the diachronic study, this format was first seen in Wu Cheng-en’s novel " Journey to the West" in Ming Dynasty. While seen from the synchronic study, this format is mainly used in southwestern Mandarin, Jianghuai dialect, Wu dialect and Fuji an dialect.Chapter V:Conclusion. In this chapter the author summarize the three formats----"wu A wu B","wu A bu B" and " wu A bu A" on the whole, and point out some shortcomings of the paper.