Chinese Physical Polarity Temporary Polarity Characteristics Of Adverbs And Cascade Logic

This paper intends to study the polarity sensitivity of aspectual adverbs in Chinese language. Taking "yi jing(已经)”and "hai(还)”as two typical examples of durative and non-durative aspectual adverbs, it discusses their temporary polarity sensitivity and the scalar logic which results this feature. Here, temporary polarity sensitivity means that they used to be non-polarity items, but sometimes they will present polarity distribution in different contexts.The paper points out that durative aspectual adverbs and non-durative aspectual adverbs take on an opposite and complementary polarity distribution in two different types of situation---continuous and non-continuous:non-durative aspectual adverbs tend to appear in the positive sentence of non-continuous situation and negative sentence of continuous situation while durative aspectual adverbs tend to appear in the positive sentence of continuous situation and negative sentence of non-continuous situation. Focusing on describing the lasting time or repeating times of an event, quantification aspectual adverbs have not polarity sensitivity.When we tried to use Israel’s Scalar Model of Polarity to analyze the aspectual scalar of an event, we found there were some problems with this way, like the logic was not clear and general enough, and also it was hard to define the quantity value of time if referred to "early" or "late".The idea of "probability" and "self-information" in Information Theory can help solve this problem. The main concept of Information Theory is that the less possible an event is to happen, the more information it will brings about. Thus, we can develop Israel’s Scalar Model which is based on "quantity" into a Scalar Model which is based on "probability’. It has two reasoning ways:if an event which has small probability is confirmed, then other events which have bigger probability are also confirmed; if an event which has big probability is denied, then other events which have smaller probability are also denied.In the aspect of an event, the probability of the event is related to "time" and "expectation". Generally speaking, in people’s common expectation, the status of the event is less likely to change in a short period of time. It is more likely to keep the previous status. But with the increasing of time, it is more likely to change from the previous status into expected status. Emphatic polarity items have to contain most information if they want to emphasize the tone of sentences, so they must describe smallest probability by either confirming the smallest probability or denying the biggest probability,"yi jing" and "hai" both describe events which are out of expectation, however, the opposite semantic features of "changing and non-changing" result their opposite and complementary polarity distribution in "continuous and non-continuous" situation.There are three points of significance of this paper. Firstly, it takes an overall view of Chinese aspectual adverbs, and classify them into three types:durative, non-durative and quantification. Secondly, it discusses the scalar logic of polarity sensitivity aspectual adverbs by combining their semantic features, context, and pragmatic function. Thirdly, it points out the Israel’s mistake in analyzing yet and anymore. The paper develops Israel’s Scalar Model which is based on "quantity" into a Scalar Model which is based on "probability", and adds "time"(short or long) into the scalar operation to set up an Aspectual Scalar Logic.