The Study Of The "Unmeasurable Nouns" In Modern Chinese Language

Chapter one is the preface of the paper. It introduces the purpose andsignificance of the paper. On the basis of reading the relevant writings, we concludedthe results and the breakthrough that have been made before.In chapter two, on the basis of the former classification of both Quantifier andnoun, then combined the former scholars’ study of those kinds of words, we gave theunmeasurable nouns a complete definition. Besides,we also came up with aidentification form of it. According to the prototype category theory, we explainedthe rationality of the existence of the unmeasurable nouns by applying their differentdistribution. Meanwhile, we described and explained the special category’scharacteristic and performance concerning their unmessurable feature.In chapter three, we classified the unmeasurable nouns according to theirstructural category, semantic category and life degree. Depending on their structuralcategory,we summarized their category tendency; extract their typical semanticfeatures by their semantic category; investigated the unmeasurable nouns’ differenceconcerning their life degree to find its inner life degree of sequence.Chapter four mainly inspect the unmeasurable nouns’ syntactic functions and itsdegree of membership to noun. In modern Chinese, nouns’ syntactic function is toact as a subject, object and attributive, however, since words is a prototype category,there must be some difference between its typicai members and its atypicalmembers in their syntactic function. We investigated the unmeasurablenouns’degree of membership to noun through checking its syntactic function and thecombination of the membership degree form which was designed by Yuan Yulin(2009). Then further analysed the unmeasurable nouns’ strength of theirtypicalness.Chapter five focuses on the explaination of the mechanism and motivation ofthe existence of the unmeasurable nouns, expand respectively from semantics andpragmatics. We believe that different syntactic positions have a certain impact on thegeneration of the unmeasurable nouns, while the special semantic features shouldbe the fundamental reason. Besides certain pragmatic mechanism will also restrict itsunmeasurable feature.Chapter six is the conclusion. We mainly summarized our viewpoints of differentchapters, gave an all-round description and summary of the unmeasurable nouns,showed a general overview and description of the central element of the full text.Then put forward the relevant questions and unsolved problems associated with theunmeasurable nouns.