A Contrastive Study Of English And Chinese Interrogative Words Why And Weishenme

Interrogative sentence is the most common phenomenon of language use, while as the carrier of interrogative information, interrogative words are the most common part of speech, too. Therefore, the studies of interrogative sentences and the interrogative words have been paid much attention to by the scholars for a long time. However, the scholars at home and abroad classified and described interrogative words from the angle of traditional grammar and generative grammar, and they especially gave high attention to the interrogative pronouns. As for the interrogative words why and weishenme, the scholars paid less attention. Only the grammar theories and journal articles did a simple and scattered research about why and weishenme, let alone the contrast of why and weishenme. This thesis, regarding why and weishenme as research objects, based on the theory of contrastive linguistics and cognitive linguistics, analyses the interrogative usages and non-interrogative usages of. why and weishenme in detail. Although the interrogative words why and weishenm belong to different language systems, they both have the interrogative usage-doubt. So their aspects of usages have something in common.The interrogative usages of why and weishenme mainly reflect the similarities of the two interrogative words. About the contrast of why and weishenme, there is no obvious and detailed contrast and analysis between them. Through the studies of this thesis, we can conclude that why and weishenme have some similarities on syntactic functions, syntactic location and prototype semanteme. Both why and weishenme can act as adverbials, predicates, and single-questions. When they are in the single-questions, why and weishenme should be under some context to express doubts. From the perspective of syntactic location, namely the word order, the location of why is freer than that of weishenme. Why just can be in the beginning and the end of the sentence, while weishenme can be in the beginning, in the center and the end of the sentence, besides, weishenme can be located in the front of and behind subject. Both the prototype semanteme of why and weishenme are the same, they have the semantic constituent of reason and purpose.In addition to interrogative usages, there are some similarities and differences between why and weishenme on the aspects of non-interrogative usages. Why and weishenme can be used in rhetorical questions and used as subjunctive references. When they are used in rhetorical questions, because of different language systems, they are limited by some syntactic rules. When they are used as subjunctive references, they are both located behind some verbs which can show feelings and emotions to stand for the unknown reasons. However, there exist big differences between why and weishenme. Why can be used as a conjunctive adverb and a relative adverb to introduce subordinate clause; besides, why is an interjection, so why can express the mood or emotion. Weishenme can be used as arbitrary reference and in declarative sentences. When weishenme is of arbitrary reference, it is always restricted by some syntactic structures. The similarities and differences between why and weishenme exactly reflect the similarities and differences of edging semanteme.Even though there are some differences between why and weishenme on usage, they both have highly similarities in terms of grammaticalization. The process from the interrogative usages to non-interrogative usages of why and weishenme actually is the result of grammaticalization. Meanwhile, the process is restricted by the mechanism of grammaticalization. This kind of process reflects the characteristics of grammaticalization:subjectivity and unidirectionality. The dynamic evolution from the prototype semanteme to edging semanteme is the result of strengthening subjectivization.To sum up, this thesis, which is based on the predecessors’ researches and under the guidance of relevant theories of contrastive linguistics and cognitive linguistics, makes a relatively detailed contrast of the interrogative usages and non-interrogative usages between why and weishenme. At the same time, the thesis explains why the process, which is from the prototype semanteme to edging semanteme, can produce. What the thesis has done is to enrich the contrast of English interrogative words and Chinese interrogative words, even the contrast of English and Chinese.