Study On The Asymmetry Of "Nei" And "Wai" And Its Application On The TCSL

“Nei”and“wai”are a group of relative spatial concepts. During dailycommunication, we can say “in three days（三天内）”, but can’t say “out of threedays（三天外）”，we can say “郊外”, but can’t say “郊内”. This shows, although“nei” and “wai” are antonymous nouns of locality, they are not so symmetric. Inprevious studies, we always studied the asymmetry between “li” and “wai”, treat“nei” as an affiliate to “li(zhong, nei)”. There aren’t any special paper for “nei”.Therefore, this article starts from “nei”, make it independent of “li(zhong, nei)”,studies the asymmetry between “nei” and “wai” in detail.The second and third chapters analyze the semantic features of “nei” and “wai”,finding that “nei” can express the meanings of location, time, range, coreference andprogress, while “wai” can express the meanings of location, range and excluding.The forth chapter analyze the symmetry and asymmetry between “nei” and“wai”. Acording to this analysis, we find that when expressing the actual location,“nei” and “wai” are symmetric. When expressing abstract location and otherextended meaning, the symmetry is based on the spatiality of the prepositions.Abstractions tend to combine with “nei”. In response to this phenomenon, we try toexplain this from the diachronic development, semantic restriction and cognitiverules.Chapter five are the error analysis and the teaching of Chinese as a secondlanguage(the TCSL) related to “nei” and “wai”. In addition to the influences ofmother tongue and target language, the disadvantages of textbook compilation is aimportant reason for the mixing of “nei”,“zhong” and “li”. On these grounds, thepaper presents some teaching strategies, hoping to give some help to the teaching ofChinese as a second language(the TCSL).