On English Preposition Preponderance And Its Application Strategies For Chinese EFL Learners

Word class preponderance refers to the general tendency that native speakers of alanguage are inclined to use certain word classes more frequently than other wordclasses when using their native language. Different languages have different word classpreponderances. Compared with Chinese which is characterized by verbpreponderance, English is notable in preposition preponderance and nounpreponderance.This thesis, first of all, marks the parts of speech of the chosen linguistic datasamples through the computer, which testifies the validity of verb preponderance inChinese and preposition and noun preponderances in English, and then demonstratesthe linguistic foundations of English preposition preponderance from the perspectivesof syntax and semantics. In terms of syntax, prepositions could collocate with almostall parts of speech as they have the stronger collocation ability. For example,prepositions taking the place before noun phrases could form preposition phrases, theycan also be taken as attributes to modify nouns and adverbials to modify verbs or thewhole sentence; prepositions could collocate with intransitive verbs to form verbphrase which are similar to transitive verbs functionally; prepositions also could beused with adjectives so that to be their objects. In terms of semantics, preposition itselfcontains abundant meanings; it can describe space and time, and can express static anddynamic, direction and destination, etc. Besides, even though the same prepositioncollocates with the same noun, verb or adjective in different sentences, the related noun,verb or adjective could generate subtle semantic differences, from which we know thatprepositions can activate some certain semantic characteristics of related parts ofspeech.Secondly, this thesis illustrates the characteristics of English prepositionpreponderance as against Chinese, namely hiddenness in syntax and flexibility intranslation. Hiddenness in syntax means that when a Chinese sentence containing noprepositions is to be translated into English, often is the case that one or more Englishprepositions should be used to make the English version idiomatic. This is due to thedifferent expressing habits of these two languages. Sometimes, Chinese verbs can hardly find their counterparts in English. In such a case, using prepositions not onlycan express the Chinese meaning, but also fit into English expressing habit. Thatsupporting part sums up all the using occasions of prepositions. Of course, it is alsoflexible to translate English prepositions into Chinese as Chinese verbs can beexpressed by English prepositions and English prepositions can be translated toChinese verbs or verb phrases. Besides, preposition translation contains manyapproaches such as conversion, addition, division, omission, etc.The innovation of the thesis lies in the fifth part, which has advanced two guidingstrategies for Chinese EFL learners to make proper use of English prepositionpreponderance. These two strategies work at the syntactic level, the first one beingdomination of “dynamic” over “stative”, the second one domination of “major” over“minor”. They contribute to the variety of means of expression as well as accuracy ofexpression.