The Emerging-polarity Of Time·Adverbs In Chinese

This paper analyses the emerging-polarity of time adverbs in Chinese by the theory of information and the theory of model of polarity.Different from the traditional polarity items,which can only occur in positive contexts or negative contexts,emerging-polarity items refer to those which sometimes present certain polarity and sometimes lose polarity.In the past,we usually determine whether an item is a polarity item or not by putting it in negative contexts or consulting a dictionary.In Chinese,’cong’(从) and’qi’(迄) are classic negative polarity items which can only occur in negative contexts.However,there exist other time adverbs which can present certain polarity when they are used to modify different predicates.Take time adverb’shizhong’(始终) for an example.(1) Xue hui jie na zi ji,bu yao di gu di ji,yao shi zhong xiang xin zong you yi tian zi ji jiang yong you yi ge zi ji de wu tai. (ren min net 2014-3-18) To learn accept yourself and never debase yourself.You should always believe that one day you will have a stage which only owned by you.(学会接纳自己,不要低估自己,要始终相信总有一天自己将拥有一个自己的舞台。)(人民网2014—3—18)(2) Ji bian jian guan zhe fan fu qiang diao xin tuo shi you feng xian de,tou zi zhe,lao bai xin shi zhong bu xiang xin. (ren min net 2014-3-11) Despite the regulators emphasize the venture of trust is big,the investors and the common people remain disbelieving.(即便监管者反复强调信托是有风险的,投资者、老百姓始终不相信。)(人民网2014—3—11)(1)and(2) illustrates that when’shizhong’(始终) is used to modify predicates which express state of mind,it can be used in both positive contexts and negative contexts.However, when it is used to modify predicates which describe an event,it can only occurs in negative contexts.(3)Hushi zai ri ji,shu xin,xin gao yi ji wan nian kou shu shi zhong,shi zhong mei you ti ji guo zhe ben shu.Hushi never mentioned anything about this book in his diaries,letters,manuscripts or oral records.(胡适在日记、书信、信稿以及晚年口述史中,始终没有提及过这本书。)(人民网2014—3—28)(3)is grammatically wrong if we turn it into a negative sentence.Many idioms,Iike’qian suo wei you’(前所未有),’su wu wang lai’(素无往来),reveal the combinational rules between macro-quantitative time adverbs5predicates and propositions’ polarity.We consider that these combinational rules are bound up with the logic to reason in accordance with propositions’ probability.Likely,micro-quantitative time adverbs like ’mashang’(马上), ’huran’ (忽然) also present certain emerging-polarity.By far,nobody has gave a systematic research about the emerging-polarity of time adverbs.This paper classify the time adverbs into three sorts according to their distributional contexts,that is,polarity items, emerging-polarity items and non-polarity items.This paper raises four new points about this study.a) We give a systematic analysis of the emerging-polarity of time adverbs.b) We explain why the time adverbs scatter in different contexts by monotonic function.The emphasis tone of a time adverb derives from the huge information conveyed by the proposition which it modify.The long time it lasts,the more probably an event has happened. The relation between a duration and the probability of the happening of an event can be considered as a monotonic functional relation.Therefore,the marco-quantitative time adverbs,like’yizhi’(一直),’conglai’ (从来)’shizhong’(始终), can be put in negative contexts or negation-encoded contexts when the propositions are used to describe an event.Because only in these contexts,the propositions mentioned above convey huge information.In contrast,the micro-quantitative time adverbs can only convey huge information when they are used in positive contexts.The only thing we should do is to judge which functional relation it is between the time duration and the probability of the propositional event if we want to know a time adverb’s distributional contexts.c) We quote probability theory and information theory,and quantitate the amount of information of a proposition.d) This paper explains why some time adverbs present certain emerging-polarity.We conclude that the quantitative value of a time adverb,the type of the predicate and the proposition’s polarity interact on each other to produce an emphatic tone.This paper has six chapters,1. The Introduction of Time Adverbs and Their Polarity Sensitivity.2. The Literature Review of Polarity Items.3. The Polarity Sensitivity of’yizhi’,’shizhong’ and ’xianglai’.4. The Polarity Sensitivity of’huran’.5. The Polarity Sensitivity of’zaozao’,’chichi’and’mashang’.6. Conclusion.