A Contrastive Study Of English And Chinese Quantitative Structures And Its Application To English Into Chinese Translation

Liangci is an independent word class in Chinese, mainly used to express quantity, and a large number of studies about them have been done since 1970s. A lot of scholars merely focus on liangci, neglecting other quantitative structures in Chinese. As there isn’t such an independent word class in English, a lot of researches about English quantitative structures are done with reference to Chinese liangci. It is believed that only partitive constructions could express quantity in English. However, the Chinese-oriented studies of English quantitative structures do have some problems. Based on previous studies about quantitative structures, this thesis re-defines "number" and "quantity", finding that both English and Chinese have other structures to express quantity in addition to the two mentioned above. Quantitative structures exist in both English and Chinese with similarities and differences. They share similarities in such functions, as those of expressing quantities and rhetoric meanings. However, the differences lie in their forms and degrees of their rhetoric functions. Compared with English quantitative structures, Chinese ones show a tendency of structural extension and boundary expansion, which triggers vague interpretation. Quantity is mainly expressed through "Num+N"s and partitive constructions in English, and classifier structures in Chinese. In addition, Reduplication of liangci is quantity-loaded, which doesn’t exist in English. This is a reflection of the view that English is a number-marking language while Chinese is a classifier language. With regard to the degree of their rhetoric functions, Chinese liangcis convey more than English partitive constructions. Chinese liangcis, especially individual classifiers, have abundant pragmatic functions, which is attributed to the vague boundaries of Chinese quantitative structures. Based on the contrastive study of the two mentioned above, the author finds that the Chinese translation of English quantitative structures displays a strong tendency of extending the original form and expanding the boundary of the original structures.