A Study On The Evolution Of Construction Bu X In Modern Chinese

不 is the most commonly used negative words in modern Chinese. Compared with other negative words, 不 has a unique feature that the meanings of the compounds consisted by 不 are more complete. Some of them turn into word-constructions as their meanings cannot be disassembled.According to the definition of construction given by Goldberg,this thesis takes unpredictability as a standard,and select some appropriate word-constructions from double-syllabic and poly syllabic compounds consists of不in the Modern Chinese Dictionary(Version 6).After the procedure of trade-off,we confirmed 5 words,which are不比,不像话,不枉,不见得,不成as the objects.Meanwhile,we also integrate them into a system according to the rank of constructional degree.This thesis describes each word-construction in respective chapter in detail from lower constructional degree to higher degree.The first chapter is the formation and characters of不比.The structural meanings----can’t be compared with or be different from,comes from the influence of sentence-construction consists of不比.Another sentence-construction----A不比B·X gives it a pragmatic function as a counter-expectation marker.The second chapter is the formation and characters of不像话.Under the integration of word-construction像X,the structural meaning----unlikely to be the appropriate word emerged.Then the word turned to be an adjective from a sentence’s predicate structure due to this kind of meaning.The third chapter is the characters and formation of word-construction不枉.It is a construction which has a negative form while positive meaning.It doesn’t come from the combination of negative word不and adverb枉,but produced after the process of being a verbal phrase,being an adjective,being an independent sentence,and then being a discourse marker,and eventually turned into an adverb.Each evolutionary stage was effected by the sentence-construction’s integration.不见得 is an adverb to express subjective estimation in modern Chinese.It derives from the structure consisting of adverbial modifier and its qualified word不见得represents a meaning of possibility in the medieval Chinese.When its syntactic position changed from carrying objects,carrying verbs,an expression of response and appearing alone acting like a modifier,its semantic meaning changed as well.After that,不见得changed from a phrase to an adverb under the effect of lexicalization and grammaticalization.见不得,which is a synonymous structure of不见得,took over its meaning of“invisibility”.That’s an important reason for“不见得”to be grammaticalized completely.The last chapter is the formation of word-construction不成.After arranging its changing procedure from the form不+成in different syntax level to the usage of a general adverb,being a discourse marker,and finally turned into an interrogative adverb and then a modal particle.It was integrated by a sentence-construction called rhetorical question when it turned into an interrogative adverb from the discourse marker.Finally,the word难道replaced one of its function as an interrogative adverb under the discipline of language’s economical efficiency.Then不成became a modal particle.Although these five words has a common morpheme Bu, they don’t have any other interconnection besides the constructional degree.This phenomenon manifests the character of unpredictability. At the same time, it also shows the feasibility to treat them as constructions.