A Comparative Study On The Semantic Extension Of English "Heavy" And Chinese "Zhong"

English measurable adjective "heavy" and its Chinese equivalent "zhong" are both basic words with several meanings in two languages. Their extended meanings derive from their primary meanings and the meanings of nouns combining with them.Extracting the senses of "heavy" and "zhong" from the dictionaries, this paper conducts a comprehensive semantic componential analysis. Then the paper makes a comparative analysis of the two measurable adjectives in composition with different nouns and their meaning extensions in both English and Chinese. The similar and different compositions have been found. Finally, some features of the meaning extensions of "heavy" and "zhong" are drawn on the basis of the contrastive analysis.Based on the analysis, this paper finds that the primary meanings of the two adjectives are used to describe physical weight of the entity, and both of them can be used to express some abstract meanings as well. Their meanings are mainly extended to four aspects:[+DENSITY][+HIGH], [+STRENGTH][+DEEP IN DEGREE], [+AMOUNT] [+LARGE] and [+DEGREE][+DEEP]. When further extended, they can also be used to describe [+LOAD][+POWERFUL], [+THICK] and [+IMPORTANT]. Except for the similarities, some special meanings also exist. Moreover, from the number of the senses we can get that the meaning extensions of "heavy" are more comprehensive and detailed, while the meaning extensions of Chinese "zhong" are more generalized. In a word, since property and state described by an adjective reflect the attribute value of a certain domain of the entity, the extended meanings of "heavy" and "zhong" are determined by their basic meanings and the meanings of nouns combining with them.This paper will help learners to better understand the meanings of the measurable adjectives and update the contrastive analysis in both English and Chinese.