Towards An Optimal Representation Of Derived -ly Adverb Entries In English-Chinese Learner's Dictionaries

The adverb is one of the most complex categories in English.Most of the adverbs are derived from adjectives by adding the suffix-ly.De-adjectival-ly adverbs or derived-ly adverbs have a high frequency of occurrence,different varieties,diverse meanings,flexible positions in sentences and important syntactic functions,which are important for English learners.However,it is difficult for Chinese EFL learners to use derived-ly adverbs properly.Derived-ly adverbs are not consistently included or treated in existing English-Chinese Learner's Dictionaries(ECLDs).Therefore,this thesis explores the systematic arrangement of derived-ly adverbs and related information in ECLDs.First,according to the semantic and syntactic functions of derived-ly adverbs,this thesis classifies these adverbs into three types: sentence adverbs,intensifiers and manner adverbs.Sentence adverbs are further sub-classified into subject-oriented-ly adverbs,evaluative-ly adverbs,speech act adverbs and modal-ly adverbs.The features of derived-ly adverbs are also elaborated in this thesis.Next,a corpus-based empirical study is conducted from the perspective of users' needs.Based on the data collected from CLEC and BROWN,the errors of derived-ly adverbs committed by Chinese EFL learners are concluded.Then the frequency of the top ten-ly adverbs in CLEC and BROWN is calculated with the software Ant Conc,and Log-Likelihood is measured to decide whether there is a significant difference in the use of these adverbs.Then,according to the error analysis theory,the causes of these errors are discussed and users' needs of dictionaries are found out.Afterwards,a research is conducted to check out the representation of derived-ly adverbs in four chosen ECLDs.On the one hand,adverb degree information,syntactic annotation,modification and collocation of-ly adverbs which are directly related to the errors made by Chinese students are compared.On the other hand,the lemmas,definitions and other information about-ly adverbs provided in these dictionaries arealso compared.The result shows that derived-ly adverbs of the same kind are not included and represented in the same way.The specific deficiencies of these ECLDs in treating derived-ly adverbs include: the lack of inclusion criteria and related front matter,the incomplete degree information,the insufficient information about collocation and discrimination between-ly adjectives and derived-ly adverbs.Finally,an integration model is proposed for the improved representation of derived-ly adverbs based on meaning-driven multidimentional theory and noticing hypothesis.And a series of concrete strategies are proposed from the megastucture,middle structure and microstructure of the dictionary,which include: setting up the criteria for inclusion,inserting related study pages,highlighting definition and typical examples,adding syntactic annotations,creating adverb collocation boxes,providing cross reference as well as error warning notes.These systematic strategies are expected to contribute to the practice of dictionary compilation.