A Comparative Study Of The General Verbs "doing," "drying," "making," And "getting"

"zuò", "gàn", "g?o", "nòng" are four typical universal verbs in modern Chinese,and used in very high frequency. Taking them as research subjects, with the method of case analysis and macro summary, this thesis is trying to describe the four verbs firstly and then compare them under "Three Plane Theory", so that we can explore the relationships and differences of their actual usage, which can help the ontological study of universial verbs and Chinese teaching as a foreign language.In syntactic plane, "zuò", "gàn", "g?o", "nòng" have similar syntactic distribution environment and grammatical features, they all have the function of substituting general verbs. In comparision, "zuo" and "gan", "gao" and "nong" have a higher similarity respectively, "zuo" tend to take objects; "gan" is more focused to be independent predicate with strong action; "gao" has the strongest ability of syntactic collocation and substitution, its most object semantics are not limited; "nong" tend to take result complement and state complement in a higher proportion. Simultaneously,the scope of their substitution of general verbs is biased, and the order of the substitution ability from high to low is "gao", "zuo", "nong","gan".In semantic plane, "zuò", "gàn", "g?o", "nòng" have cross connection in classification of meanings; but while in the same mesning, their semantic orientation and object scope still have different focuses, "gao" has the most abundant meanings,then followed by "zuo", "nong","gan". They contain a number of common semantic features, such as [+action], [+transitive], [+autonomy],[+persistence]. However,along with the differences between the components and syntactic collocations in actual sentences, also on the basis of the universial meanings, they have their own distinct features, which are different from other semantic features.In pragmatic plane, as for the written colour, the intensity of written language of the four universal verbs from high to low is "zuo", "gao","gan", "nong". "zuo" is generally used in written language, the usage occasion is more formal; "nong" is widely used in spoken language. As for the emotional colour, "zuo" is often neutral,"gan" has both commendatory sence and derogatory sence, "gao" is derogatory and neutral, the former one is heavier; "nong" has a very strong derogatory sence. As for the local colour, "nong" and "gan" are both northern dialect, "nong" is more used in the Central Plains region; although "gao" is getting stronger in written color, but it still tends to be used in the south region of China; "zuo" has no regional characteristics.