A Typological Study Of English And Chinese Adpositions

As an old and relatively closed word category,prepositions have always been the focuses of linguists.For the studies of Chinese-English prepositions,there are still some unexplored areas.Previous studies on Chinese-English adpositions have some places that are worth learning from,but they still have some limitations.Firstly,they focus on prepositions and ignore the explorations of postpositions and circumpositions.Secondly,the diachronic researches on Chinese-English adpositions are insufficient.At last,the studies made from the perspective of language typology are not deep and comprehensive enough.This thesis explores the similarities and differences of Chinese-English adpositions based on the perspective of language typology and the analysis of cross-linguistic facts.The research findings are as follows:(1)Seen from the angle of morphology,prepositions are prevailing in English for the following reasons: Firstly,English is a typical VO language.The parameters related to VO maintain a highly harmonious relation with V and O.Secondly,the uses of prepositions in English conform to the Principle of Relator proposed by Dik(1983).Finally,the meanings expressed by prepositions in English may be expressed by prepositions,postpositions,and circumpositions in other languages.In Chinese,prepositions,postpositions,and circumpositions all play important roles.Firstly,the morphological types of Chinese-English adpositions are influenced by grammaticalization.Diachronically,the forms of Chinese adpositions are influenced by grammaticalization and word order changes.At last,the semantic structures of Chinese adpositions are not as abstract as English adpositions.(2)From the perspective of word order,in English,“V+PP” is the dominant word order;it is affected by the word order types of English,the Principle of Relator and the Principle of Harmony.In Chinese,the positions of adpositional phrases are more flexible,the uses of “V+Adp-phrase” and “Adp-phrase+V” are both acceptable.The word orders of Chinese adpositional phrases are not in harmony with VO;this fact further improve that Chinese is not a typical VO language but a VO-OV language.(3)From the perspective of case in language typology,Chinese-English adpositions can mark abstract cases,spatial cases and concrete non-spatial cases.Furthermore,the polysemy patterns of Chinese-English dative and instrumental adpositions have some similarities and differences.Chinese-English dative adpositions have developed the function of marking beneficiary and recipient.English dative adpositions develop from allative case markers.Chinese dative adposition ? gei ‘give' is based on the grammaticalization of the verb ? gei ‘give'.This phenomenon also appears in Thai and some other Asian languages.Besides,Chinese dative adpositions can also mark accusative case.Chinese-English instrumental adpositions can mark manner,material,comitative case,time duration and reason.English instrumental adpositions can also mark the agents of passive sentences.Finally,Chinese instrumental case prepostions can mark accusative case.(4)Head marking and dependent marking are put forward by Nichols(1986)to express semantic and grammatical relation.When English and Chinese adpositions maintain a close relationship with nouns,they are dependent markers.When English and Chinese adpositions maintain a close relationship with verbs,they are head markers.Besides,Chinese and English adpositions can be in the middle of head marking and dependent marking.This phenomenon can also be found in some other languages.(5)At last,the thesis analyzes the syntactic functions of Chinese and English adpositional phrases based on the facts of Chinese,English and some other languages.The primary roles of English and Chinese adpositional phrases are modifying verbs.In this situation,they can be core complements or peripheral complements.Using adpositional phrases to modify adjectives is also a cross-linguistic phenomenon.When modifying nouns,English adpositional phrases can be directly linked to nouns or linked by a connective adposition.Chinese chooses to use a connective adposition.At last,English adpositions can take the roles of predicates by themselves.As an important part of the contrastive studies of Chinese-English word categories,this thesis takes the views of language typology and combines the study methods of synchronic and diachronic linguistics.It not only focuses on Chinese and English adpositions but also concentrates on the comparisons of them with other languages.This thesis has a certain theoretical significance and is meaningful for the studies of language teaching.