A Study On The Equivalents Of Chinese Double Negative Constructions In English And French

This paper seeks to identify the various equivalents of Chinese double negative constructions in the English and French languages.Double negative constructions are a common grammatical structure used in Modern Chinese,standard and sub-standard English as well as in the French language.However,double negative constructions in these languages differ from one another.These differences arise partly as a result of differences in language structure and grammatical rules.Although negative constructions in Chinese,English and French differ syntactically,they however have some similarities at the level of semantic meaning.In the aforementioned languages,negative markers can both cancel each other out to express a net positive meaning.In addition to expressing an affirmative,double negative constructions can also intensify or understate the affirmative.On the basis of linguistic contrast and linguistic typology,this paper begins by defining and delimiting the concept of double negation as applied in Modern Chinese.The paper defines double negation as a grammaticalconstruction in which two negatives are used in a clause to express positive meaning.This study is limited only to Chinese double negative constructions in simple sentences with “explicit negative makers”.Double negative constructions in complex or compound sentences did not constitute part of this research.After examining,analyzing,comparing and contrasting a huge number of double negative constructions,it was realized that,the differences between Chinese,English and French double negative sentences are mainly due to the difference in the way these three languages express negative meaning.In Chinese,negation is mostly expressed by using negative adverbs or negative verbs such as“不/没有/无”.In addition to negative words,English and French use negative affixes,negative words,negative phrases and some fixed structures like“ne......pas”in French.The paper is divided into five chapters.Chapter 1 mainly introduces the background and significance of the study,the main purpose and methods used in the study,as well as the theoretical basis.Chapter 2 redefines the concept of double negation in modern Chinese based on previous studies.This chapter also makes a detailed study of thesyntactic,semantic,pragmatic characteristics of double negative constructions in modern Chinese.Chapter 3 mainly discusses the equivalents of Chinese double negative constructions in English.We found out that some double negative sentences in Chinese cannot be directly translated into English using English double negative constructions.Chapter 4 analyzes the equivalents of Chinese double negatives in the French language with emphasis on identifying Chinese negative constructions that can be translated into French using French double negative constructions.Chapter 5 discusses the differences in the structural features and semantic expressions of Chinese,English and French double negative constructions and makes a preliminary analysis of the reasons for the differences.