A Study On Descriptive Adjectives In Guangdong Shunde Dialect

Descriptive adjectives are very prominent in Chinese dialects,especially in southern Chinese dialects,with explicit formal characteristics and semantic functions.This paper takes the descriptive adjectives of Shunde dialect as the research object,divides the descriptive adjectives of Shunde dialect into two types according to their structural types: additional descriptive adjectives and reduplicated descriptive adjectives,describes and analyzes their formal characteristics,semantic functions and syntactic distribution in detail,and reveals the type characteristics of descriptive adjectives of Shunde dialect on the basis of cross-dialect comparison.It is found that there are many kinds of additional descriptive adjectives in Shunde dialect,including AXX,AX,XXA,AXY and AXYZ.Their additional components have prominent phonological characteristics,and the characteristics of initial consonants,finals,and tones are closely related to the expression of degree semantics and the tendency of emotional color of descriptive adjectives,which reflects the symbolic characteristics of phonology.Among them,AXY descriptive adjectives even have the characteristics of deformation and overlap,which is closely related to AXX descriptive adjectives and has a variety of sources.In addition to Shunde dialect,Cantonese dialect and other Chinese dialects also have very significant additional descriptive adjectives,which have their own characteristics in distribution and source formation.Among them,in terms of distribution characteristics,the Cantonese dialect is the most widely distributed AXX,followed by AX and XXA,and XA has the narrowest but most regular distribution,which only appears in the region of Goulou dialect.Chinese dialects are most widely distributed in AXX and XA,and are evenly distributed in the north and south dialects.The XXA form is followed by the AX form,but the XXA form in Southern dialects is significantly more active than the AX form.In terms of source formation,Chinese dialect additional descriptive adjectives have many possibilities,such as Chinese origin,word order regression,syllable contractions,base form replication,dialect contact,and low-level inheritance.At the same time,the types of reduplicated descriptive adjectives in Shunde dialect are also very rich,including AA,AABB,AAB and ABB.Different forms have different degree semantics,and the same form may be affected by sound change in degree and quantity,and even in syntactic distribution,which reflects the influence of phonological features on semantics and syntax.Except Shunde dialect,the types of reduplicated descriptive adjectives in Guangdong dialect,especially the completely reduplicated descriptive adjectives,are much richer than those in Shunde dialect,and have more prominent and systematic characteristics in distribution and signification,with certain typological characteristics.Among them,there are four forms of the monosyllabic fully reduplicated descriptive adjectives in Cantonese dialect: Permian,tri-fold,quad-fold and five-fold.Their degree semantics are determined by the number of overlaps of monosyllabic adjectives and the position of phonemic syllables,and the distribution has a certain law: if there are complex forms in a place,there must be simple forms,and if there are only simple forms,there may not be complex forms.There are two forms of the fully reduplicated descriptive adjectives in Cantonese dialect: AABB and ABAB.ABAB expression is more diverse than AABB expression,which can show the deepening and weakening of the degree,and there is a certain law in the distribution of the two: if there is ABAB expression in a place,there must be AABB expression,but if there is AABB expression in a place,there may not be ABAB expression.