A Comparative Study Of Adverbials Between Modern Chinese And Burmese

Based on the linguistic typology,functional linguistics,cognitive linguistics and other related theories,this paper studies the co-occurrence order of adverbials in Chinese and Burmese from syntactic structure,semantic structure,pragmatics and constraints and other factors.The purpose of this paper is to explore the similarities and differences between the two languages.Chapter 1 mainly summarises the current situation of adverbial research in Chinese and Burmese,including the description on the research object,the significance of the topic,the theoretical basis,and the source of the linguistic data,and further puts forward the research framework and methods of this paper with a comprehensive description.Chapter 2 briefly describes the historical evolution and characteristics of modern Chinese and modern Burmese.Chapter 3 firstly discusses about the characteristics and grammatical functions of adverbials in Chinese and Burmese.Next,it provides detailed classification and description of both languages’ adverbials by combining their syntax and semantics.From the position distribution of adverbials and the modification relationship between predicates,the Chinese-Burmese adverbials are divided into two categories:the peripheral adverbial before the subject and the internal adverbial after the subject.Next,according to the modification relationship between adverbial and predicate,the internal adverbials are divided again into three types: restrictive adverbial,descriptive adverbial and mode adverbial.Chapter 4 describes and summarises in detail the co-occurrence order,modifying position and restricting factors of multiple peripheral adverbial clauses in Chinese and Burmese.Through the method of pairwise comparison of the minimum number of adverbials,the general order of the internal classification of Chinese peripheral adverbials is as follows,[+relative1]> [+synergy] > [+evaluation]1>[+environment] > [+time]> [+location] + subject.And the general order of the peripheral adverbials in Burmese is as follows,[+relative1]> [+evaluation1] >[+synergy] > [+environment] > [+time] > [+location] + subject.From the perspective of semantic function,peripheral adverbials mainly provide background information for the behavior,actions or events expressed by the language of the background information,so they need to be always in the outermost layer of the sentence.The above distribution of these words is in accordance with the logical order of the principle of time order,the principle of semantic proximity and the principle of semantic scope.Moreover,in the view of pragmatic function,it is also concluded that the peripheral adverbials of the two languages have the functions of textual connection,emphasis,prominence and restriction.Chapter 5 mainly discusses the internal order of multi restrictive adverbials in Chinese and Burmese,their arrangement order and the corresponding expression form about some semantic characteristic adverbials in two languages.And through the method of pairwise comparison and analysis of adverbials,the general order of Chinese restrictive adverbials is as follows,[+relative]1> [+evaluation]1> [+period] /[+time] > [+degree] > [+negative]> [+synergy] > [+repetitive] + predicate.And the general co-occurrence order of the restrictive adverbials in Burmese is as follows,[+period]>[+time] > [+degree] > [+question] > [+positive] / [+negative] + predicate.Then,this chapter aslo describes and analyses the corresponding expressions in Burmese to Chinese adverbial adverbs and modal auxiliary verbs according to the inherent commonness of word order in linguistic typology and the "track structure" theory.Among them,the modal auxiliary verbs in Chinese and Burmese,which are produced by the restriction of the different semantic intensities developing in two different directions with the predicate as the centre,become the opposite modification forms,including the following forms in Chinese,cognitive modality >deontic modality > dynamic modality + predicate;and the form of expression in Burmese is predicate + dynamic modality < deontic modality < cognitive modality.Chapter 6 gives a detailed description and analysis of the co-occurrence order and arrangement rules of many descriptive adverbials in Chinese and Burma.Based on a variety of language data analysis,the co-occurrence order of multi descriptive adverbials in Chinese includes subject > modality adverbial > description adverbial+ predicate.And that of multi descriptive adverbials in Burmese is subject + object +descriptive subject adverbial > descriptive predicate adverbial + predicate,or subject+ descriptive subject adverbial + object + descriptive predicate adverbial + predicate.Finally,based on the internal homogeneity(rating,quantity,state,voice,etc.)and heterogeneous component structure of descriptive adverbials in the above two languages,this chapter summarizes and explains the similarities and differences of the internal arrangement rules caused by the restriction factors of semantic proximity principle and concrete or abstract semantics,and discusses the embodiment of Chinese adverbial marker auxiliary word "de" in Burmese.Chapter 7 mainly describes and analyses the modification function and form and composition of prepositional clause as Chinese model adverbials and structural auxiliary(Case)clause as Burmese modal adverbials.And it also describes and summarizes the co-occurrence preponderant word order of Chinese and Burmese modal adverbials.Through the method of pairwise comparison of the minimum number of adverbials,the general order of the internal classification of Chinese modal adverbials is as follows,[+comparation] > [+tool] / [+material] >[relative]1>[+location] > [+object] + predicate.And the general order of the modal adverbials in Burmese is as follows,[+comparation] > [relative]1 >[+location] > [+tool] /[+material] + predicate.Then,it compares and analyzes the corresponding expressions of prepositional phrases in VO type sentences,which act as adverbial verbs or passive prepositional phrases,as auxiliary verbs in Burmese OV type sentences,whose the same meaning or different modification forms are explained by the implication commonness of linguistic typology.The analysis results are as follows: the expression form of Chinese active sentence is: "NP1 + 使 / 令 / 叫 /让 + NP2 + VP",and the expression form of Burmese active sentence in OV language is: "NP1 + NP2 + VP + auxiliary verb((?))".The expression form of Chinese passive sentence is "(principle)N1 + 被/叫/ 让+(agent)N2 + VP".The expression form of passive sentence in Burmese is: "(principle)N1 +(agent)N2 +VP + auxiliary verb((?))".Above all,the comparison of the two-language order of the corresponding auxiliary verbs shows that their language order follows the principle of semantic proximity and the principle of scope.Chapter 8 discusses the alienation of adverbial order from Chinese to Burmese in the view of semantic relations and semantic orientation.With the previous literature review,it classifies the semantic orientation of adverbials in Chinese and Burmese into two categories,such as semantic denotation and semantic anaphora.Chinese adverbials with semantic denotations refer to specific people or things at will.However,most of that in Burmese can only refer to specific people or things.Semantic anaphora can be divided into three categories such as multi adverbial semantic reference,multi adverbial semantic homonymy reference and multi adverbial semantic different reference.From the above situation,which can point to subject,predicate,object and other elements in the sentence.However,the semantic orientation of Burmese usually has no object orientation,only the subject and predicate.When the directional adjectives of Chinese semantic subject and object act as adverbials,there are two kinds of modifications in Burmese.On the one hand,the adjective adverbial which expresses the nature meaning in Chinese will become the attribute directly modifying the subject or object in the translation of Burmese.On the other hand,when a state adjective acts as an adverbial,it is a descriptive state adverb in the translation of Burmese.Therefore,in the process of semantic orientation,it will be affected by the principle of semantic proximity.According to the distance between the position of adverbial modifier and the pointing component,the degree of orientation and the obvious degree will appear,respectively.Chapter 9 makes an overall logical analogy arrangement and discusses the various constraints that affect the order of multiple adverbials,according to the results of the previous chapters.First of all,from the results of the linear arrangement of Chinese and Burmese multi adverbials,the two languages are influenced and restricted by the principles of time order,salience,semantic range,semantic proximity and incrementality.Secondly,under the condition of mutual restriction of various principles,this part discusses and explains the differences in the rules of word order arrangement and the changes of word order caused by different degrees of constraints in the expression of adverbial in the two languages.Chapter 10 mainly describes the conclusion section,including the analysis results,innovation,and shortcomings of this paper.In conclusion,this paper makes a comparative study on the word order of multi-adverbials in Chinese and Burmese,hoping to make innovations in the research content.