Thing Adjectives And Action Adjectives In Modern Chinese

Adjectives can be classified from different points of view.Based on the semantic features of adjectives,and together with the frequency that adjectives serve as different sentence elements,this thesis classifies the adjectives into two types:One is thing adjectives,which describe properties of persons or objects,the other is action adjectives,which express the mode and state of actions and behaviors.There is a certain disparity in the syntactic function.Thing adjectives are generally linked with the words that signify objects,and usually serve as attributes,while action adjectives are generally linked with actions and behaviors,which usually serve as adverbials.This thesis consists of 5 parts in discussion.Part I offers the definition of thing and action adjectives;Part II is a comparation of the semantic features of thing adjectives and action adjectives;Part III introduces the syntactic function of thing adjectives and action adjectives,discussing their functions as attribute,adverbial,predicate and complement respectively;Part IV expresses the theory of the relation of semantics and grammar;Part V is a summary of the above discussion and at the same time it proposes some suggestions for further studies.In the course of study,the thesis employs the theories of "designation" and "implying predicate",aiming at revealing their respective characteristics in syntactic functions.According to our investigations,the two types of adjectives are complementary to each other in syntactic distribution.