Study On The Chinese Structure "[(一)(量)]名" And Its Corresponding Forms In English

When we study noun phrases, the definite meaning and indefinite meaning are most commonly used concepts. The definite meaning refers to the confirmable relationship between referring expression and referent. And if this relationship is unconfirmable, that will be the indefinite meaning.We believe there is no clear boundary between the definite meaning and indefinite meaning. Although we can distinguish them from the grammatical form in some certain languages, there is really a continuum in people's cognitive system and scope.By means of the syntax, semantic and pragmatic description and the comparative studying with English indefinite articles, the thesis investigates the Chinese Structure "[ (一) (量) ]名" which is used to introduce the indefinite nouns.The first chapter is the introduction, including the origin of the research, the object and scope of the research, the purpose and meaning of the research and some explanation about the real material for the research.Chapter Two generally introduces the research that has already been accomplished about the indefinite noun structure both in Chinese and English, and we also introduce some studies about bare noun in the two languages.Chapter Three investigates the syntactic distribution of the Chinese Structure "[ (一) (量) ]名", and does some comparative studies about indefinite article in the English translation of Chinese materials. We believe there is a continuum in expressing the indefinite meaning in Chinese when there is a certain need to introduce indefinite nouns.Chapter Four observes the restriction factors of using the Chinese Structure "[ (一) (量) ]名" from the semantic view. We believe the using of the structure and its indefinite degree are restricted by the quality of nouns, verbs, sentence patterns and negative constructions.Chapter Five from the pragmatic aspect proves the Chinese Structure "[(一)(量)] 名" is a continuum of introducing the indefinite nouns in Chinese. Through the different information in various pragmatic situation, we can confirm the different degree of different structures of "[ (一) (量) ]名". Besides this chapter deals with some problems about proper nouns which is generally regarded as a very strong referentiality noun.