Syntax Position And Syntax Character Of Adjective

Comparing with English, Russian etc, Chinese is a language whose form is not developed, and the relation between its world class and syntax components is complicated, especially adjective, hardly comes into the varied syntax positions. Of course that is as for the whole group of adjective, when come to the inner part of adjective, different adjective of small class has different ability of entering a certain syntax position, and the same small-class adjective has different syntax and semantic characters in different syntax position. The scope of adjective discussed in the paper is limited to qualitative adjective, including mono-syllable and normal two-syllable adjective. The classification of adjective is based on A Dictionary on the Usage of Adjective edited and written by Zhen Huaide and Meng Qinhai and The Modern Normal Chinese Dictionary edited mainly by Li xingjian. The syntax position includes attributive, predictive, adverbial, complement, subject and object. This paper discusses the syntax, semantic and pragmatic characters of mono-syllable and two-syllable qualitative adjective in different syntax position. In the position of attributive, adverbial and complement, that is discussed in two ways, with "de" and without "de".Mr. Shen Jiaxuan and Mr. Zhang Guoxian both have discussed the attributive character of qualitative adjective. According to our investigation, we find there are not so many qualitative adjective which can really be used as attributive freely, which are limited to the words which express human's estimation and attitude to things and matters, such as big, small, new, old, good, bad, true, false. These words are mostly used as attributive straightly, losing their absolute adjective character in syntax, and their meaning express the stable, impersonal character of things or matters, In the part of logic, they have function of classifying things, in pragmatics, they have function of distinguishing from others. Two-syllable qualitative adjectives must be followed by "de" when used as attributive, thus it obtains absolute qualitativeadjectives character, and build up the subjectivity of expressing property of things, also it obtain stronger descriptive character. The qualitative adjective in predictive is also disputed. Some linguists think it has changed as a verb. In our opinion, the qualitative adjective in predictive also expresses property of things, and the dynamic meaning in the sentence is expressed by dynamic auxiliary word. In the paper we discuss when the qualitative adjective is used as complement its semantic relation and grammar relation disaccord, and the qualitative adjective states things impersonally when used as complement straightly and evaluates things subjectively when followed with "de". In adverbial position, the scope of the qualitative adjective which can be used as adverbial is limited to the words which express amount, time, frequency, degree, scope, condition and method. In subject and object positions, paper argues the deep reasons that the qualitative adjective is used as subject or object from the angle of relevance between property and things.