Comparative Studies Of The Modern Chinese Frequency Adverbs Of "常常" And "往往"

Basing on semantic features, syntactic features,pragmatic and text features,a comparative study of "常常" and "往往" opened new perspectives and methods of describing and explaining, and strived to understand the difference between the two words.First, on semantic features, we observed the basic semantic features of "常常" and "往往" , time features and quantity category features. The basic semantic feature of "常常" is frequency or repetition and the basic semantic feature of "往往" is rule or estimation. The differences of basic semantic characteristics of the two words decide the differences in the other two types of semantic characteristics. Comparing with"往往","常常" is more suited to the activity phase or the end phase. "常常" can be applied in the future tense,but "往往" can not. The two words are not for the before present tense or the after present tense. "常常" can be used for future aspect, but "往往" can not. Both can not be used in experience aspect or perfective aspect. "常常" tends to express repetition and "往往" inclines to express continuity.Then, there were two discussions of syntax features. The first part, with the collocation of subjects of sentences and related elements, due to less limited semantic features, "常常" has more flexibilities, freedom and wider application than "往往" in matching verb, verb-object structure and predicate-complement structure. Because of expressing rule and estimation, "往往" has more advantages to collocate the adjectives. On aspectual markers, both can collocate with the durative aspect marker "着", having more examples as well as the perfective aspect marker "了", having fewer examples, but could not match experience aspect marker "过". The second part, "常常" and "往往" are more flexible in the sentences, at the beginning or in the middle. In the oral language, "常常" even can be seen at the end of the sentences. The locations of both in the middle of the sentences are more complex. There is a rough word order between adverb adverbials, but because of their own semantic features, there are often variable disorders. The management scales or the meanings of the exact time words and the period of time words will affect justice of "常常", "往往" and their orders.Finally, on the pragmatics and text features, there are fewer studies about the comparison between the two. Generally speaking, "常常" is always used in oral language, while "往往" is used in written language. In the co-text, the latter part of the context where "往往" locates is more absolute and when there is a obvious logic formed by the connectives of the co-text and talking about the facts under any theory or expression to make decisions, which tend to choose "往往".As we talk about coherence of a text, "常常" belongs to the objective external world, while "往往" belongs to the subjective internal world. The mood pattern and communicative function of the two words are also different. Because of semantic features and tense restrictions, "往往" can not be used imperatives and interrogative sentences. "常常" is applied more broadly. As a result ,they have different speech acts, "常常" is used in directives and "往往" is used in realities. Different locations of the two in the text bring out a series of functional changes. In the sentence, "常常" and "往往" locate more forward to express stronger subjective attitude, greater range of management and more scattered focus (at the beginning of sentence); Instead, they locate more back to express more intensive objective attitude, smaller range of management and they will become the focus sensitive operator (in the middle of sentence).The conclusions got from the comparative studies of modern Chinese frequency adverb "常常" and "往往" have great significance for teaching Chinese as a second language and we hope to help to establish and perfect classification of modern Chinese time adverbs.