A Comparative Study Of Chinese "Bi" And English "Than" Constructions

Based on the past achievements of the Chinese"bi"constructions ,this paper studies the English"than"constructions and makes a detailed comparison between Chinese"bi"constructions (X+"bi"+Y+W)and English"than"constructions(X+W+"than"+Y)so as to find the similarities, especially the differences between them.The Chinese character"bi"in"bi"construction is a preposition, while the English"than"can be used as a preposition, and a conjunction as well, introducing an adverbial clause of comparison. The major differences between the comparative constructions of the two languages lie in the different grammatical relations and positions of the secundum comparationis (Y)and concluding item (W).In addition,"bi"may be used as a verb, but"than"can not."Than"constructions apart, Chinese"bi"constructions can be translated in different ways in English:1) some other adjectives, such as"senior to"etc.;2) some prepositions, such as"above"etc.; 3) some verbs, such as"outnumber"etc.Both Chinese"bi"and English"than"constructions can be used a clause, as well as a component of a sentence, for example, the object of verb, the attributive and so on. But"bi"construction can be used as a complement of the predicate verb,"than"construction can not; while"than"construction can be used as an adverbial clause of comparison,"bi"construction can not.The nominal group can be used in primum comparationis X and secundum comparationis Y in both languages, but there are major differences when X and Y refer to time and place. Substitution and ellipsis are grammatical devices for avoiding repetition and achieving textual cohesion. In Chinese ellipsis is mainly used, and in English both. There are two kinds of substitution used in this paper: nominal substitution, such as"than""the one",and verbal substitution, such as"do".When Chinese concluding item is"形+得多"or"形+多了",the English one is"much(a lot)+形-er+than";when the Chinese Concluding Item is"动+得+形",the English one is"动+副-er+than". The adverbs in their constructions are different in position and presupposition. Compared with Chinese, the position of English adverbs is more inflexible.