A Comparative Study On The Modern Chinese Function Word 'HE' And Its English Equivalents

There are various meanings of 'HE', it can be a noun, a verb, an adjective, a preposition and a conjunction. When it's a noun, a verb and an adjective, 'HE' is a notional word , otherwise it's an function word. Based on the function word 'HE' and from the semantics and syntax angle, the paper compared it with its English Equivalents.Starting from the semantic view, the Function word 'HE' was compared with its English Equivalents in this paper, and many same semantic points can be find. Then, on the same semantic basis, they're compared further on the similarities and differences in their usage.For the meanings of 'HE' much varies from it's a preposition to a conjunction, the paper divided it into two parts for study. As an adjective, there're two English words most close to 'HE', they're 'and' and 'or'. Therefore, while compared 'HE' with 'and' when 'HE' is in the meaning of joint, parallel or listing, also compared it with 'or' when in the meaning of option. When compared on the conjunction meaning, this paper mainly focus on -- the 'object', the 'position' in the phrase, 'whether' use or not, and the 'syntax constituents' -- thus four aspects. When in the preposition meaning, there're 'with', 'to', 'as' ,'from' and 'than' ,which have the same meaning with 'HE'. So, this paper compared 'HE' with those five words separately. First summarized common meanings of 'HE' and other words, then compared them on focuses of -- 'the object of a preposition', 'the position of the preposition in a phrase', 'ellipsis' and 'syntax constituent of the phrase' -- thus four aspects.As there isn't so-called 'one-to-one relationship' between Chinese and English words, when compared between Chinese and English, this paper also compared the function word 'HE' with other words and phrases in Chinese, which of the same meaning and usage.