Grammatical Study On Adverbs Of "Qianwan/Wanwan"

Grammaticalization in recent years become a hot academic topic, which has achieved fruitful results whether it is about the grammatical process of a certain single word, or the exploration of the grammatical theory. However, these studys often tend to focus on the grammaticalization for three Content Words of nouns, verbs and adjectives, or functionalization of a structure, or lexicalization of a phrase, less study on numerals, in particular, making a detailed analysis and seeking a universal explanation for the grammatical process and mechanism on a certain kind numerals can be said to be a blank, based on researches from synchronic and diachronic perspectives. Any changes from numeral as an indispensable word class in language mean the development of language system, and even a reflection of their own characteristics. Therefore, I think a detailed and in-depth investigation of the grammaticalizatoion phenomenon of numeral is very necessary.Object of study selected in this paper are two numerals "qianwan (ten million)/ wanwan (a hundred million)" between which there are many similarities, we firstly make a detailed analysis on the courses and mechanisms of their grammaticalization respectively, and then compare their similarities and differences on the syntax, semantics and pragmatics and analyze the possible state for their co-existence and competition according to the "accumulation and exclusion" law existed in linguistics. Finally, from the perspective of typology, we try to make a universal explanation on the grammaticalization phenomenon of numerals combining the grammatical reference of numerals in English, Korean and Vietnamese.We have found that the adverb functionalization of "qianwan (ten million)/wanwan (a hundred million)" accomplished respectively in Song Dynasty and Ming Dynasty, during which they all experienced a complex process from stages of germination, formation and stability, but also experienced a development path from expressing number to degree to mood, and grammaticalization mechanism is basically from semantic generalization, syntactic structure changes and cognitive psychology and etc.. Similarities and differences in the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects of both are root causes to accumulation and exclusion, it won't appear the outcome of "You die or I die" by mean of the frequency of their use in daily life in a short time, but it is probable for them to seek further development space correspond to their own characteristics. In chapter III, we make a brief introduction respectively to the counting system in English, Korean and Vietnamese, then list and compare some examples of numeral grammatical reference, ultimately find their common feature—the digit numerals in every language have been entirely grammaticalized but to a different degree. We give a superficial explanation to such problem by cognitive linguistic theory of metonymy and metaphor.