The Investigation Of The Long-term Time Adverbs In Modern Chinese

This article conducts an overall discussion and detailed classification of the long-term time adverbs in modern Chinese. It uses the research thinking of class-description and case study. And on the synchronic side, it makes a comprehensive and systematic investigation of such vocabulary. The entire content of this paper is divided into the following four aspects.First, the thesis, based on previous research, defines the long-term time adverbs in a clearer way. It distinguishes the broad and the narrow senses and makes sure its scope. The thesis also classifies the long-term time adverbs into eight categories. Basically, every category forms a system. It exists some differences in the semantic and syntax aspects.Second, the thesis gives a detailed and thorough semantic description of the long-term time adverbs. It describes the semantic features from two aspects, the perspectives of continuous time, the controllability and non-controllability. It also describes the tense feature. And it differentiates the dynamic and static characters of the long-term time adverbs in sentences.Third, this thesis makes a comprehensive and syntactic description of the long-term time adverbs. The long-term time adverbs are characterized by adverbial, but also have exception. Their positions can be moved in the sentences. They have some using rules when used together with other adverbs.Fourth, this thesis summarizes and analyses the pragmatic characteristics of the long-term time adverbs. We explain it in two aspects, the emotional coloring and the focus function. And we discuss the differences in the pragmatic aspect.