A Study On Adverbs In Ping Shan Leng Yan

Adverbs have long been studied by many researchers due to their large amount and complex usage.This field still remains one of the academic focuses over the past few years,with more and more specialized studies on the adverbs in history books,notes and novels still published.In this study,the adverbs used in Pingshanlengyan are described and analyzed based on the findings of previous specialized studies.An overview of the adverbs in this novel is given from the perspectives of semantic classification,frequencies and syntactic functions of adverbs,as well as dialectical adverbs.This study consists of five major sections:In Chapter One,also the introduction to this study,the purpose,significance,object and scope of this study,as well as the research situation of this field,the methodology and corpora,are introduced.Current studies on Pingshanlengyan mostly focus on the literary value it presents,whereas little attention has been paid to character analysis,the theme and linguistic features.In this study,the adverbs in Pingshanlengyan will be systematically probed.They are compared with the adverb systems in Shierlou and Taohuashan,based on which the characteristics of adverbs in Chinese language during late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty are summarized.Semantic analysis of the adverbs in Pingshanlengyan is conducted in Chapter Two.To be specific,these adverbs are divided into adverbs of degree,negative adverbs,modal adverbs,adverbs of time,circumstantial adverbs and scope adverbs,with their profiles described in detail.The number of circumstantial adverbs is the largest,followed by modal adverbs and adverbs of time.Scope adverbs are mostly those passed down from ancient and mediaeval times,whereas the rest of the adverbs were invented in modern times.The syntactic distribution and functions of the adverbs in Pingshanlengyan are analyzed in Chapter Three.In terms of syntactic distribution,these adverbs can act as predicate and sentence-modifying adverbs.Some disyllabic adverbs may be used to modify monosyllables;some modify affirmative forms only,whereas some others modify negative forms.In addition,the linear collocation sequences of multiple adverbs are investigated by identifying the collocation sequences of adverbs of the same and different classes.In Chapter Four,the use of adverbs in Pingshanlengyan,Shierlou and Taohuashan is compared from the perspectives of the number of adverbs,semantic classification,syntactic function and dialectical adverbs,thereby revealing the evolution of adverbs during late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty and highlighting the dialectical adverbs in this book.Chapter Five presents the general conclusion of this study.Research findings suggest that the adverb system had been fully developed during late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty.There was a trend of bisyllablization,but the use of disyllabic adverbs was not fixed.Instead,monosyllabic adverbs still played a dominant role,which accorded with the development trend of adverbs in Chinese language.To sum up,the dialectical adverbs in Pingshanlengyan are of value in grammar research and also able to reflect the regional features of language during late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty.