A Statistical Study Of Modern Chinese Adjectives

The research object of this paper is the adjectives of modern Chinese.Using ‘The Western Regions of Tang Dynasty',‘Zhuzi Language' and ‘Yu Shi Ming Yan'(vols.1 to 12)as the main corpus,this paper investigates the uses of adjectives in three kinds of corpus through exhaustive statistics.Based on the previous researches on ancient Chinese adjectives and the facts of Chinese language,this paper also systematically investigates the structural types and syntactic functions of modern Chinese adjectives,discuss the development of adjectives in modern Chinese and reveals the similarities and differences among modern,ancient and middle ancient Chinese adjectives.The thesis mainly includes the following parts:The introduction part discusses the reason and significance of this research,explains the reliability and research value of the three corpus,and sorts out the research status of ancient Chinese adjectives at home and abroad.In addition,the research methods are described.The first chapter mainly statistics the formation of adjectives in three corpus.Firstly,Chinese adjectives and their criteria are discussed.Then,the situation and frequency of word types of single-tone and polyphonic adjectives in the three corpora are counted,and polyphonic adjectives are further classified according to their structures and types.The second chapter mainly discusses the syntactic function of modern adjectives.Quantitative statistics and description of adjectives as syntactic components in the three corpora are made.According to statistics,there are a total of 6117 use cases of adjectives in the three corpora,among which the adjective as predicate is the most common use,accounting for 39.8%(2436 cases).There were 2,213 cases,accounting for 36.2%.There were 132 cases,accounting for 2.2%.There were 416 cases,accounting for 6.8%.There were 672 cases,accounting for 11%.There were 248 cases of complements,accounting for 4.1%.Chapter three mainly discusses the diachronic changes of adjectives in modern Chinese.The diachronic comparison is divided into two aspects: one is the comparison of adjectives in different stages in modern Chinese represented by three linguistic materials;the other is the comparison of adjectives in modern Chinese with those in other periods.Modern Chinese adjectives are mainly polysyllabic and polysyllabic adjectives are mainly combined compound words.From the ancient Chinese period to the modern Chinese period,compound adjectives increased in a large scale,the proportion of adjectives as predicates was relatively stable,the ability of attributive was constantly improved,and the modification function was gradually enhanced.The epilogue summarizes the whole thesis and further summarizes the features of the formation and grammatical functions of modern Chinese adjectives.