A Study Of The Syntax-Semantics Interface Of English And Chinese Manner Adverbs

Manner adverbs fully demonstrate the link between semantics and syntax,which is an excellent aspect for the study of syntax-semantics interface.In addition,there are few syntax-semantics interfaces studies about manner adverbs.Therefore,the thesis intends to discuss a series of issues related to manner adverbs by using Distributed Morphology Theory and Thematic Theory on the basis of the previous studies.1)How can we understand manner adverbs from the perspective of Distributed Morphology Theory?2)What are the specific classifications of manner adverbs?3)How does the syntax-semantic interface of manner adverbs realize the interaction between vocabulary and syntax?Based on Distributed Morphology Theory,this thesis reconsiders the part of speech and classification of manner adverbs.Then the thesis studies the syntactic-semantic interface of manner adverbs.The findings of this study are as follows:1)Manner adverb is not a primitive item in the lexicon.Manner adverb does not occupy a special position in the language unit,which is the combination of lexical morpheme and functional morpheme.Specifically,manner adverb is a kind of word composed of adjective roots and light prepositions.2)Since manner adverbs are composed of adjective roots and light prepositions,we reclassify manner adverbs on the basis of prepositional types.According to different types of prepositions,the thesis divides manner adverbs into static manner adverbs and dynamic manner adverbs.The main characteristics of static manner adverbs are that they are used with static verbs,while the main characteristics of dynamic manner adverbs are used with dynamic verbs.3)Manner adverbs can be explained as a supplementary thematic structure(e.g.the sentence �he did it carefully� implies two meanings: �he did it� and �he was careful�).Among these two thematic structures,one is the primary thematic structure and the other is the sub-thematic structure.The prominence of the thematic structure will directly affect the sentence structure,and the corresponding parts of speech displayed by the roots will also differ,which is the impact of the syntactic structure on vocabulary.Meanwhile,the sentence structure will also be different if the part of speech of the root is different,which is the influence of vocabulary on the syntactic structure.