A Non-questionable Comparative Study Of "what" And "what"

This paper attempts to combine the theory with the corpus,through the comparison of Chinese and English,to reflect the similarities and differences between "shenme"(??)and "what".The reason for choosing "shenme"(??)and "what" is mainly because they have strong comparability on the grammatical level,which can lay a solid foundation for the continous research of the non-interrogative usage of interrogative pronouns between Chinese and English.This paper first reviews the non-interrogative usages of interrogative pronouns,and finds that there are different understandings for many grammarians in the problem.The classification system is slightly different and the classification standard is still not unified.On the non-interrogative usage of "shenme"(??),the scholars have carried on the synchronic and diachronic study,noting that "shen.me"(??)is different from other interrogative pronouns,and making the classification of the non-interrogative usage of"shenme"(??).However,there are still some differences in the classification process and the methods used.On the non-interrogative usage of "what",Chinese and foreign scholars have done a lot of research on the part of speech and grammar function of "what",especially on the study of referring usage of "what",the scholars have made more consensus.On the contrast study of "shenme"(??)and "what",the scholars mainly compare the Chinese and English interrogative sentences and interrogative pronouns,and also make researches on the correspondence and non-correspondence of the two words,but the description is not very detailed,and the explanation of some phenomena is not deep enough.This paper starts from the classification and definition of non-interrogative usage of these two words "shenme"(??)and "what",and is divided into three parts,one is referring usage contrast of these two words,another is non-referential usage contrast of these two words,and the third is the contrast of textual functions and discourse maker functions of these two words.The first chapter of this paper is the contrast of "shenme"(??)and "what",including the four aspects of non-specific references,empty references,specific references and generic references.For non-specific reference,it is mainly the contrast with "what" of the pattern of "shenme…dou/ye" and "bulun/buguan/wulun…shenme…dou/ye".The semantic content and the pattern of empty reference is more abundant,and the paper mainly choose the four pattern to contrast with "what":" shenme","shenme…shenme","buzhi…V shenme(NP)" and "haoxiang…V shenme(NP)".For specific reference,it is mainly the contrast with "what" of the pattern of "jiaozuo/jiaozuo…shenme NP","na shenme" or "na(ge)shenme(de)NP" and "V shenme(NP)".For generic reference of "shenme"(??)and "what",it is mainly the contrast of the pattern of "X shenme de","shenme X(de)Y(de"and "shenme X,shenme Y,…".The second chapter is the contrast on non-interrogative usage of non-referential reference,including two aspects of counter and negative usage.For counter usage,it is mainly the contrast with "what" of the pattern of "shenme X","X shenme" and "you shenme hao/ke V de".For negative usage,it is mainly the contrast with "what" of the pattern of "X shenme X(de)","shenme X bu X(de)",and "shenme a/ya".The third chapter is from the text level to explore textual functions and discourse maker functions of "shenme"(??)and "what".The textual functions of the two words are mainly analyzed from the following aspects:substitution,ellipsis and lexical cohesion.The discourse marker function of the two words are mainly discussed in terms of form,function and classification.This paper is mainly based on the classification of non-interrogative usage of"shenme"(??),and carries on the contrast with referring and non-referential non-interrogative usage of "senme"(??)and "what",which is a supplement ontology study to the non-interrogative usage of interrogative pronouns.To describe,analyze and summarize the textual functions of the two words,and to investigate the characteristics and manifestations of the two as discourse markers,is the focus of this paper,as well as the innovation part.Based on the analysis of non-interrogative usage of"shenme"(??)and "what",it found that they have the variability and complexity of syntactic,semantic and pragmatic usage in both Chinese and English languages,and they are different in form and function,but there are a lot of similarities too.This paper hopes that through the contrast analysis of "shenme"(??)and "what" in non-interrogative usage,it is possible to guide the discovery of more links between Chinese and English,and to provide a certain perspective and reference ideas in contrast study of Chinese and English and application to teaching Chinese as a foreign language and English teaching practice,and also to provide a reference point between Chinese and English translation in the compilation of teaching materials.