Study On The "Haobu+AP" Construction In Modern Chinese

There are several possible semantic interpretations of the "haobu+AP" construction.One is a negative understanding,in which "haobu+AP" is a combination of the degree adverb "hao" and "bu+AP",and the degree adverb reinforces the negation of the original AP;another one is an affirmative understanding,in which the "hao" and "bu" in the "haobu+AP" construction are more closely linked,used as a whole to express the strengthening of the degree of AP.Some APs tend to be negative after entering the "haobu+AP" construction,some tend to be affirmative after entering the "haobu+AP" construction,and some APs still need more contextual information to determine whether the construction is affirmative or not.Both from the historical formation process and the practical application of the "haobu+AP" construction,it is not possible to separate the affirmative "haobu+AP" and the negative "haobu+AP" completely when discussing about either of them.From a diachronic point of view,the affirmative "haobu+AP" probably originated from the grammaticalization of particular applications of the negative form;from a synchronic point of view,the negative morpheme in the affirmative "haobu+AP" still produces a particular effect.The "bu" in the affirmative form is by no means redundant,even though it is different from the purely truth-valued negation.One of the main focuses of this paper on the "haobu+AP" construction is the semantic features of AP.The discussion of AP is not limited to the study of which APs can be accommodated by the "haobu+AP" construction,but also includes the study of the characteristics of APs that are blocked by the "haobu+AP" construction.The acceptance of AP is discussed separately according to the affirmative and negative forms.The affirmative "haobu+AP" requires that the AP should be gradable.The continuity of the described object should be maintained when comparing degrees,and there should be no ambiguity.The AP should be a complete set of attributes corresponding to a degree rather than a generalization of the local characteristics of a dimension.Non-predicate adjectives,distinguishers,and state adjectives usually do not enter the affirmative "haobu+AP",but some words may have new meanings and usages as language applications develop.Some words that have adjectival properties are able to enter the negative form of "haobu+AP",such as a few modal verbs and psychology verbs.If the "bu+AP" construction is mostly used in non-veridical contexts,the corresponding AP cannot enter the negative "haobu + AP" in general cases.If the "bu+AP" construction mostly uses "yidian" or "sihao" to strengthen negation,then the corresponding AP also cannot enter the negative "haobu + AP".Another focus of this paper on the "haobu+AP" construction is the role of the negation morpheme "bu" in the "haobu+AP" construction.The "bu" in the affirmative "haobu+AP" construction has been generally regarded as a redundant component in previous studies.In this paper,we clarify the role of "bu" in the affirmative "haobu+AP" by using metalinguistic negation theory."bu" in the affirmative "haobu+AP" represents metalinguistic negation,negating a lower degree on the one hand and affirming a higher degree on the other.To fully grasp the meaning of "bu",we need to combine the semantic theory of multidimensionality,because "bu" has both descriptive meaning and expressive meaning at the same time.The multidimensional semantics of "bu" can not only explain the nature of the negative morpheme in the affirmative "haobu+AP",but also provide a reasonable explanation about the contextual application characteristics and internal order of components for the issue on the negative "haobu+AP".This paper has five chapters: Chapter 1 introduces the reasons for the selection of the topic,makes clear the object and scope of the study and explains the research value;Chapter 2 is a review of previous studies,mainly to sort out the various hypotheses on the formation process of the affirmative "haobu+AP" and the related studies on the classification and distribution of AP,summarizing the existing results and problems;Chapter 4 focuses on the negation in the "haobu + AP" construction,using metalinguistic negation theory and multidimensional semantics theory to analyze the meaning of negation in the affirmative and negative forms.Chapter 5 is the conclusion,which summarizes the basic viewpoints of this study on the "haobu+AP" construction and gives an outlook about the future research on the redundant negation phenomena in modern Chinese.