基于语料库的terribly和awfully语义韵考察

A Corpus-Based Study on Semantic Prosody of Terribly and Awfully

已有研究主要考虑terribly和awfully组合词的语义特征,得出语义韵的某些结论难免偏颇。在语义韵理论框架中,通过对语料库中的terribly和awfully的组合词语义及其所在句法环境的考察,发现同为害怕类情感强化副词,二者表现出迥然不同的语义韵。terribly优选消极的事物属性和主体感受语义进行组合,与积极涵义词语组合时,出现在否定句法语境中的概率为70%—100%,因此呈现出强烈的消极语义韵; awfully的积极涵义词数量多于消极和中性涵义词,且通常处于肯定的句法环境中,呈现出典型的混合型语义韵。

The previous researches mainly focus on the semantic features of the partner words of terribly and awfully, so it is inevitably to draw some partial conclusions. Within the framework of Semantic Prosody, conducting a corpus-based study of the semantic features and the syntax contexts, this paper finds that although both terribly and awfully are emotive intensifiers in the domain of FEAR, they present totally different semantic prosody. Terribly conveys a strong negative semantic prosody with a semantic preference to negative properties of entities and negative feelings of people, the negative syntax contexts accounting for about 70%-100%. The positive partner words outnumber the negative and neutral ones, always in positive syntax contexts, awfully expresses a typical mixed semantic prosody.