A Corpus-based Analysis of English Near-synonymous Adverbs:Absolutely,Utterly

The analysis of near-synonyms has always been a difficult point in English learning.There have been some relevant studies on the analysis of near-synonyms at home and abroad,but the examples are still insufficient.Based on the Corpus of Contemporary American English(COCA),this paper takes“absolutely”and“utterly”as an example,and makes a comparative analysis from the five aspects of register,collocation,collocation,semantic preference and semantic prosody,aiming to make full use of the corpus in the analysis of English near-synonyms,providing a useful supplement for second language teaching and English learning.The results show that“absolutely”is more common in spoken language while utterly is more formal;regarding the collocation,both words are more associated with adjectives and verbs;in terms of colligation patterns,“absolutely”have six kinds of grammatical patterns while there are only four grammatical patterns of“utterly”;as for semantic preference,the semantic preference of“utterly”has a wider range than that of“absolutely”;for semantic prosody,“absolutely”have more neutral semantic prosody whereas“utterly”have stronger negative semantic prosody.This case study not only provides enlightenment for English learning and teaching,but also further enriches the corpus linguistics-related research.

Use of Conjunctive Adverbs to Achieve Sentence Variety

In illustrating how to write good English composition,it's unavoidably to talk how to write good sentence which leads to the right kind of English for formal writing.Good sentences must have emphasis and variety.Writing will be very tedious if full of sentences with similar structures;good articles are typically those in which sentences are varied in structure and the main ideas supporting the article are given the right prominence.Professional writers vary the subject-verb-object pattern with other grammatical sentence structures.A simple guideline for good sentence variety would be 50% subject-verb-object sentence openers and 50% other grammatical sentence opener forms.This article will give comments on conjunctive adverbs,also called adverbial conjunctions which can be used to join sentences of equal importance.Second,the article will discuss the use of frequently used conjunctive adverbs;finally this article will explain conjunctive adverbs to be used in sentence beginning and in mid sentences.Try conjunctive adverbs to add spice to your writing.

Modal verbs and adverbs and with Continuous

Through English and Chinese Modals with adverbs, Continuous modal verbs such as a comparative analysis between the two languages inspection Modals different grammatical function comparison.

A Contrastive Study of the Semantic Prosody of Degree Adverbs——The Case of“Ting(挺)”and“Guai(怪)”in Chinese

If the collocation of a word creates a semantic atmosphere in the context,it will infect the word,so that it has a certain semantic prosody.Based on corpus,this paper chooses ting(挺)and guai(怪)as a case study.This study combines description and interpretation,qualitative and quantitative analysis,and uses semantic prosody theory and related software technology to make a contrastive analysis of semantic prosody of degree adverbs ting(挺)and guai(怪)from synchronic and diachronic perspectives.We find that the semantic prosodies of ting(挺)and guai(怪)belong to positive prosody and negative prosody respectively,which are related to grammaticalization.

Semantic Foundation and Evolution Mechanism of the“好不X”(haobu X)Structure

In Chinese,the“好不X”(haobu X)structure expresses three types of meanings(negation,affirmation,and both affirmation-negation),where X exhibits differences in semantic symmetry.So far,no systematic explanatory theory has been proposed to account for these differences.Therefore,this paper presents and argues for an explanatory hypothesis that progresses through four stages:“很不X”(henbu X)=>“好不X”(haobu X)(negation)=>[ironic use]“好不X”(haobu X)(affirmation)=>expansion and obstruction of affirmative“好不”(haobu).Specifically,(1)the basis of the negation“好不X”(haobu X)is attributed to“很不X”(henbu X),and the semantic asymmetry of X(excluding negative words)is explained using politeness principles,irony,and the semantic valence of negation results;(2)the ironic use of the negation“好不X”(haobu X)gives rise to the affirmation“好不X”(haobu X);(3)the grammaticalization and expansion of the positive meaning of“好不”(haobu)extend to X,which cannot appear in the negative meaning“好不__”structure(including words with opposite meanings and high polarity positive words).This explains the semantic symmetry of X in the positive meaning“好不X”(haobu X)structure;(4)when the affirmation“好不”(haobu)expands to the negation“好不X”(haobu X),it encounters both obstacles(X includes neutral and some positive words)and compatibility(X is some other positive words),thus explaining the semantic asymmetry of X in the affirmation-negation“好不X”(haobu X)(i.e.,X is positive words).

Use of Stance Adverbs in Academic English:A Comparison of L1 English and L1 Vietnamese Authors’ Writing

The present study investigates authorial stance in research articles of native and non-native academic authors of English. It aims to analyze evaluation adverbs in research articles written by native authors of English(NAEs) and Vietnamese-speaking authors of English(VAEs) between 2012 and 2015. The data of 120 articles was investigated to examine whether there is a significant difference in using stance adverbs between the two groups of authors. It was found that NAEs and VAEs used stance adverbs in a considerably different way. Most of the stance adverb categories were variously overused by NAEs against VAEs. It was also found that English native authors of research articles preferred indirect approaches of expressing their evaluation by an illocutionary way of manner-of-speaking,metalinguistic and expectation markers,while Vietnamese authors favored an epistemic way of modal adverbs.

DURATION MODIFICATION OF CONTRASTIVE FOCUS PRECEDED BY FOCUS ADVERBS IN STANDARD CHINESE

This paper examines the duration modification of contrastive focus among lexical tones in Standard Chinese where focus co-occurs with focus adverbs.Focus is assigned to the first syllable of monomorphemic disyllabic word stimuli in utterance medial and final positions.Results show that(a)duration of focused syllables is invariably longer than unfocused syllable,(b)focused and unfocused syllable duration differ significantly across tones with tone 2,the longest,followed by tones 4,3and tone 1,the shortest,(c)focused and unfocused syllable duration vary significantly as a function of sentence frame to which it is embedded.Interestingly,no significant duration difference is observed between sentence-medial and sentence-final positions.The results indicate that duration increases across tones,word positions and sentence frames to realize contrastive focus in addition to the semantic device of focus adverbs.

有无-ly的形容词及副词用法辨异

Many adverbs have the same form as their corresponding adjectives.The u se of the word in the sentence determines whether it is an adverb or an adjectiv e.Some adverbs have two forms,the simple form and the derived form with suffix-l y.These two forms are generally different from each other in meaning,collection or position.But that is just general usage.Sonetimes we are confused and we can hardly choose the correct way.

The Usages of“Ji(几)”in Yulin Dialect

In Yulin dialect,there are three usages of“ji(几)”:interrogative pronouns,numerals,and degree adverbs.When used as an interrogative pronoun,it is generally used to inquire about the number and degree where the inquiry number is generally small,but the number can be large when it is used in asking about age.When used as a number,it can represent not only integers between one and ten,but also decimal part.When used as a degree adverb,there are rich syntactic formats such as“ji(几)+verb”,“ji(几)+adjective”,different formats indicating different meanings.Compared with Mandarin,the usage of Yulin dialect“ji(几)”is more diverse.We also analyze the use of“ji(几)”from a diachronic perspective and finally we propose that due to the reanalysis of the syntactic format and the change of semantics,the“ji(几)”is further grammaticalized from interrogative pronoun to degree adverb.

A Corpus-Based Study on the Acquisition of the Modal Adverb Fanzheng by Foreign Learners of Chinese

This study investigates foreign learners＇ acquisition of the Chinese modal adverb fanzheng on the basis of interlanguage corpus. We find that the sentences written by foreign learners of Chinese （hereafter simplified as FLC） with the wordfanzheng are quite similar to those by Chinese native speakers in the distribution of the syntactic categories, semantic types, semantic functions, pragmatic or discourse functions. These characterize basically the wordfanzheng as one of the modal adverbs in such three aspects as syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Most of the FLCs study the basic meanings and typical contexts of the wordfanzheng at primary stage, and later the functions emphasizing reasons, summary or explaining, and then the function of textual cohesion at the intermediate and advanced stage. The main causes of errors reflect that the FLCs are not able to differentiate the usage offanzheng and that of other causal or adversative conjunctions.

A Comparative Study of the Colligation of the Japanese Degree Adverb“非常に”and“大変”

The abstract collocation of words reflects a grammatical level of relationship that can be summarised as class association,a term introduced by Firth(1957[1968],p.181)as one of the key concepts in the study of corpus.A colligation is a collocation class that shows the different collocations between words.The classification of degree adverbs in Japanese can be divided into“evaluative degree adverbs(評価系程度副詞)”and“non-evaluative degree adverbs(非評価系程度副詞)”according to Watanabe’s(1990)theory.This paper takes“非常に”and“大変”,both of which are non-evaluative degree adverbs,as the objects of the study,using a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches,to analyse“非常に”and“大変”,which belong to the same category of degree adverbs,from a co-occurrence perspective by using relevant statistical tools and the definition of colligation.

A Study of the Semantic Prosody of Adverb of Degree -The Case of “Très (Very)” in French

The collocations of lexical item are able to create a certain semantic atmosphere in the context,which will infect the lexical item and thus give it a certain semantic prosody.Based on the literature corpus,this paper takes the French degree adverb“très”as the object of study.Combining description and interpretation,qualitative and quantitative analysis,the research uses linguistic analysis software as well as semantic prosody theory to analyze its semantic prosody.The study found that“très”possesses mixed semantic prosody.

现代汉语副词的音节单双、句法属性及句法效应

学界关于现代汉语副词的句法研究成果非常丰富,然而对于下面例(1)的对立现象尚未给出一致的解释,例如:(1)a.你爸什么时候走的?刚刚。(陆俭明,1983)b.你爸什么时候走的?*刚。"刚"和"刚刚"在词性和语义都一致的情况下,仅由音节单双差异造成了句法上的对立,这种对立是批量性、系统性的。