Syntactic and semantic features of adverbs of degree in english and chinese

iv ABTRACT The research mainly focuses on describing syntactical characteristics and semantic features of adverbs of degree in English and Chinese novels, after that pointing out the si

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES

OF ADVERBS OF DEGREE IN ENGLISH

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES

OF ADVERBS OF DEGREE IN ENGLISH

HANOI – 2022

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CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled

“Syntactic and semantic features of adverbs of degree in English and Chinese”

submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The completion of this study is a result of the support and encouragement from several people I would like to express my deep gratitude and appreciation to them for their precious help and support

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my admirable advisor Assoc Prof Dr Hoang Tuyet Minh for the continuous support and motivation and for her comments and suggestions during the study Her stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher

My thanks also go to all my lecturers at Hanoi Open University for their precious knowledge which lay the foundation for this study, my colleagues and many others whose support and encouragement help me to have this thesis accomplished

My sincere thanks also go to my HOU 2019-2021(2) classmates, in particular my close ones, who always encouraged and helped me solve the problems which occurred during the study

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family and friends for their patience, endless love, and devotion Whatever choices I have made, they have always stood by me and believed in me I am immensely thankful for all the assistance they have given to me

This accomplishment would not have been possible without all of them Thank you very much

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ABTRACT

The research mainly focuses on describing syntactical characteristics and semantic features of adverbs of degree in English and Chinese novels, after that pointing out the similarities and differences in syntactic and semantic features of them Descriptive method, comparative analysis method, and analytical and synthetic methods were applied in the research to expose and analyze the data This research analyzes two literary works, an English novel “If tomorrow comes” by Sidney Sheldon and a Chinese novel “古船” (The Ancient Ship) by Zhang Wei As

the result, 36 adverbs of degree with 686 occurrences were found in the English novel and 26 adverbs of degree with 1.286 occurrences were found in the Chinese one The results of this research are: Firstly, both adverbs of degree in English and adverbs of degree in Chinese can take various positions in the sentences like, post verbal position, preverbal position Secondly, English adverbs of degree and Chinese adverbs of degree as well can modify different word class such as: adjective phrases, adverb phrases, prepositional phrases and verbal phrases, and noun phrase Last, English and Chinese adverbs of degree are divided into some semantic categories On the whole, adverbs of degree in English and Chinese share some similarities, but they are different in some ways, too

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Adj : Adjective

Adv-Ps : Adverb Phrase

APs : Adjective Phrase

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 4.1 English adverbs of degree found in the English novel and

their occurrence ………31 Table 4.2 English adverbs of degree found in the English novel and

their occurrence ………37 Table 4.3 Syntactic features of English adverbs degree in the novel “If

tomorrow come” by Sidney Sheldon……… 41 Table 4.4 Syntactic features of Chinese adverbs degree in the novel “古

船” (The ancient ship) by Zhang Wei……… 42

Table 4.5 Semantic features of English adverbs degree in the novel “If

tomorrow come” by Sidney Sheldon……… 49 Table 4.6 Semantic features of Chinese adverbs degree in the novel “古

船” (The ancient ship) by Zhang Wei……… 54

Table 4.7 Syntactic features of adverbs of degree in English and

Chinese novels……… 55

Table 4.8 Semantic features of adverbs of degree in English and

Chinese novels ……….57

2.2.1 Adverb in English and Chinese 8 2.2.1.1 Adverb in English 8 2.2.1.2 Adverbs in Chinese 11 2.2.2 Adverbs of degree in English and adverbs of degree in Chinese

5.3 Implication of the thesis for learning English and Chinese 62

5.5 Recommendations and suggestion for further studies 64

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

English is an international language, spoken in many countries both as a native and as a second or foreign language It is taught in the schools in almost every country on this earth English language is an international language used all over the world as a means of communication Chinese is not used as widely as English, but it is spoken by the most people It cannot be denied that English and Chinese are currently the two most popular foreign languages in Vietnam, and it has been a tendency for Vietnamese to learn the two languages at the same time Any comparative and contrastive studies about English and Chinese are supposed to be crucial for Vietnamese learners and to some extend can add certain theoretical background to study English and Chinese

In language study, it has been widely agreed that words are one of the most important components which language learners must master in order to comprehend not only their denotative meaning but also connotative meaning including other necessary aspects such as their patterning and grammar in use Two main types of words that play important roles in languages in general and in English and Chinese

in particular are content words and function words Linguistically, it is explained that a function word, sometimes called a grammatical word or a closed class word,

is a word that contains little lexical meaning or has no meaningful meaning, but expresses a grammatical or structural relationship with other words in a sentence (Hartmann & Stork, 1972; Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik, 1985; Au-Yeung, Howell & Pilgrim, 1998; Hartsuiker, Bastiaanse, Postma & Wijnen, 2005) Function words include prepositions, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs, modals, particles and quantifiers In contrast to the function word, a content word or

a lexical word or an open-class word, is referred to as a word that has meaning itself and function to carry the content of a sentence According to Carter, McCarthy and O’Keeffe (2011), English has four classes of content words, namely nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs Since ancient times, the words of the Chinese language

have been grouped into two main categories: 虚 词 (function word) and 实 词

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(content word) The parts of speech classified as content words are: nouns,

pronouns, verbs, auxiliary verbs, adjectives, adverbs, number words, measure words and interjections Chen (1978) takes adverbs as content words that show manner, degree or tone of the statements

The discussion of adverbs has been an everlasting topic in linguistics From ancient Greek grammar, dating back to the 2nd century BC, to the present, the discussions of adverbs have been popular among all linguistic schools Even so, there are still contradictions and disputes, for example, the adverb forms that are hard to seize, meanings that are not easy to operate on Adverbs in general and adverbs of degree in particular are extremely difficult language phenomena

Thus, the access to knowledge about adverbs of degree is considered important to language learners, since without good achievement of adverbs, one will find difficulties in using the language effectively Yet, Philip (2008) finds out that the use of adverbs of degree is still problematic for language learners

In the process of teaching English and Chinese adverbs in general and adverbs of degree in particular, there is a fact that Vietnamese learners have faced many problems when they use this group of words They are often confused to choose the right adverb, especially adverbs of degree and make errors in using them Therefore, a study has been carried out to find out how to use adverbs of degree in English and Chinese accurately and correctly from the analysis of their syntactic and semantic features As there are a lot of adverbs of degree with different syntactic and semantic features in both English and Chinese, so a great number of learners make mistakes when they use this adverb group in different situations to communicate To identify and compare the syntactic and semantic features of the English and Chinese adverbs of degree is important to learners, so that they can have good knowledge to use this word group effectively For the above reasons, the topic “Syntactic and semantic features of adverbs of degree in English and Chinese” is chosen with the purpose of finding out the similarities and differences between English and Chinese adverbs of degree The study only focuses

on the adverbs of degree in the English novel “If tomorrow comes” by Sidney

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Sheldon and in Chinese novel “The ancient ship” by Zhang Wei with the hope that thesis will be a useful reference, to the extent possible, for teaching and learning English as well as Chinese

1.2 Aims and objectives

1.2.1 Aims of the study:

To help learners of Vietnamese master English and Chinese adverbs

of degree in terms of their syntactic and semantic features in the process of learning English and Chinese correctly and effectively

1.2.2 Objectives of the study:

To identify the syntactic and semantic features of adverbs of degree in English and Chinese

To find out the similarities and differences between adverbs of degree

in English and those in Chinese in terms of their syntactic and semantic features

1.3 Research questions

This study intends to answer the following questions:

(1) What are the syntactic and semantic features of English and Chinese adverbs of degree?

(2) What are the similarities and differences between adverbs of degree in English and those in Chinese in terms of their syntactic and semantic features?

1.4 Scope of the study

Academically, adverbs of degree which are analyzed in this study are English

and Chinese in terms of syntactic and semantic features

The data used in the study are collected from two modern novels: the one in English is “If tomorrow comes” by Sydney Sheldon and the one in Chinese is “The ancient ship” by Zhang Wei

1.5 Methods of the study

Qualitative method is first used for describing and interpreting the syntactic and semantic features of English and Chinese adverbs of degree

The main methods employed in this study are comparative and contrastive methods, exploring the similarities and differences between English and Chinese adverbs of degree

Analytical and synthetic methods are also used for grouping English and Chinese adverbs of degree on the basic of certain criteria according to structural and semantic features

1.6 Significance of the study

Theoretically, the similarities and differences between the English and Chinese adverbs of degree in terms of syntactic and semantic features will be highlighted and analyzed in great detail to add some certain theoretical background

to study English and Chinese

Practically, this research helps, first, the Vietnamese learners have better knowledge about the syntactic and semantic features of adverbs of degree in English and Chinese Second, the Vietnamese academic writers as well as language users will be able to promote their accuracy in using the English and Chinese adverbs of degree

1.7 Structure of Thesis

The thesis consists of 5 chapters as follow:

Chapter 1 is the Introduction of the study which shows the reasons why the topic is chosen, what the research aims at as well as the scope, the methods, the significance and the structural organization of the study

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Chapter 2 is the Literature review and Theoretical background of the study This chapter will give the brief review of related literature and theoretical background of every matter mentioned in the study

Chapter 3 is the Methodology in which the main steps and techniques applied in the study such as data collection, description and comparison the adverbs

of degree between two languages is provided

Chapter 4 is the syntactic and semantic features of adverbs of degree in English and Chinese novels It presents and analyzes the collected data from the English and Chinese novels as well as gives the similarities and differences in syntactic and semantic features of English adverbs of degree and Chinese adverbs

of degree Besides that, the study offers some comprehensive understanding about English and Chinese adverbs of degree for Vietnamese learners of English and Chinese

Chapter 5 is the Conclusion of the study which presents the recapitulation of the study, the limitations of the study and some suggestions for further study

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CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review of previous studies

2.1.1 Previous studies in English

Gusti Agung Wulandari (2013) in her thesis with the title “Adverb of degree analysis in “Real Life Reads” pages of cosmopolitan magazine” has analyzed form, function and position of adverbs of degree in cosmopolitan magazine in English Source of data uses in her thesis is article with title “real life” cosmopolitan magazine The purpose of her thesis is to identify the forms of adverbs of degree, to analyze the function of adverbs of degree and then to describe the positions of adverbs of degree Conclusion in her thesis is that most of adverbs of degree are formed by adding-ly suffix from adjective or they have the suffixation process Based on their function, adverbs of degree in the sentences are used to modify adjective

The second thesis with the title “Adverb of degree in the Short Story “the Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving” (2019) was made by Atika Rahmadiana This research analyzes one of works, the short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving The purpose of the research is to identify the forms of adverbs of degree in sentences, to describe the positions of adverbs of degree in sentences, and to analyze the functions of adverbs of degree in sentences that occur in short story “the Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving

Kennedy and McNally (2002, 2005) discuss the asymmetric distributions of the co-occurrence between adverbs of degree and adjectives On the basis of analyzing the relation between adverbs of degree and gradable adjectives, they provide some crucial findings that the standard of comparison for gradable adjectives is contextually-driven

2.1.2 Previous studies in Chinese

According to Lü (1980), Chinese adverbs of degree may modify some occurring categories and render degree property to them When modifying their following element, Chinese adverbs of degree are either used for specifying strong-degree attribution, or utilized for assigning minimal-degree attribution with

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pejorative evaluation In his finding, some possible categories following adverbs of degree, such as adjectives, psych-verbs, auxiliaries, demonstratives and pronouns, are listed individually in the dictionary

As for Zhu (1956, 1982), he focuses the study on the relation between adverbs of degree and two categories (adjectives and psych-verbs) The adverb of

degree, hen is used to distinguish the murky boundaries between adjective and verb

In addition, some characteristics of hen are described: (A) Hen may mark degree

and modify major gradable adjectives and minor verbs (B) It cannot modify reduplicated adjectives which intrinsically encode a certain amount of quantity, and cannot collocate with non-gradable adjectives that logically attribute the property of trueness

The two studies mentioned above provide a basic description of the collocations with adverbs of degree and they stimulate continuous discussion of the diverting behaviors between adverbs of degree Nevertheless, it is insufficient to provide a plausible account of the observed phenomena They mostly draw attention

on a pre-theoretical overview of the collocations in lexicon intuitively without explicit examples

Zhuang (2002) makes an effort to describe the characteristics of the adverbs

of degree such as quality distinction, quality gradation, and synonymy/ antonymy, juxtaposition of meaning of adverbs of degree, the findings mostly focus on discussing the relation between adjectives, psych-verbs or degree adverbs As for the collocations between adverbs of degree and post-adverbial categories such as nouns (common noun and proper noun), demonstrative and interrogative, this work does not tackle these phenomena

Overall, all most aspects of English and Chinese adverbs of degree are analyzed and discussed in the researches above such as forms, functions, positions, collocations However, there has been no comparative and contrastive study on English and Chinese adverbs of degree in terms of both syntactic and semantic features That is the reason for this research to be done

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2.2 Review of theoretical background

2.2.1 Adverb in English and Chinese

2.2.1.1 Adverb in English

a The definition of adverb

An adverb is a word that modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a noun or noun phrase, determiner, a numeral, a pronoun or a preposition phrase and can sometimes be used as a complement of a preposition An adverb is a part of speech that describes or modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, clause, or sentence An adverb is the sentence element used to qualify or determine verbs In addition, an adverb is also used to qualify or determine nouns, adjectives, other adverbs, and even entire sentence

Raymond Murphy (1985: 192) states that an adverb tells us about a verb An adverb tells us in what way someone does something or in what way something happens An adverb is a word of group words which has function to explain a verb, adjective of adverbs which also has a function in a sentence (Gorys Keraf, 1984: 74)

An adverb is a word that adds more information about place, time, circumstance, manner, cause, degree, etc to a verb, an adjective, a phrase or another adverb (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 1995: 18)

Based on Wikipedia, http://www.wikipedia.com/definition/adverbs that adverbs are descriptive words that convey a sense of how, when, where, or why An adverb's descriptiveness can be applied to a verb, an adjective, or to another adverb

An Adverb can be concluded that it can be simply viewed as the process of the reader’s thinking in relation to written

b The kinds of adverb

P.C Wren and H Martin (1935) state that adverbs may be divided into the following classes, according to their meanings

A Adverbs of manner: Adverbs of manner say how something happens

They are happily, quickly, terribly, beautifully, badly, well, fast, etc

Examples: (1) The dog runs quickly

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(2) Sasha sang beautifully

B Adverbs of time: Adverbs of time say when something happens Among

others are today, afterward, in June, last year, daily, weekly, before, soon, still, last

Examples: (3) 1 am going to London today

(4) She has a new hair style every week

C Adverbs of degree or quantity: Adverbs of degree modify an adjective

or another adverb They are placed before the adjective or adverb Those adverbs of

degree or quantity are for instance absolutely, almost, barely, completely, enough, only, quite, so, too, very, just, much, etc

Examples: (5) Mr John explained the topic so clear

(6) You are absolutely right

D Adverbs of frequency: Adverbs of frequency show how often something

happens The adverbs of frequency are always, often, usually sometimes, never, etc

Examples: (7) The students never come late

(8) She often writes a letter

E Adverbs of place: Adverbs of place show where something happens

They are around, upstairs, here, to bed, in London, out of the window, etc

Examples: (9) The children are playing upstairs

(10) Come and sit here!

F Adverbs of affirmation and negation

Examples: (11) Surely, you are mistaken

(12) I do not know him

G Adverbs of reason

Example: (13) He is hence unable to refute the charge

Marcella Frank (1972) says there are many kinds of adverbs

(1) Types of adverbs classified by meaning

A Manner

B Place and direction

C Time

D Degree or quantifier

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(2) Types of adverbs classified by function

A Sentence adverbs: These adverbs modify an entire sentence

Example: (14) Fortunately, the boy threw the ball quickly

B Conjunctive adverbs: They probably should be considered as modifying

the whole sentence or clauses rather than the verb alone These adverbs show such a

relationship as result (therefore, accordingly), addition (besides, moreover), contrast (however, nevertheless), condition (otherwise), time (then)

Examples: (15) Put one box beside the other; please!

(16) I would like to go; however, I have not time

C Explanatory adverbs: These adverbs illustrate or enumerate: namely, for

example, as, i.e (that, is), e.g (for example)

Examples: (17) He worked as he talked

(18) I bought many things namely book, bag and pen

D Relative, interrogative adverbs

E Exclamatory' adverbs (how) These adverbs are used with adjectives and

adverbs

Examples: (19) How beautiful she is!

(20) How beautifully she dresses!

c The functions of adverb

Marcella Frank (1972) states that there are three functions of adverbs They are as follows:

A The modifier of a verb

Examples: (21) The boy threw the ball quickly

(22) They speak English fluently

B The modifier of an adjective and adverb

Examples: (23) 1 work quite hard every day

(24) He was clearly disappointed when he failed

C The modifier of an entire sentence

Examples: (25) Fortunately, the boy threw the ball quickly

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(26) Yesterday, we submitted the report to the committee

d The positions of adverb

There are three positions of adverbs:

A Initial position before the subject

Example: (27) Sometimes, she comes late

B Mid-position with the verb

Example: (28) She sometimes come late

C Final position after the verb plus an object or another complement

Example: (29) She come late sometimes

2.2.1.2 Adverbs in Chinese

a The definition of adverb

The definition of Chinese adverbs varies from person to person Chen (1982) says that adverbs are modifiers of adjectives or verbs Chen (1978) takes adverbs as content words that show manner, degree or tone of the statements Ding (1982) agrees to some extent with Cheng Ze Chen by saying that adverbs are modifiers of verbs, auxiliary verbs and adjectives Wang (1943) defines them as words that will never be the core elements of sentences, i.e subjects or predicates Zhu (1982) argues that adverbs are function words only used as adverbials The above definitions have different foundations Some are based on the lexical meaning, and others are based on the grammatical function or both In the book of Modern Chinese, Huang and Liao (1991) have integrated the previous definitions and defined adverbs as modifiers of verbs and adjectives in the sense of degree, scope,

time, frequency, etc Adverbs in Chinese, with only two exceptions: 很 (very) and

极 (extremely), always precede the modified words It is proper to say that adverbs

are usually used to modify verbs and adjectives However, as found in the corpus and also proved in some research articles, Chinese adverbs sometimes modify nouns as well

b The kinds of adverb

A Conjunctive adverb

(He often goes to the library to borrow books.)

G Adverb of mood (Modal adverb)

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(I have never tasted Beijing roast duck.)

c The functions of adverb

(1) The modifier

A The modifier of an entire sentence

Example: (41) 最好你去。

(You better go.)

B The modifier of a verb

Example: (42) 他已经走了。

(He has already gone.)

C The modifier of an adjective

Example: (43) 我非常高兴。

(He is extremely happy.)

D The modifier of a pronoun: adverbs can modify the pronouns which can

replace the verb and adjectives such as “这样” (like this), “那样” (like that),

“这么着” (like this)

(Things are already like this, what else can be done?) (45) 你就这么着，不要动。

(You are just like this, don’t move.)

E The modifier of a noun or a quantifier: when nouns or quantifiers are functioned as the predicate, they can be modified by the adverbs that express time and extent and so on

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(2) The complement

Adverbs can be the complement but only limited in the adverbs expressing degree like “极”, “很”, “坏”, “死” and “透” The words before them should be

adjective or verb expressing mental state such as “好极了” (extremely good), “高兴

极了” (extremely happy), “坏极了” (extremely bad), “脏死了” (deadly dirty), “急

死了” (deadly worried), “糟糕透了” (awful), “坏透了” (extremely bad)

(That building is tall and big.)

d The positions of adverb

There are three positions of adverbs:

A Initial position before the subject

(Aren't you concerned that she might tell someone?)11381

(First of all, I'd like to ask you a few questions.)

B Mid-position with the verb or adjective

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(Free things are often the most expensive.)

C Final position after the verb plus an object or another complement

Some adverbs, such as 极, 很, 坏, 死, or 透, can be placed after adjectives or psychological verbs as complements

Examples: (56) 我现在生气得很。

(I am very angry now.)

(Her new clothes are extremely beautiful.)

Of all the adverbs in English and in Chinese, the adverbs of degree are considered the main research subjects of the thesis, they will be described in detail

in the next part

2.2.2 Adverbs of degree in English and adverbs of degree in Chinese

2.2.2.1 Adverbs of degree in English

a Definition

The term degree adverbs can be used interchangeably with the terms of degree modifiers or intensifiers The usage of this notion is to convey the degree or

the exact value of the quality expressed by the item that is modified In other words,

it is a kind of linguistic grading that may add any expressive richness to a certain

message Quirk and Greenbaum define intensifiers as linguistic devices that boost

the meaning of a property upwards from an assumed not (Quirk & Greenbaum, 1973) The presence of such intensifiers is needed in written academics since such writings should be objective Therefore, intensifiers may help the writers to accommodate their desire to ‘exploit hyperbole’

The intensifiers may be the vehicle for the writers to impress, praise, persuade, insult, and generally influence the readers’ reception of the message (Quirk & Greenbaum, 1973) Not to mention, there might be particular conventions

on how degree adverbs are employed to demonstrate any attitudinal aspects of the

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writers Backlund gives a detailed descriptive characterization of degree adverbs in English and divides them into eight subclasses in terms of some notions of degree

(Su, 2017) For example, the degree adverbs such as quite, pretty, rather, and fairly

belong to moderate degree adverbs The work of Greenbaum on some verb- intensifier collocations in English has brought a definition of verb-intensifier He suggests that verb-intensifiers are called those adverbs which may be positioned before the verb and have some heightening effect on the force of the verb

However, the term of intensifiers, in general, refers to the adverbs of degree qualify

other adverbs, adjectives, or verbs by increasing or decreasing the degree of intensity of the word to which they refer (Perez, 2012) In addition, Biber describes

degree adverbs as the extent to which a characteristic hold can be used to mark

that the extent or degree is either greater or less than usual or than that of something else in neighboring discourse (Perez, 2012) To classify degree adverbs, we may first take a look at the work of Quirk and Greenbaum in classifying adverbials Quirk and Greenbaum establishes a widely acceptable classification of adverbials into adjuncts, disjuncts, and conjuncts Adjuncts then can be sub-classified based on semantic criteria into viewpoint, focusing, intensifiers, process, subject, place, time, and adjuncts involving other meanings

b Syntactic features

(1) Positions

There five positions at least for the adverb of degree in sentences They are post verbal position, pre verbal position, initial position, parenthetical position, and interpretation, but not all adverbs matched to this position and so does adverb of

degree There some adverb just matched on one position and some can match more than one position in a sentence

A Post verbal Position

Examples: (58) As he approached a little nearer

(59) That all this might not be too onerous

B Pre- verbal Position

Examples: (60) Pretty much as I have enumerated them

interpretation

Example: (64) John carefully cleaned the floor,

and John cleaned the floor carefully

(2) Functions

Adverbs are traditionally consider as having a modifying or as adjunct

function over sentence or verb phrase They are divided into two major group; s – modifier, and VP – modifier Modifiers can occur all types or phrase Modifier is a

word a phrase or clause which functions as an adjective or adverb to limit or quantify the meaning of another word called the head The modifiers are divided into two kinds of modifiers; pre-modifier which appears in front of the head The second was post modifier which appears after the head

Adverb can also modify adjective phrase (APs), adverb phrase (AdvPs), Verb Phrase (VP) and prepositional Phrase (PPs) In this function, mostly find intensifier adverb such as adverb of degree or of quantity

A Adjective Phrase

Degree modifiers give specifications of degree concerning the adjectives they

modify Adverbs such as very, extremely, absolutely scale adjectival properties 'upwards,' whereas other adverbs, such as slightly, a little, somewhat scale adjectival

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properties 'downwards.' Rather, quite, fairly, and pretty set the qualities that gradable adjectives denote to a moderate level Along with moderately and relatively, these degree modifiers are known as 'moderators'

“A degree modifier is a word (such as very, rather, fairly, quite, somewhat, pretty, sort of, and kind of) that can precede adjectives and adverbs to indicate the degree or extent to which they apply, also known as a degree adverb (ial) and a degree word A degree adverb may express a high degree of a quality for an adjective The degree adverb such may express a high degree in an adjective phrase What expresses a similar meaning an interjection

Examples: (65) As he approached a little nearer

B Adverb Phrase

A degree adverb may be used to modify the intensity of an adverb

It expresses "to what degree"

Example:

Examples: (66) And had just recently moved to a small city in

Washington state

(67) That alcohol abuse can so easily expose woman

The function of adverb just and so in sentences are as pre - modifier of the other

adverb and as intensifier

Example: (68) Pretty much as I have enumerated them

The word much in that sentence came after other adverb degree pretty The adverb much modifying the adverb phrase pretty and it called post modifiers, because much came after the pretty

C Prepositional Phrase

A degree adverb may modify the precisely, approximately or across a distance The degree adverb is placed before the preposition

Examples: (69) And which may even be heard half a mile off, quite to

the opposite side of the mill-pond

Examples: (70) The world did absolutely turn round

(71) Insomuch that he absolutely felt in whiz round the blade

c Semantic features

Adverbs of degree is also called ‘adverbial intensifiers’ or ‘intensifiers’ (Suzuki & Yamagishi, 1999) The term intensifier has been firstly defined by Bolinger (1972, p 17) as “any device that scales a quality, whether up or down or somewhere between the two” Similarly, intensifiers have been acknowledged as adverbs or adverbial groups of words or phrases that are the subset of adverbs of degree, as claimed by Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik (1985), who categorized intensifiers under the group of degree modifiers that express either high

or low point or intensity degree In general, AIs have two main functions which are

to increase or to decrease the modified items’ meaning, as described in the book English Grammar Today The intensifiers are identified as the adverbs or adverbial phrases that add a stronger meaning and show emphasis (Carter et al., 2011, p 255) Likewise, Vasko (2010, section 9.3.2) defined intensifiers as “scaling devices which have either an intensifying or a weakening effect on the meaning of the word they modify” Overall, it seems that not only should the change in a modified item’s meaning be concerning but also its intensity scale or degree must be focused on Strongly confirmed by Lorenz (1998), adverbial intensifiers have a major function

to increase the intensity of the word not its meaning Likewise, Pichler (2016)

(1) Emphasizer

Emphasizers, as defined by Quirk et al (1985), have a reinforcing effect adding to the force of the modified words or phrases; as such, they do not require a gradable predicate in intensifying Examples of emphasizers are actually, certainly, clearly, definitely, indeed, obviously, plainly, really, surely, frankly, honestly, literally, simply Reviewed by Baumgarten, Bois & House (2012), it is summarized that emphasizers’ function is to reinforce truth value

(2) Amplifiers

Amplifiers have their function to intensify or amplify a certain quality Alastrue & Perez-Llantada, 2015), and are subdivided into maximizers and boosters

(Plo-A Maximizers, for instance absolutely, totally, completely, entirely, fully,

quite, thoroughly, and utterly, relate to the extreme degree or occupy the highest position on the intensify scale and most commonly modify non-gradable words (Huddleston & Pullum, 2002)

B Boosters, for instance very, really, terribly, badly, deeply, greatly,

heartily, only indicate that it is very intense but its degree of intensity can be more, and modify fully gradable words (Huddleston & Pullum, 2002)

(3) Down-toners

Down-toners, Quirk et al (1973, 1985) considered that the main function of down-toners is to diminish the modified item’s intensity degree, and divided them into four sub-classes:

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A Approximators, expressing an approximation to the force of verbs,

which reveals more than is actually relevant, e.g: almost, virtually, nearly, as good as;

B Compromisers, can be used for either extreme maximizing or

minimizing, depending on the item they modify, e.g: sort of, quite, rather, enough;

C Diminishers, having a lowering effect and basically mean “to a small

extent” (Quirk et al., 1985, p 599), e.g only, somewhat, partly, slightly, a little;

D Minimizers, scaling downwards considerably, e.g hardly, scarcely,

barely

Regarding its functions, it was stated that speakers use down-toners in order

to weaken the assertion and to ease the unwelcome effect (Urrea, 2006) Consequently, this makes the terms down-toners and hedge able to be used interchangeably (Xiao & Tao, 2007) However, Lakoff (1972) claimed that down-toners implicitly contribute to creating fuzziness As down-toners are very style-sensitive, it has been found that, “informal down-toners (such as hardly, little and only) are rather frequent in informal spoken discourse, whereas formal down-toners (such as nearly, merely and fairly) are prevalent in academic writing” (Plo-Alastrue

& Perez-Llantada, 2015) Furthermore, in academic registers, down-toners are used

to “specifying the amount of different” (Biber et al., 1999, p 567), and thus this type of intensifiers typically collocates with an adjective differently

These theories of English adverbs will be the theoretical basis for determining the adverbs of degree in English in the work “If tomorrow comes” by Sidney Sheldon

2.2.2.2 Adverbs of degree in Chinese

a Definition

The scope and classification of adverbs has been a trouble for Chinese scholars due to different understanding and its complexity Despite the failure to reach a consensus for a uniform classification, most scholars agree that degree adverbs are an important subclass among adverbs

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In studies of ancient Chinese, degree adverbs are defined with the help of its nature and features Yang Bojun and He Leshi (2001:270) say, “Degree adverbs usually appear before verbal or adjectival predicates to describe degrees of actions

or states.” Tang Xianqing (2004:15) points out, “Degree adverbs are those representing degrees reached by different states and actions.” Yang Rongxiang (2005:55) has a similar opinion, “the semantic feature of degree adverbs is representation of degrees of states and actions.” These definitions have made clear the characteristics of degree adverbs, and provided us with basis and standards for judgment of degree adverbs

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(The lips are very sausage-like.)

(77) “打女”形象很成龍 (The image is very Jackie Chen-like.)

B Modifier of adjective phrase (Degree ADV+ AP)

Examples: (78) 我相信他很藍/綠

(I believe he is very KMT/DPP-like.)

(79) 她的眼睛很瞎

(Her eyes have very poor eyesight.)

C Modifier of verb phrase (Degree ADV+ VP)

Examples: (80) 我很高興/生氣。

(I am very happy/angry.)

(I understand/know him very well.)

D Modifier of adverbial phrase (Degree-ADV+ Degree-ADV+ AP)

Examples: (82) 李文秀很有點害怕/妒忌。

(Li Wenxiu is quite sort of afraid/ jealous.)

E Modifier of DP/ Interrogative (Degree ADV+ DP/ Interrogative)

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conclusions of the two scholars, though in different titles, are foundation of later studies The idea of absolute and relative degree adverbs proposed by Wang Li has had a profound influence until today And each category of Mandarin intensifiers is divided into four sub-classes, namely: Extremely high, High, Medium, Low

(1) Relative adverbs of degree

A Extremely high, for instance: most (最), the most (最为), completely (完全)

Intensifiers of this category refer to something that surpasses everything in a certain way

B High, including: more (更、更加), even more (更为、更其、越发), the more (

越) more and more (越加), extra (倍加), further (愈、愈加、愈发), increasingly (

愈为、愈益), expecially (格外), all the more (益发) “更” 类 (lit “more” category)

indicates that the degree is deeper, and that the quantity continues to increase or decrease on the original basis, and the degree is deepened

C Medium, consisting of rather(较), comparatively (比较、较比), relatively (较为

), still (还)

D Low, for instance: Slightly (稍、稍稍), a little (稍微 、稍为), a bit (稍许),

brifly (略、略略), somewhat (略微、略微), something of（些微、多少） This “

稍” 类 ("Slightly" category) indicates a slight degree This category means that the

degree is not high They are used to emphasize that something must have a certain nature, and reach a certain level, a certain amount, although the amount is not high, the amount does not change It can also mean that the time is short or the number is small

(2) Absolute adverbs of degree

A Extremely high, for instance: Extremely (太、极、极为), exceedingly (极其、

极度), to the utmost (极端), utmost (至、至为), top (顶), excessively (过、过分), too (过于) particularly (分外), very much (万分), absolute (绝对) This category refers to the psychological standard beyond general comparison, and belongs to an

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incomparable state, with strong feelings and exaggerated attitudes, and a clear and prominent attitude

B High, for instance: very ( 很 、 挺 、 怪 、 老 、 甚 、 甚 为 、 大 、 大 为 ),

extraordinarily (非常、何等、何其), especially (特 别、相当、尤为), well (好、好不), quite (颇、 颇为、十分、满、蛮), rather (异常、 深为、不胜), enough (

够 ), more ( 多、 多 么), specially (殊 特 、尤 其), incomparably ( 无比) This category means within the normal range, the extreme point of the mental evaluation standard

C Medium: not very (不大、不太、不很、不甚). is above the original grade, it has many components, and the amount that can be expressed varies greatly, but if compared with “extremely high” and “high”, it is still relatively small

D Low: Little (有点，有些)

The syntactical characteristics such as position, function and semantic features of the adverbs of degree in English and in Chinese will be identified as the theoretical basis of the thesis to determine the syntactic and semantic features of the adverbs of degree in the work “If tomorrow comes” in English and the work 《古船

》 (Ancient ship) in Chinese

These theories of Chinese adverbs will be the theoretical basis for

determining the adverbs of degree in Chinese in the work 《古船》 (Ancient ship)

by Zhang Wei

2.3 Summary

In this chapter, such syntactical characteristics as position, function and semantic features of the adverbs of degree in English and in Chinese were described and analyzed in detail with very clear explanation and a great number of examples The syntactical characteristics and semantic functions of the adverbs of degree in English and in Chinese described in 2.1 and 2.2 will help the author to build the theoretical framework of the thesis The result found in this chapter will become basis to determine the syntactic and semantic characteristics of the adverbs of degrees in English and Chinese in two literary works

3.2 Research setting

The research is conducted with data collected from two novels: an English novel “If tomorrow comes” by Sidney Sheldon and a Chinese novel “古船” (The Ancient Ship) by Zhang Wei Here is some background information about the two

writers and their works:

Sidney Sheldon, an American writer, playwright and novelist, was born in Chicago, Illinois, on 11th February 1917 When Sidney was ten, he sold his poem for ten dollars making it his very first sale His 18 novels have sold over 300 million copies in 51 languages Sheldon is consistently cited as one of the top-10 best-selling fiction writers of all time He won awards in three careers—a Broadway playwright, a Hollywood TV and movie screenwriter

“If Tomorrow Comes” was published in 1986 The book is divided into three parts As a fact, the book tells the story of an ordinary woman named Tracy Whitney, who considered herself the luckiest woman in the world and who is framed by the Mafia, her subsequent quest for vengeance towards them and her later life as a con artist The novel “If Tomorrow Comes” represents a story full of adventures, of real-life experience and of the brightest moments that people can only dream of The novel describes the darkest and the brightest corners of life, showing the contrast and the values to be remembered

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Born in November 1956 in Longkou city, Shandong province, Zhang Wei began publishing poetry in 1975, and published his first novel in 1980 He is the chairman of the Shandong Writers’ Association, Member of the Chinese Writers Association since 1983 and a professional author His works have been translated into English, Japanese, French, Korean and German Over two hundred editions have been published in China and overseas

The Ancient Ship (Chinese: 古船) is a Chinese novel by Zhang Wei, first published in 1987 The novel spans four decades of Chinese history beginning with the creation of the People's Republic in 1949, then difficult periods of land reform,

as well as famine, the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward It is the story of three generations, the Sui, Zhao and Li families who live through these difficult times The novel is set in the fictional northern town of Wali which once had a thriving river and docks, but whose river shrank to the point of being unnavigable The title refers to an ancient ship that is discovered buried in the floodplain adjacent to the city An English translation by Howard Goldblatt was published by Harper Collins in 2008.

This will be the main material source for data collection English and Chinese adverbs of degree will be cited from these two works

3.3 Research approach

The main aim of the study is identifying the syntactic and semantic features

of adverbs of degree in English and Chinese and pointing out the similarities and differences between adverbs of degree in English and those in Chinese to provide the Vietnamese learner of English and Chinese necessary knowledge about adverbs

of degree in English and in Chinese in terms of syntactic and semantic features In addition, some implications for learning adverbs of degree in English and those in Chinese need giving Therefore, to achieve the aims stated, qualitative approach was applied in the study

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The qualitative approach is informed by inductive logic, in which potential understandings of a phenomenon are derived from the data Qualitative research involves collecting and analyzing non-numerical data (e.g., text, video, or audio) to understand concepts, opinions, or experiences It can be used to gather in-depth insights into a problem or generate new ideas for research Qualitative research relies on data obtained by the researcher from first-hand observation, interviews, questionnaires, focus groups, participant-observation, recordings made

in natural settings, documents, and artifacts The data are generally nonnumerical Qualitative researchers use different sources of data to understand the topic they are studying These data sources include in-depth interviews, focus groups, standardized interviews, and artifacts such as books or works of art Qualitative researchers may gather information through observations, note-taking, interviews, focus groups (group interviews), documents, and artifacts In the study qualitative approach is used to research the syntactic and semantic features of English adverbs

of degree and Chinese adverbs of degree

3.4 Research methods

Qualitative method is study by collecting words, document as a source of data and qualitative research also known as descriptive or describes of the fact situation, variable and state of the data is research The qualitative method produces the descriptive data in written or oral So, in this research the writer used descriptive qualitative data which are suitable with the research

Descriptive and the comparative analysis are carried out throughout the study All the considerations and conclusion are largely based on the analysis of the collected data and references

The descriptive method is used in the first stage to make details the syntactic and semantic features of English adverbs of degree and Chinese adverbs of degree based on the examples collected from many different sources such as books, newspapers, internet, dictionaries, etc

Furthermore, Google search engine was used to select materials Up to now,

it has become the most popular and effective ways to find reliable and diverse sources of materials

3.5 Principles for data collection and data analysis

In this research, data sources to be analyzed are mainly collected from secondary sources The secondary source cited from two modern novels in English and Chinese, published at the end of the 20th century; books; M.A thesis and electronic source which concern with English adverbs of degree and Chinese adverbs of degree are collected and read for searching useful and needed information

Adverbs of degree in English and Chinese are defined by their syntactic and semantic features which were stated in detail in Chapter 2 36 English adverbs of degree and 26 Chinese ones were found in the two novels

Syntactic features of adverbs of degree in English and in Chinese will be analyzed in term of positions and functions Semantic features of adverbs of degree

in English and in Chinese will be analyzed in term of intensification

Technique of data collection is important to the research, without data collection we cannot do research, and retrieval of data determines the quality of the data and quality of the data will determine the quality of the results Therefore, before doing collection of data, a researcher first needs to determine how the data collected will be used to collect the data In this research, the writer only used the data that document review Taking note method is writing the important in the data, after note technique to take data In this research the data are from internet and the short stories

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There are some steps that writer does in collecting the data Firstly, the writer reads the English novel “If tomorrow comes” by Sidney Sheldon and Chinese novel “The ancient ship” by Zhang Wei repeatedly Then the writer collecting example of words adverb The last, the writer collect, identifies and classifies the data based on formulation of the problem

In this research the writer uses analysis technique because it is suitable to analyze the data The writer took the data from the short story as seen in the English novel “If tomorrow comes” by Sidney Sheldon and the Chinese novel

“The ancient ship” by Zhang Wei

3.6 Summary

A brief description of the method is presented in this chapter and this also shows the way we reach the aim of the research The syntactic and semantic features of English adverbs of degree and Chinese adverbs of degree will be pointed out Furthermore, the study gives out the similarities and differences between English adverbs of degree and Chinese adverbs of degree

by the comparative method I use qualitative research design and analytical method to collect data as well as analyze them The combination of these methods will be the best tool to research the goal of the research

Table 4.1 Adverbs of degree in English novel and their occurrences

1 A little 55 13 Far 05 25 Pretty 05

2 Absolutely 05 14 Fairly 02 26 Quite 25

5 Completely 07 17 Indeed 07 29 A lot 04

6 Deeply 02 18 Just 104 30 Simply 19

7 Enough 27 19 Most 07 31 Terribly 05

8 Enormously 01 20 Rather 04 32 Too 75

9 Entirely 01 21 Nearly 05 33 Totally 05

10 Extremely 03 22 Perfectly 04 34 Very 87

The table shows the number of English adverbs of degree occurred in the novel and their frequencies As we can see from the table, 36 English adverbs of degree were found in the novel “If tomorrow comes”, and their total occurrences

in the novel are 686 The five most frequent adverbs are: just, almost, very, too,

really with 104, 93,87, 75, 63 occurrences respectively Enormously, entirely,

greatly are three adverb of degree that occurred only one time in the novel

4.1.1 Syntactic features of adverbs of degree in the novel “If tomorrow comes”

by Sidney Sheldon

4.1.1.1 In terms of their positions