An Exploration of the Formation and Development of the Chinese Degree Adverbs “Duo” and “Duo Me”

DOI

10.2991/icelaic-18.2018.89How to use a DOI?

Keywords

degree adverbs; duo/duo me; question; exclamation

Abstract

This thesis mainly discusses three questions. Firstly, it calls the view that the use of the degree adverb “duo” in questions and exclamations is an omitted and shortened form to the use of “duo shao duo me” in front of adjectives in question. Instead, this thesis believes that the transformation of “duo” from adjective to adverb is realized by its accession of adverbial functions and the highly frequent use of the fixed structure as “duo shao”, “ji duo”, “wu duo”. Secondly, it discusses the inaccuracy of Ota Tatsuo’s view that there is no documentary record of the use of “duo” to express exclamatory signification in Qing Dynasty. Instead, the time should be advanced to Yuan Dynasty as put forward by Lv Shuxiang. In addition, the exact date when “duo me” firstly appeared is at the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty. Thirdly, it argues that the use of “duo” to express exclamatory signification does not originate in question sentences, for the usages emerged almost at the same age. Their difference is determined by the language user’s expression purposes and the sentence structure’s grammatical meaning.

Copyright

© 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yan Cuike
PY  - 2018/12
DA  - 2018/12
TI  - An Exploration of the Formation and Development of the Chinese Degree Adverbs “Duo” and “Duo Me”
BT  - Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Education, Language, Art and Inter-cultural Communication (ICELAIC 2018)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 407
EP  - 412
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/icelaic-18.2018.89
DO  - 10.2991/icelaic-18.2018.89
ID  - Cuike2018/12
ER  -