Analysis of the Syntactic Phenomenon of Disyllabic Adverbs in Modern Chinese Functioning as Attributive Modifiers

The ≪新汉语水平考试大纲(HSK)≫ includes 230 adverbs, of which 148 are non-category disyllabic adverbs. Through individual search, it was discovered that time adverbs such as “历来、曾经、向来、立即、预先、刚刚” and scope adverbs such as “就近” can enter the structure “adverb+的+X” to function as attributive modifiers. Adverbs expressing “quantity” semantics like “几乎、将近、 恰巧、刚刚、一共、至少” can also function as attributive modifiers of numeral phrases.Based on this linguistic phenomenon, the paper primarily discusses the commonality of implicit predicates, and then explores the mechanism of adverbs functioning as attributive modifiers from the perspectives of the activation of temporal adverbs and the expression of “quantity” semantics. This can be summarized as follows:1) When adverbs enter the structure “Adverb+的+X” to function as attributive modifiers, implicit predicates can be inferred: when the head modified by the adverb can serve as a non-objective verb argument, the verb “有” expressing existence can be inferred, with the light verb being “BE” indicating a state; when the head modified by the adverb can serve as a non-patient verb argument, the verb “做” expressing action can be inferred, with the light verb being DO indicating an agentive action. It is worth noting that these heads can have [+time] and [+change] semantics activated under the activation of temporal adverbs, corresponding to the temporal adverbs.2) Adverbs that can modify numeral phrases all have the semantic function of expressing “quantity”, and can be placed before numeral phrases to function