An Analysis of the Usage of the Emerging Degree Adverb “<i>Ju</i>” from the Perspective of Linguistic Inflation

文章以新兴程度副词“巨”为研究对象，以BCC语料库为语料来源，考察“巨”的句法分布与语义特征，并从语言通货膨胀视角探讨其流行机制。研究发现，“巨”具有灵活的句法组合能力，可修饰形容词、动词及部分名词，在陈述句和感叹句中高频出现，表达强烈主观评价；其语义以程度强化为核心，兼具褒贬兼容性，否定式“巨不X”突显极端负面情绪。其引发的语言通货膨胀现象，由使用者求新心理、社会文化因素及语言系统内部调节机制共同推动：使用者追求新颖表达以弥补传统程度副词的语义磨损，网络社交加速其扩散，语言系统通过叠加形式等创新维持表达效果。This paper examines the emerging degree adverb “Ju” based on corpus analysis from the BCC corpus, investigating its syntactic distribution and semantic features while exploring its popularity mechanism from the perspective of linguistic inflation. The study finds that “Ju” exhibits flexible syntactic combinability, modifying adjectives, verbs, and certain nouns, frequently appearing in declarative and exclamatory sentences to convey strong subjective evaluations. Its semantic core lies in degree intensification, with compatibility for both positive and negative connotations, while the negative form “Ju bu X” highlights extreme negative emotions. The linguistic inflation phenomenon triggered by “Ju” is driven by users’ pursuit of novelty, sociocultural factors, and internal linguistic regulation mechanisms: users seek innovative expressions to compensate for the semantic erosion of traditional degree adverbs, online socialization accelerates its diffusion, and the linguistic system maintains expressive effectiveness through innovations like stacked forms.