In order to get the comparison of attributive position between Chinese and English, we will analyze it from the aspects of semantics, pragmatics and cognitive. Firstly, it discusses from the semantic level with the principle of semantic closing and fins that the ingredient served as pre-attributive are same roughly between Chinese and English. Secondly, from the cognitive level, it gets the consistency of the Chinese and English attributive with the theory of figure-background. Last but not least, it compares the two language’s attributive place from the cognitive level using the principle of end-weight and end-focus. About the attributive, it concludes that the phenomenon of moving-forward in English and the post-attributive of Chinese are roughly same with the purpose of emphasizing and modifying the central word and seeking the balance of sentence structure.
II. Chinese Attributive Position Analysis
2.1 Chinese Attributive Position Analysis in Semantic
We classify attributives into these aspects: property attributive, nature attributive, time attributive, space attributive and other special situation.
a) Property attributive are often used to describe something about its status, shape, character and other aspects. These aspects of attributive has close relationship. In other words, these words often are closer to central word than other aspects of attributive. For example: This is a beautiful small butterfly.
b) Nature attributive is the description for the object which the central word points including its status, shape, character, and other aspects. This attributive usually has close relationship with the central word, so the nature attributive often are put after other attributives, that is to say nature attributive is put in the place that closer to central word.
c) The time attributive and space attributive mainly to describe and limit the material and concept in time and space aspects.
d) Another situation is also worth researching. The special attributive are those attributive types which not exist regularly but those formed temporarily which include quantitative phrases, subject-verb structure, verbal words and so on. The special attributive position and its close degree with the central word is also special, because the special attributives are formed temporarily, so the distance between the special attributive and central word is closer in some extent. In Chinese, the post-attributive has two aspects, in one aspect, the quantifier are regarded as attributive, in another aspect, the adjective is regarded as attributive. These post-attributive often play the role of modifier and emphasis and mainly to express the character in some aspect.
2.2 Chinese Attributive Position Analysis in Pragmatic
Pragmatics means the way how the language to use, not just the language itself; it means the function of language not the structure. We have discussed the semantic cause of Chinese attributive order. If there are property attributive and the nature attributive in one sentence, property attributive is often put in front of the nature attributive; if there are time attributive and the space attributive in one sentence, the time attributive usually is put in front of the space attributive. If there are all above attributives in one sentence, it is not easy to clacify the order, but in semantic expressing, we usually discuss the time and space attributive first and then the other aspects. About the pragmatic of attributive in Chinese, we mainly to pay attention to the situation of putting it in the end of the sentence. In Chinese, the attributive are often in front of the central word. However, because of the need in pragmatic expressing, the attributive sometimes will be put after the central word. So we can say that the post-attributive is a pragmatic word phenomenon.源`自*751?文.论/文`网[www.751com.cn 英汉句子中定语的位置比较研究(2):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_54393.html