A Study of “Ad+‘地’”“อย่าง jaːŋ21+ Ad”Order and Adverbial Modifier Marker Distribution Criteria in Chinese and Thai through a Typological Lens

Abstract

Previous comparative studies on adverbial modifiers in Chinese and Thai have constantly received much attention from scholars. These studies have highlighted noticeable differences in the order of adverbial modifiers between both languages, leading to incorrect usage by Thai learners of Chinese. Nevertheless, most previous studies emphasize providing descriptive results of the comparison and do not offer plausible explanations for such differences. This present study, therefore, aims to analyze two issues in the use of adverbial modifiers in Chinese and Thai through a typological lens. The first issue concerns the causes for differences in the order of “Ad+‘地’”“อย่าง jaːŋ²¹+ Ad”in Chinese and Thai, while the second issue pertains to the criteria in the distribution of adverbial modifier markers. The results of the study reveal that the causes of the difference in the placement order of “Ad+‘地’”“อย่าง jaːŋ²¹+ Ad”in Chinese and Thai could be accounted for by the head-dependent theory and the principle of temporal sequence. In addition, the occurrence of the adverbial modifier marker “地” in Chinese and “อย่าง jaːŋ²¹” in Thai could be explained using the Heaviness-marking Correspondence and Distance-marking Correspondence rules. It is hoped that the results of this study would offer in-depth insights into the comparative studies of adverbial modifiers in Chinese and Thai, contributing to the enhancement of Chinese language teaching and learning.