A Typological Study of the Mongolian and Chinese Comparatives From the Perspective of the Cardiff Grammar

Abstract

—This paper explores the syntactic and semantic functions of “NP + ᠡᠴᠡ᠌ (aca/ece)” in the Mongolian comparatives and “比 (bǐ)+ NP” in the Chinese comparatives from the perspective of the model of Cardiff Grammar in Systemic Functional Linguistics. It is found that “NP + ᠡᠴᠡ᠌ (aca/ece)” in the Mongolian comparatives is case group, which can function as Main Verb and Adjunct. “ 比 (bǐ)+ NP” in the Chinese comparatives is prepositional phrase, which can serve as Main Verb, Adjunct and Complement. Through the typological analysis, we find that the similarities in Mongolian and Chinese comparatives outweigh their differences in terms of process type and subject theme. However, the detailed features vary in the most delicate systems – within the lexical zone at the stratum of lexicogrammar. The findings not only provide a tentative solution to the long-standing debates on the comparatives, but also shed light on the teaching and learning of the comparatives in Mongolian and Chinese.