Quantitative Study on the Moral Tendency and Moral Types of Chinese Adverbs

Shaqi Huang, Dong Yu, Hongrui Wang, Pengyuan Liu, Jiaqi Liu

Abstract: Current research on the semantics of adverbs primarily focuses on emotional and stylistic meaning. However, adverbs also have distinct moral semantics, reflecting their moral tendencies and correlation with moral type. To explore this, we developed a framework for moral semantics and compiled a corpus of 10,313 adverbial phrases from the BCC (Beijing Language and Culture University Corpus Center). Our quantitative analysis revealed that 73 adverbs exhibit clear moral inclinations, with 12 showing particularly strong tendencies. Additionally, we identified 37 adverbs closely linked to specific moral types. These findings deepen our understanding of adverb semantics and highlight the significance of moral dimensions in their usage.

External IDs:dblp:conf/clsw/HuangYWLL24