FUNCTIONAL-SEMANTIC DESCRIPTION OF THE PARTICLE 就 (JIÙ) IN CHINESE

Abstract

The article analyzes the functional-semantic characteristics of the particle 就 (jiù) in Modern Chinese. Four principal types of its usage—temporal, quantitative (restrictive), conditional, and emphatic meanings—are examined, and a unified semantic basis that connects them, namely the principle of “deviation toward an earlier (higher) point than the expected norm,” is substantiated. The study discusses the nature of 就 as a scalar operator, its systematic opposition to 才, its meaning of subjective large quantity, and the issues related to its correspondence in the Uzbek language