副词“差不多”与“几乎”之多维辨察.

The adverb, “差不多（chabuduo）” and “几乎（jihu）” are close in core semantic meaning, but differ in semantics, syntax and usage. Semantically, “差不多（chabuduo）” expresses a deeper degree than that of “几乎（jihu）”; “差不多（chabuduo）” can mean either more than or less than when it modifies a quantitative component while “几乎（jihu）” can only mean less than; “差不多（chabuduo）” can mean both completed and unfinished, while “几乎（jihu）” generally means unfinished. Syntactically, both “差不多（chabuduo）” and “几乎（jihu）” can modify verbs, adjectives, quantifiers, nouns, etc. Pragmatically, “差不多（chabuduo）” is objective while “几乎（jihu）” tends to be subjective; they can be found in declarative sentences, interrogative sentences and exclamatory sentences; “差不多（chabuduo）” can only be found in yes-no questions and specific questions while “几乎（jihu）” can also appear in positive and negative questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]