A Research On The Non-passive Bei-Sentence In Pre-Modern Chinese

Non-passive"Bei"-sentence is an important grammar phenomenon from Tang-dynasty to modern times. In this paper, we mainly make researches on its development process including its emergence and disappearance. We will describe its usage in Tang,Song,Yuan,Ming and Qing dynasty in detail. We will explain the reason why this special"Bei"-sentence emerges then disappears with the theory of grammarticalization.We choose the corpus from the literature in Tang,Song,Yuan,Ming and Qing dynasty, then make an empirical research. We will illuminate the diachronic evolvement of the non-passive"Bei"-sentence through the statistics, then we will make both a static and dynamic explanation on this foundation.According to our research, we mainly come to the following conclusions:<1>The reason of non-passive"Bei"-sentence's emergence"Bei"-sentence is capable of describing the static situation as well as the motion. That's why it can produce non-passive"Bei"-sentence interiorly.From Tang-dynasty, the syntax of"Bei"-sentence has been becoming very complicated. Without patient subject, the disposing characters of"Bei"-sentence's predicate verb fade, or even they become intransitive, thus the exterior condition that can help produce non-passive"Bei"-sentence comes to see the light.Additionally, while the syntactic unit behind the preposition"bei"has a very close semantic combination inside, the unit before it becomes estranged from the unit behind. The"Bei"-sentence as a whole expresses that the participator suffers some event or conditions etc., then the typical non-passive"Bei"-sentence comes into being.<2>The usage of non-passive"Bei"-sentence in Tang,Song,Yuan, Ming and Qing dynastyThe non-passive"Bei"-sentence possesses a similar semantic and pragmatic characters during the first period of Tang,Song and Yuan dynasty with the second period of Ming and Qing dynasty. But in the second period of Ming and Qing dynasty, the syntactic structure of the non-passive"Bei"-sentence is much more complicated then before. The predicate verb has more attributives and complements. And some multi-VP"Bei"-sentences appear.<3>The relation of two kinds of"Bei"-sentences in synchronic perspectiveSynchronically, the passive"Bei"-sentences and the non-passive"Bei"-sentences share a similar syntactic strutue. Semantically, there is a large gap between two kinds of"Bei"-sentences'predicate verb. Pragmatically, the passive"Bei"-sentence is always utilized to indicate that the patient suffers from the unfortunate, unhappy and unexpected motion, while the non-passive"Bei"-sentence has two pragmatic functions. The involved object subjects to some dissatisfied situations or events as well as focuses on the same topic.<4>The decline and the disappearance of the non-passive"Bei"-sentencesAt the end of Qing dynasty, the non-passive"Bei"-sentences began declining. We finally draw the following conclusions:In Ming and Qing-dynasty, the syntax of the non-passive"Bei"-sentences unprecedentedly became complicated, it made the participator estrange from the unfortunate event, thus the suffering semantic relationship faded. The sentence focuses on narration, which the active sentence or other sentence has the same semantic meaning as well. The structure of the passive"Bei"-sentences is much more clear and sententious. Its semantic meaning is much more explicit. As a result, the non-passive"Bei"-sentences almost disappeared in the 20th century.