The Study On Affirmative Emphasis Of Mencius

Mencius was an important pre-Qin prose,as well as an important material to study the pre-Qin language.This paper,based on the perspective of the emphatic category,will try to define the concept of“emphasis”initially and put forward the judgment criteria of the emphasis and the affirmative emphasis.On the basis of this,we will explore the affirmative emphasis in Mencius from three key aspects of the mark word,the syntactic transformation and the frame structure.Thus,we try to compare different systems of affirmative emphasis between in Mencius and in modern times.The mark words expressing the affirmative emphasis in Mencius are used to emphasize the speaker’s confirmative attitude to things.One is the affirmative emphasis of objective confirmation,mainly concluding "cheng(诚),gu(固),xin(信),bii(必 1),nai(乃),ji(即),guo(果),liang(良)andyun(允)”."Cheng(诚)"is used to emphasize the correctness of conclusions,the confirmation of presuppositions and the authenticity of hypothesises."Xin(信)"is used to emphasize the authenticity of the events,the existence of facts and the confirmation of hypothesises."Gii(固)" is used to emphasize the long state of facts,the original condition of affairs,the matter of reasons and the correlation features of events."Bi1(必 1),is used to only emphasize the objective laws of things while expressing objective affirmative emphasis.The rest "nai(乃),ji(即),guo(果),liang(良)and yun(允)" are used to confirm events,emphasizing that the facts are beyond doubt.In addition,there are also paired cross-clause mark words"qieyou A,erkuang B(且犹 A,而况 B)”,generally equivalent to the modern Chinese complex sentence of "shangqie A,hekuang B(尚且 A,何况 B)".The former clause A is only used as reasoning and bedding,while its intention is focusing on approaching the latter conclusion B in negative,emphasizing its rationality and affirmation.Another is subjective affirmative emphasis,merely concluding "bi2(必 2)”whose emphatic function is very fine.It emphasizes the inevitability of predictions,the necessity of subjective and the necessity of exhort respectively.According to the functions of emphasis,the syntactic transformations expressing the affirmative emphasis in Mencius are classified into two categories:the affirmative emphasis of evidentiality and the affirmative emphasis of modality.The affirmative emphasis of evidentiality emphasize the speaker’s affirmation and confirmation of the information he conveys.One is emphasis of object movement,including object movement of the verbs("O +结构助词+ V")and object movement of the prepositions("O + PREP + V").Another one is emphasis of transformation from the subject to the object,which manifests as transformation from the subject-predicate structure of "S—P"to the judgment structure of "P(者),S(也)”.The affirmative emphasis of modality,based on the the affirmative emphasis of evidentiality,is characterized of strong subjectivity by adding to subjective attitude and emotion of speakers while conveying objective information.One is emphasis of predict movement which transforms from the subject-predicate structure of "S—P" to the predicate fronting structure of "P—S",including the affirmative emphasis of judgment,prediction and rhetorical questions.Another one is emphasis of auxiliary word prediction,emphasizing possibility,wish,supposition,leisure of events that happen by transforming from[S +"可/宜"+ P]to[S+ P +"可/宜"(也)],sometimes even moving the auxiliary verb to the beginning of the sentence.The word "唯(惟)" plays an important role in the frame structures expressing the affirmative emphasis in Mencius.There are two main types of typical frame structures,One is the affirmative emphasis of prominence—"唯(惟)+O+structural auxiliary word+V".Another one is the affirmative emphasis of connecting一"唯(惟)+ S +为 + P".Both of them are used as fixed structures to confirm events or propositions,also they emphasize singleness and exclusiveness.The former focuses on expressing the affirmative emphasis on the basis of the prominence of prepositional objective,while the latter focuses on expressing the affirmative emphasis on the foundation of strengthening the relationship between subjective and objective.There are different emphasis systems in ancient and modern Chinese.In general,there are far more emphatic methods,richer emphatic functions and a wider variety of emphatic categories in modern Chinese than in ancient Chinese.The affirmative emphasis in Mencius are expressed mainly by mark words and syntactic transformations,rather than frame structures.However,mark words and frame structures expressing the affirmative emphasis account for a great proportion in modern Chinese.This means that many translocations expressing emphasis in ancient Chinese do not express emphasis in modern Chinese anymore.There are different changes in different aspects.Changes for mark words expressing the affirmative emphasis are mainly presented by the diversity of lexical forms,the refinement of the emphatic function,the generalization of word-pairing,the enlargement of the scope of emphasis and the clarification of grammatical constraints.As for syntactic transformations expressing the affirmative emphasis,the translocation of the word order becomes daily and the function of emphasis is weakened.Changes for frame structures expressing the affirmative emphasis are presented mainly by the replacement of the frame structures and the increase of the tighten compound sentences.