A Study Of Time Words In Dunhuang Bianwen

The paper provides a comprehensive and specific classification and description of 466 time words in Dunhuang Bianwen,analyzes their structural and semantic characteristics,and preliminarily compares them with 267 time words in 34 Tang legends.The full text is divided into five parts:The first part is an introduction,which states the reason for the topic selection and research significance,sorts out the current research status of time words,Dunhuang literature,and time words in Dunhuang literature,defines the research object more specifically,and explains the research methods and corpus scope.The second part comprehensively presents the usage overview of 466 time words in Dunhuang Bianwen.The time words in Dunhuang Bianwen can be divided into two categories: time-point words and time-period words.Among them,there are a total of 310time-point words,which are divided into three categories: absolute time-point,relative time-point,and time-point marker words.There are a total of 156 time-period words,which are divided into four categories: quantitative time-period,long-term time-period,short-term time-period,and time-period marker words.Each major category can be divided into several subcategories and sub subcategories based on semantics and structure.The article conducts relatively accurate statistics and preliminary semantic analysis on each category of time words.The third part analyzes the structure and semantics of time words in Dunhuang Bianwen.From the perspective of syllables alone,Dunhuang Bianwen time words can be divided into three categories:monosyllabic words,disyllabic words,and polysyllabic words;From the perspective of word formation,disyllabic words can be further divided into simple words and compound words.This section also provides a relatively specific analysis of three types of synchronous word formation phenomena in Dunhuang Bianwen(verb object,subject predicate,and partial formal),pointing out that the reasons for the phenomenon of synchronous word formation are the similarity or correlation of morphemes and meanings,as well as the analogy and imitation mechanism of vocabulary.In Dunhuang Bianwen,synonyms such as"morning""evening",and chronological time words have differences in meaning and frequency of use.Among the six basic categories of"morning","chen(晨)"has the least meaning and the highest frequency of use,while"zao(早)"is more commonly used to indicate early time.Among the nine basic categories of"night","ye(夜)"is the most frequently used.In chronological time words,the number of meanings and frequency of use of"nian(年)"far exceed that of"sui(岁)""zai(载)",and"si(祀)".Antonyms such as morning and evening,past and future have similarities in meaning.For example,both can be extended from morning and evening to time early and time late,and are relatively often assumed by a single word[("zao(早)"and"wan(晚)"].There are four groups of homophones with different orders in Dunhuang Bianwen["banye(半夜)"and"yeban(夜半)","zhongye(中夜)"and"yezhong(夜中)","yezuo(夜昨)"and"zuoye(昨夜)","xianjin(现今)"and"jinxian(今现)"],with similar or identical meanings.There are still 97 polysemous time words in Dunhuang Bianwen,of which 29have two or more temporal meanings,but they are basically highly adversarial and easy to understand.The fourth part selected a total of 267 time words from 34 Tang legends and conducted a specific comparative analysis with the time words in Dunhuang Bianwen.It is pointed out that both structurally and semantically,the consistency of the two literature is greater than the difference.There are 142 identical time words in the two literatures.To analyze differences of two words,including"ye(夜)"and"houye(后夜)".It is found that"ye(夜)"only means night in Tang legends,while in Dunhuang Bianwen,"ye(夜)"can also represent one night;In Dunhuang Bianwen,"houye(后夜)"means late night,while in Tang legends,it means the night after tomorrow.There are a total of 449 different time words in Dunhuang Bianwen and Tang legends,among which synchronous word formation time words are the majority.There are significant differences in the preferences for using certain temporal terms between the two types of literature.For example,Dunhuang Bianwen rarely uses"xi(夕)"to indicate evening,while Tang legends uses"xi(夕)"to represent about 30%of the total number of discussions on nights.Finally,summarize the entire article and point out the main shortcomings.