The "national Language" Vocabulary Study

Guoyu is an important archaic scripture,which was written for what the people said at that time and had roughly reflected the operating position of Chinese of earlier stage in the Warring States Period.Guoyu and Lunyu,Mengzi,Zuozhuan had become the typical speech works of earlier stage in the Warring States Period in the light of synchronic state.From the angle of history of Chinese language,The language of Guoyu is a connecting link between Chinese represented by inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells of earlier stage and Chinese written on Lvshichunqiu,Xunzi,Shiji etc. of later stage in Ancient times.Therefore,it plays an important part in the History of Chinese language.Same with other ancient scriptures,Guoyu is paid attention to by the scholars as far back as Western Han Dynasty.Liuxiang first edited Guoyu,and a lot of works which study vocabulary of Guoyu had appeared for thousands of years latter.However, no works that it carries on overall research yet from the standing of modern linguistics reveal.We choose this study theme,just for opening up a vacant for vocabulary of Guoyu .We here use the Guoyu which the ancient scripture publishing house of Shanghai published in 1998 as the copy for the record.On the basis of the research results of some predecessors and contemporaries,we explore the vocabulary of Guoyu by a complete and dynamic study.We set up the corpus base of Guoyu at first,and comply Guoyu vocabulary list in more than half a year with the help of computer, which counted all the words and semes of Guoyu.on this basis , we write the thesis in the past half years.The thesis includes seven parts:Chaptor one is prolegomenon.It first introduces the situation of language material of Guoyu.Guoyu times are regarded as earlier stage in the Warring states , among 400-300 B.C.At the same time it distinguishes language material of three kinds:Ago-material,Synchronic-material and Future-material; Then research value, research overview and research approach are probed into Guoyu vocabulary among which the corrent research situation and methods combining macrolinguistics with microlinguistics,combining synchronic study with diachronic study and combining quantitive analysis with qualitives analysis are expounded especially.Finally, proceeding with Chinese characters , we made six principles distinguishing Guoyu words according to the corresponding relation of word and character, and defined the research object of Guoyu vocabulary .And then, we analysyse basic vocabulary and general vocabulary of Guoyu from the angle that the vocabulary formed . Because space is relatively long, we divide it into two chapters to introduce the composition of Guoyu vocabulary. Among them, the basic vocabulary of Guoyu is introduced mainly in Chapter two.We have put forward three standards that judge the basic vocabulary of Guoyu at first.According to these standards, we divide the basic vocabulary of Guoyu into 12 kinds: Firstly,relevant natural things and phenomenon; Secondly, relevant limb-organs about people and animals;thirdly,relevant relative's appellations ; fourthly, relevant positions and seasons; fifthly, relevant production movement;sixthly,4elevant material culture;seventhly,relevant spiritual culture;eighthly,relevant politics and military affairs; ninthly,relevantmovement behaviors;tenthly,relevant State or degree;eleventhly,relevant quantities;twelfthly,relevant Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches.Chapter three makes an analysis for the general vocabulary of Guoyu mainly. It includes four kinds of word:dialect words, neologisms, social dialect words and inherent words,among which dialect word and neologisms have been introduced especially. We think that there are a small amount of dialect words in Guoyu,B\ comparing with the materials of the dialect words in ancient times , such as diqlect , Shuowen ,etc, we test and release nearly 40 dialect words of Guoyu.By corresponding situation of their country and dialect zone, we make rational conjecture on the author of Guoyu and the state of the situation of dialect and common language;As for the neologisms, we have put forward the principles and standards of confirming Guoyu at first and with the guidance of Big Dictionary of Chinese ,we distinguish earliest and earlier neologisms and we summarize the characteristic of Guoyu neologisms. Finally, on the basis of describing above, we analyse composition characteristic of vocabulary representing by Guoyu before Qin dynasty.Chapter four investigates the monosyllabic words and polysyllabic words of Guoyu.lt is the most conspicuous characteristic of archaic vocabulary that monosyllabic words preponderate,.Because other chapters involve monosyllabic word of " Guoyu "in a large amount, this chapter discuss mainly the laws of making monosyllabic word, There are three kinds of it mainly: sound justice wanton to combine meaning, extension and mutation.The polysyllabic words sum up their b^sic appearances from four characteristics of the syllable, natural attributes, parts of speech and features.Then we expound the principle of judging polysyllabic words of Guoyu in detail on the basis of discussion of the prolegomenon,We also count and analysys "middle- composition"difficult to judge and discuss their nature.Thereafter, we have analysesed the polysyllabic words from the angle of making words and structures,which distinguish six laws of making words and two morphology laws. The former includes sound justice wanton to combine meaning,extension, contraction,explanation,metaphorization and polysyllabization;the latter are divided into two kinds: single-morpheme word and compound word .Among them single-morpheme word has diffenrence with the overlapping and non-overlapping,while compound word is classifed into root compound law and derivation compound law.According to grammical relation between roots,compound word is divided into coordinative word,word consisting of a modifier and the word it modifies,verb-object word subject-predicate word and reduplicative words; derivation compound law consists of word added prefixes and word added suffixes. Several difficulties and questions of analysis are discussed as the supplement of analysing above.Chapter five and six investigate the meaning accumulation of Guoyu.Chapter five discuss synonym of Guoyu mainly. Many synonyms is common characteristic of vocabulary of the archaic chinese.Synonyms of "Guoyu " have 483 groups in all, and we describe them from morphological feature , syllable quantity of member and quantity of member and analyse it in terms of semanteme. According to the corresponding way of common semes, we can divide synonym into three kinds:one-to-one correspondence, seme-paralleled correspondence and seme-crossed correspondence.As regards the characterises of common semes, synonyms can be divided into two types from synchronetic and dischronetic angles.The former has common similarities and differences in lexical meaning in the light of contents,which can be distinguished furtheraccording to color meaning; From operating position of the common semes,common semes can be divided into ordinary and disordinary semes.The latter includes thress types:firsyly, original meaning and original meaning form the synonym relation; Secondly,original meaning and extended meaning form the synonym relation; Thirdly, extended meaning and extended meaning form the synonym relation. We summarized six reasons and ways why the synonym of " Guoyu " finally.Chapter six discussed monosemy and polysemy of Guoyu.According to characterics of Guoyu,we divided monosemy of Guoyu into two kinds: one is that parts of monosemy of Guoyu become polysemy;the other is that parts of monosemy of Guoyu still become monosemy when they enters into the system of archaic Chinese. Polysemy can further classified into polysemy with 2-12 semes according to the quantity of semes and has carried on the data statistics; Thereafter, seeing from derivation ways in polysemy,we distinguish radiating derivation and chain derivation and introduce original meaning and extended meaning of polysemant of Guoyu especially, ordinary and un ordinary seme;finally,we probe into four ways in which polysemant of "Guoyu " forms: derivation, metaphoration,melonymy and particular reference.Chapter seven is the conclusion. The contents of the six chapters are summarized and we can have a deeper knowledge of vocabulary state during 400-300 B.C. on this basis, The unique vocabulary characteristic and laws to that era can be revealed.By the omni-directional investigation of Vocabulary of Guoyujhis thesis contribut to scripture vocabulary,synchronic vocabulary and history of Chinese vocabulary before Qin dynasty.