A Study On The Lexical-semantic System Of Commercial Terms In The Pre-Qin Period And Han Dynasty

Commerce lexical-semantic system is an important part of Chinese lexical system in the Pre-Qin Period and Han Dynasty, which reflects the emergence and early development of Chinese vocabulary in commercial field. This thesis aims to give a brief introduction of commerce glossary and its semantic development from the Pre-Qin Period to Han Dynasty.In this thesis, commerce lexical- semantic system is regarded as a unity consisting of two independent but interactive components and a tentative study is made on the commerce lexical-semantic system in the Pro-Qin Period and Han Dynasty from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. By a synchronic study, we look up the typical data of the two ages , find as many commercial terms as possible, describe the outlook of commerce lexical system, analyze semantic items and explain the formation of semantic system. On these grounds, a comparison is made between the lexical system and its semantic system to sum up the relation of words' form and their meaning and to explore the nature of meaning. By a diachronic study, we compare the commerce lexical system and the commerce semantic system between the Pre-Qin Period and Han Dynasty and discuss the law of lexical evolution and semantic development. The combination of synchronic description and diachronic comparison helps to entirely understand the commerce lexical- semantic system of the Pre-Qin Period and Han Dynasty and draw an outline of their changes.In this research, 273 semems are summarized from 443 commercial words collected in a tentative investigation and they are further classified into five sub-semantic systems: merchant, commercial affairs, currency, market and commercial management. On a basis of a careful study of each category, an elementary conclusion is made and the main points are as the follows:1. In the commercial lexical-semantic system, monosyllabic words is 18% and the disyllabic words is 82%. Because the words of businessmen, the trade and the market are the technical terms, most of them are disyllabic words. Subordinate compounds and coordinative compounds are the main constructive form with the former taking up 62%and the latter 21%.2. The commerce semantic system of the two ages are compounded by a "family similarity". Some of them have several common sememes, but lack in a regular logic connection. The connection might be synonymous, antonymous or hierarchical. The terms have common morphemes and thus form a commercial lexical-semantic system.3.Most of the monosyllabic words have several meaning, and the new disyllabic andpolysyllabic words have only one meaning. Nearly every semantic system have many synonyms.4. From the Pre-Qin Period to Han Dynasty, the total of commerce glossary enlarged. According to our statistics, there are 224 commercial terms in the Pre-Qin Period and 294 in Han Dynasty with an upward rate of 24%. About 70 terms are used in both ages which occupy 16% of the total. This shows that only 16% commercial terms are passed down to the next Dynasty while over 80%of the commercial terms are coming into or out of the lexical system dynamically and leads to a belief that the replacement of commercial terms occurs at a faster speed than we ever expected for that of common words. The sememes accelerate accordingly from 139 in the Pre-Qin Period to 176 in Han Dynasty with a rate of 26%. In the total 273 semems, the inherited is only 42, taking up 15% of the total while 85% of the semems are transitory and changeable. In fact, The changes of the sub lexical-semantic- system distinguish from one another. For example, the lexical-semantic system of the currency category changes rapidly while that of the merchant category changes slowly;the system of the commercial management has a negative acceleration which can explain the high speed of the acceleration. All the changes in commercial terms have close relation to the contemporary development of commerce and economy.5. From the correspondent relationship between vocabulary system and semantic system, we find that there are some regularities play important role in the symbolization of vocabulary. It's easy to combine the polysemants which infer to behavior and subject as one word form. Such as "Gu" not only means buying and selling, but also infer to trader or merchant. It's easy to combine the polysemants which infer to behavior and place, then they could be symbolized as one word, such as "Shi", it means buying, selling and public place where people meet to buy and sell goods. When a super-semantic polysemant is in the "Second classification", it's easy to combine a semantic system with a close relationship than a far relationship From the other angel view, when you give a meaning to a word, it could be matched a different form for the sentence due to different characteristic, it shows, it causes many thesaurus. In the commercial glossary system, there are high quantity thesaurus corresponding with the meaning for Buying and selling group.The development of the Commerce Lexical-semantic system of Pre-Qin Period and Han Dynasty reflects not only the law of the Chinese lexical system but also its characteristics. At meantime, this development is also connected with the social and economic development then.