Studies In Orientation Words Of Classical And Modern Chinese

By both synchronic and diachronic methods, the paper probes into some issues about orientation words. The main topics are: the properties of orientation words; the semantic and syntactic characteristics of orientation words; the evolvement of orientation words and the similarities; differences between the classical Chinese and modem Chinese orientation words; the properties of orientation phrases; and the motivations of the covert and overt form of orientation words. The paper reviews the history of the study of orientation words firstly, and then discusses what kind of category orientation words belong to and how to classify them. The paper also illuminates the space meaning of orientation words and the way of mapping. Based on the points of view hereinbefore, the paper describes the semantic and syntactic characteristics of fourteen core orientation words in Zuozhuan, a classic Chinese historical book. And the usages of old and new orientation words are investigated. The semantic and syntactic characteristics between the classical and modern Chinese orientation words are compared. In the end, the definition and properties of orientation phrases and the motivations of the covert and overt form of orientation words are discussed. There are ten chapters in the dissertation. The main ideas of each chapter are briefly introduced as follows.Chapter 1 confirms the intension and extension of orientation words. After the introduction of the studies on the intension and extension of orientation word, a definition is given to enumerate the extension of orientation words: A word can be determined as an orientation word if only it is named as an orientation word, or a direction word, or a location word and so on in a grammatical literature. According to this definition, 61 orientation words in classical Chinese and 273 in modem Chinese can be determined.In Chapter 2, recent researches of orientation words are described and the methods we adopt are explained. There are two parts of the recent researches of orientation words, one focuses on the classical Chinese and the other on the modern Chinese. The characteristics of such researches are: there are a large amount of grammatical literatures on orientation words; the ways of such research are abundant; a lot of attention is paid to the language data; most of the grammatical literatures were in their pursuit of innovation. There are also some deficiencies in the recent researches of orientation words. One is that the views of intension and extension of orientation word are controversial, the other is that there are few of comparative researches of orientation words. At the end of chapter 2, the main purposes and methods of the paper and something about the language data are explained.Chapter 3 is dedicated to confirming what category orientation words and orientation postpositions belong to and how to classify them. After the investigation of 273 orientation words in modern Chinese, four properties are found: every orientation words means direction and region; most of the orientation words are monovalent; each orientation word has close relation with nouns; each orientation word can be put at the end of a phrase. By the investigation of subcategorilization of orientation words, an idea become clear that the concept of orientation word is a semantic category. Another point of view in this chapter is that orientation postpositions is an intersection of orientation words and postpositions. There are fourteen core orientation morphemes in Chinese: dong; xi; nan; bei; zuo; you; shang; xia; qian; hou; wai; li; nei; zhong.The space meaning of orientation words and the way of metaphor are illuminated in chapter 4. At the beginning of this chapter, the fundamentality of space meaning in language is emphasized. And then some problems as follow make out: the orientation relations between different objects and between different parts of the same object; the way of spatial concepts mapping into temporal concepts; the way of spatial concepts mapping into social relationship; the way of semantic extending. Furthermore, under the analysis of the relations among direction, position, location and the meaning of orientation words, the paper point out that, position is attribute to object, location is attribute to event, and direction or region is that a orientation word really mean.Chapter 5 describes the usages of fourteen core orientation words in Zuozhuan. We search out every sentence which contains a core orientation word. And then, in order to get the eligible language material, it need to eliminate the sentences hereinbefore in which dong or xi; nan; bei; zuo; you etc. can't be interpreted as a word, but can be interpreted just as a component of a name, a placename, or a bookname. Based on these work, the paper tells the semantic and grammatical characteristics of the fourteen core words one by one, and the frequencies of each core orientation word are summed up, and all of these are shown by table form.In chapter 6, the changing and alternation of orientation words are explained. First, the paper points out the causations why new orientation words come into being and the composing modes of such words. And then put forth the epoch of earliest disyllable orientation words. Most of the structures of type zhi-and yi-disyllable orientation words were appeared in the literatures before the Qin dynasty(B. C. 221-B. C. 206). And yiqian, yihou, yinei, yiwai, zhili were appeared in the literatures during the Han dynasty(B. C. 206-A. D. 220). Yizuo, yiyou were appeared in the literatures during the Wei-Jin and South-North dynasty. The structures of type-bian, -mian and-tou disyllable orientation words were appeared in the literatures after the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern dynasties(A. D. 220-A. D. 589). Besides, usages of new words and reservation of old usages and new usages of old words are described here.The usages of fourteen core orientation words in classical and modern Chinese are compared in chapter 7. There are three types of semantic fields can be extracted from these core orientation words: spatial orientation field, temporal orientation field, order and grade orientation field. Some of the semantic fields appeared early and some of them appeared late. Some items of these meaning remain, and some have vanished. By the semantic contrast, the paper shows the process of some changing from a word to a morpheme. By the review of syntactic function of these words, the paper tells the differences between classical and modern Chinese.Chapter 8 probes into the relations between orientation words and orientation phrases. Orientation phrase is such a kind of phrase that its core is an orientation word. And orientation phrases are not bi-core or multi-core phrases. Some monosyllable orientation morphemes can not be used to make up of orientation phrases. The rule of orientation-postposition phrase can not be recursive. An orientation phrase is always be used to express region, time, location, direction and so on. The syntactic functions of orientation phrases are similar as noun phrases, and the main differences between them are semantically.Chapter 9 analyses the appearing or disappearing of orientation words in text. Firstly, what is the appearing or disappearing mean is make out. Then the paper described the semantic and syntactic features of orientation words while they appear. And many problems are involved here, such as: Does the word order affect the appearing or disappearing of an orientation word? Does the appearing or disappearing of preposition affect the appearing or disappearing of an orientation word? Does the theta role affect the appearing or disappearing of an orientation word? Does the topicalization of the locative phrases affect the appearing or disappearing of an orientation word?Chapter 10 is the conclusion of the dissertation. The main points of view of the dissertation are summarized, and the deficiencies are pointed out.