On The Prepositions In

Ancient Chinese takes and important connecting position in the history of Chinese,it provides irreplaceable ideas for the research of ancient Chinese in many facets. For ancient prepositions ,what we are familiar with now are the ones during the period of Pre-Qin Period and Han dynasty, and some scholars have made a coarse review of prepositions in some part of classic Chinese literature,however,there are no special and systemic books for the research of ancient prepositons in that period.The mediaeval time preposition research is even more weaker in comparision with the period of Pre-Qin Period and Han dynasty. In comparision with Pre-Qin Period and Han dynasty Chinese,mediaeval Chinese have experienced significant changes in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.During this period,new grammar rules appeared although old ones were still widly used.The new grammars can be divided into two kinds: one is the new grammars which buded in the period of Pre-Qin Period and Han dynasty and matured in mediaeval times,however,they have changed a lot;the other one is the new budding grammars and it can also be divided into two kinds:first is the ones which last for a short time and were only used in a limited area ,and others which were continually used untill now. My thesis will make a detailed review of the forms of the related prepositions in mediaeval time and make a comparision with the prepositions in five Pre-Qin Period literatures.The thesis will majorly focuse on < Nan Qi Shu>, assisted by and .The problems my thesis will resolve are not only what propositions are concluded in < Nan Qi Shu>,but more importantly,to answer the following questions: what forms are these prepositions presented? What system do they formulated in the mediaeval time classics? Are there any differencess between and other five classics which represent the preposition system of early Qin? Will the differencess take a sysmetic form?Then,the thesis will focus on the following three facets: First,the thesis will make a detail review of the prepositions .I will divied the prepositions referred in these eight classics into five kinds according to norms of position,object,time,form,range. Not only I will make a quantitative description about their usage frequence,but also I will provide a qualitive description according to their grammar position and the nature of the factors referred.The reason why I make that kind of analysis is, from diachronic view, there are always a large quantity of Jian words whose qualities can not be analysyed by single case,for these words, if we want to describe their general natures,the only approriate way will be induction,to collect the words which have the same nature in specific books. The work in this step is majorly on diachronic facet,and it is very valuable for the analysis of the quality of the referred words concerned.Second,based on the work done in the first step,I will make a comparision of the two preprosition systems between Pre-Qin,Han period and mediaeval times. The comparision will be done in the following facets: function,using frequency,the nature of the object of preposition, the relative position of preposition phrases in relate to predicate verbs,the nature of predicate verbs. Of course,the thesis will put emphasis on different kinds of prepositions according to certarin situation.In the end, in micro angle, the thesis will point out the characters,changes and the variation rules of the preposition system of in comparision with other five classics in Pre-Qin Period period.From the research we found that the kinds and cases of referred prepositions are too much more than the ones appearred in the five Pre-Qin Period classics and other two Six Dynasties classics.Most of the staple prepositions appearred in the five Pre-Qin Period classics can also be seen in , and many unstaple prepositions are also reffered. The changes of usage frequency,position and other grammar natures of the prepositions in the five Pre-Qin Period classics are clearly reflected in . As far as and are concerned, there are only part of staple prepositions can be seen in those two classics,however,the cases appearred are much less than and the use of unstaple prepositions are even more less. These two classics always reflect the stable nature of the prepositions referred and as a result can not give us a general view of the nature of those prepositions, however,the can provide us the grammar natures of those prepositions in a full-scale view.We also find from the comparision of and other five Pre-Qin Period classics that, not only can we get a clear understanding of the micro change of every single preposition, but also can make some primary conclusions of the disciplins of the change of the prepositions.Then based on and and from the comparision with the five Pre-Qin Period classics,we can get a systematic view of the nature of the prepositions referred in the classics of the two different periods. We can get a clear and microcosmic understanding of the smilarities and differencess of the prepositions in those two times, but not only limited in single case or in the angle of theory, at the same time, we can the get a relatively right view of change tendency of the preposition reffered.The following is about the differences of preposition system between and five classics in Pre-qin.Firstly, the prepositons of show the signifaicant relationship of inheritance. 61% of the prepositions in which appear in the five Pre-Qin classics can be divided into two kinds: one kind is represented as the typical prepositions from the pespective of grammar and the other kind shows some characteristics of preposition. The proportion of the five kinds prepositions which are interpreted into 5 systems in semantic is different. The prepositions of location shows the most significant succession, then prepositions of cause, of object, of range, and of time in turn.Also, 39% of prepositions in which can not be found in the five Pre-Qin classics indicate the distinguished change of preposition system and the characteristics of times. The grammartical characters are explained as well.Secondly, the change of disyllabic prepositions and circumpositions can be found in . There are 14 disyllabic prepositions in more than in the five Pre-Qin classics and most of which are prepositions of time. The usage of the disyllabic prepositions are not so universal as monosyllabic prepositions.The usage of circumpositions which are composed of "zi, ji, dang" and "yixia, yijiang"is different from disyllabic prepositions. Thera are more forms and usages of the circumpositions in the three literatures of Liuchao than in in the five Pre-Qin classics. The new tendency of one form for different semantic categories is very attractive.Thirdly, the change of specific grammatical attributes.The differences of changes in specific member can be interpreted from the perspective of semantic categories. Based on the distribution of prepositions categories, the non-uniformity of change is also discussed in this dissertation. The specific change is taliked about in detail.There are four types of preposition positions in from the perspective of syntactic positions: The position of one preposition in is different from in the five Pre-Qin classics, one preposition used in one syntactic position can be used in two syntactic positions, the differences of preposition used before or after a verb in the five Pre-Qin classics is more obvious, and the last type is about the preposition which is not arrtactive in the change of position. The change of position from the perspective of one category is also discussed in this dissertation.The change of the preposition of direction which is from the verb is influnced mostly by the subject and the change of preposition of resort is influnced by the object and the sentence structure.The change of the preposition of location which does not appear although the verb and sentence structure is sufficient in the five Pre-Qin classics become more clearly because of the verb's changing in .The vivid differences of lexicon between in and in the five Pre-Qin classics is conceived by the analysis on the syntactic characteristics.Fourthly, the study on the comparison of preposition system in in and in the five Pre-Qin classics gives different conclusions from those propoesd by others and put forward new topics about the research.This dissertation focuses on the similarity and differencess of preposition system in two periods of time on the basis of references of and . This research which is not limited by the recognition in theory provides helpful examples for today's researchers.Preposition is both relatively stable and changeable, for its relatively stable nature the researchers are more concerned the representative ones,for example the passive preposition, but at the same time some rarely used prepositions or the ones without representative characters are always neglected, however, actually many prepositions have experienced a course from neglection to academic concern. The purpose the my thesis is, with the prepositions referred in and seven other corpuses as the analysis object,to contribute a microcosmic angle research and aim to provide some suplementary material for the researchers who are focusing on ancient preposition history.