The Investigations Of Evolution Of Chinese Affixes In Yuan Ming And Qing Dynasties

The development from monosyllabic to complex syllables is an important trend of Chinese vocabulary development. The increases of frequence and number of two-syllable words are new features when the language evolves from the ancient Chinese to recent Chinese. Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, the critical period during the transition of the recent Chinese to the modern Chinese, are the final stage of recent Chinese, and each element of the Chinese language have changed in this periods. The wide uses of complex syllables and the developments of additional morphologys tremendously alter the number and frequece of affixes, in comparison with previous dynasties. To date, there are many reports associating with affixes of Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. However, most of them focus on the explations of single affix, therefore the diachronic researches of affixes are rare. Moreover, in previous studies, the linguistic characteristics of Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties are discussed together frequently, which are obviously unreasonable. Although the language have many common features in these periods, the differences of the eras, societies and cultures will lead to some differences in the usage of language. Based on synchronic researches, we attempt to exhibit the evolution trajectories of affixes, construct the phylogeny of affixes in Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, and pave the way for the construction of affixes, with the goal of diachronic researches.Accordingly, seven corpuses, representing the linguistic situation of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, are selected to study the development of affixes in terms of synchronic and diachronic researches. The <Gu Ben Lao Qida>, <Lao Qida Yan Jie> and <Chong Kan Lao Qida Yan Jie> are a group of series corpuses and they are the different versions of <Lao Qida> in the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. By comparing the usages of affixes in these editions, we can discover the law of the evolution of affixes, which is also a "dark line" of this dissertation. In the process of researches, we firstly discuss the definition and standard of "affix", and propose that structural capability and apperception can better reflect the characteristics of affixes in comparison with semantic grammaticalization, by including typical affixes and quasi-affix. The affixes of <Yu Zhu> in the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties are analyzed and divided into four periods, namely germination stage, construction stage, maturation stage and prosperity stage. Secondly, according to the charcteristics and prominent role of affixes, the affixes are divide into functional, colloquial, colorific and vocal affixes. Seven prefixs, four infixs, twenty-three monosyllabic suffixes and more than one hundred two-syllable adjective suffixes are systematically studied in terms of synchronic and diachronic researches. In the process of synchronic researches, statistical methods are carried out to describe the syllabic forms, grammatical structures and grammatical distributions of affixes, and the usages of affiexes are introduced in different periods and corpuses. Then the performances of affixes in different corpuses are diachronically contrasted, in order to show their evolutions in the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, and trace back the progresses from the ancient Chinese to the modern Chinese.In addition, the regularities of the affixes are summarized in Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, such as there are more multiple affixes than single affixes, and multiple affixes transit gradually to single affixes. We also find that Ming Dynasty is a turning point of the evolution of the Chinese affixes. We divide the affixes into seven categories: nouns affixes, pronouns affixes, adjective affixes, verb affixes, adverbs affixes, numerals affixes, and quantifiers affixes in accordance with the word of the speech, and introduce the evolution of each category in Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. In the dissertation, different corpuses are collected to study the affix system in Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties on the basis of synchronic researches, by virtue of statistical methods, with the goal of diachronic researches. The each member of affixes and the development of small system are studied, then the regularities of the affixes are summarized, and the evolution trajectory of affixes are revealed in Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, which pave the way for the construction of affixes.