The Research Of Verb In Guanzi

The paper sets Guanzi as the basic research subject. On the basis of quantitative statistics, through diachronic and synchronic comparison, the paper conducts exhaustive description and analysis of its verbs, summing up the pronunciation and meaning table of verbs falling in seven small categories in Guanzi. The full text is consisted of eight chapters, and totals nine with epilogue.The first chapter is "Introduction", divided into five sections. The first section is about Guanzi and his book, outlining his story and scholars’ research on Guanzi and the completion time of his book, and briefing on the corpus value of Guanzi. The second section "basic questions related to verb study", mainly reviews and describes Chinese linguistic academia’s research results in verbs especially in verb issues of ancient times. The third section "Status quo of Guanzi linguistic research", mainly introduces temporary linguistic studies of Guanzi and its results, and makes relatively objective assessment. The fourth section "Research methodology", demonstrates the methodological basis of research conducted, the specific mode of operation, and points out the research methods applied--exhaustive description and example analysis combined, diachronic and synchronic comparison combined, traditional linguistic theory and modern linguistic theory combined. The fifth section "Research objectives" states the research target as making comprehensive, accurate description and analysis of Guanzfs verb system, and making necessary exploration of verbs’ evolving law.The second chapter is "Action verbs", with four parts. The first one discusses the definition of action verbs given by current academia and their research results. The second one, according to the difference of action verbs’subject and object, conducts classification study, through a detailed classification, putting forward the definition of action verbs. The third and fourth parts examine two cases of action verbs, and solve the existing problems of two difficult sentences in Guanzi.The third chapter is "State verbs". The whole chapter discusses state verbs in Guanzi with four sections. The first and second ones classify state verbs according to the standard of with object or not, and then describe verb usage, pointing out that state verbs with no objects is the customary usage. Meanwhile, once with object, it must be factitive verb objects-is the character distinguishing state verbs from other verbs. The third section further highlights state verbs’ characters with the comparison between state verbs and action verbs, between state verbs and adjectives. In the fourth section, a state verb case is examined and it corrects a misreading by traditional annotation on one sentence’s reading.The fourth chapter is "Modal verbs". There are six modal verbs in Guanzi: "Dangs", "Gan", "Ke", "Ken", "Neng", "Yi2", "Yu" and "Yuan". The chapter provides a description of them one by one, pointing out modal verbs used to express people or living creatures’subjective wishes, and also to show the possibility of some objective things and behaviors.The fifth chapter is "Substantive verb". The chapter makes individual description to the eleven substantive verbs in Guanzi, summing up that verbs to express the meaning of being or having are "You" and "Zai", and verbs that express none or inexistence are "Fa", "Mi", "Si", "Wang4", "Wang", "Wei2", "Wei", "Wu" and "Yun1". Through example comparison and analysis, "You", "Wu", "Zai", "Si", "Wang4", and "Wei" are found to be used the most frequently.The sixth chapter is "Perception verbs". The chapter concludes that verbs indicating emotion and attitude have three characters, to differentiate from action verbs and state verbs. First, the subject of perception verbs should be people or living creatures, and the verbs are to express their inner feelings and attitude. Secondly, because emotion and attitude are all subjective behaviors growing out of and reacting upon people and living creatures, the subject of perception verbs are living subjects involved. Thirdly, because subjective behaviors have reasons resulting in them, so if verbs which express emotion and attitude are followed with objects, the objects must be something resulting in subjects’ inner feelings and attitude. In Guanzi, seventeen modal verbs are to tell mood, and eighteen verbs are to tell words and action.The seventh chapter is "Comparative verbs". According to different comparison relationships, the chapter divides them into two groups, one is to show the similarity between subject and object, and the other is to show the comparative relation between them. Most comparative verbs in Guanzi fall in the previous group. Through individual description, it is pointed out that comparative verbs are to express certain relationship between people and people or between things and things. And the relationship can be same, similar or different, which is mainly displayed through comparison between people and people, and between objects and objects. Thus, "compare" is an essential and basic semantic feature of comparative verbs. Three elements are related to these verbs:subject of comparison, object of comparison, and the content of comparison which includes items to compare and the extent (the results of comparison). Thus, in general sense, the one serves as the subject of syntagm is the subject or the comparison items, the comparative verbs serve as the predicate, and the object of the comparison is the object of the syntagm.The eighth chapter is about "Displacement verbs". According to different states of the targeted subjects, the chapter classifies displacement verbs into two categories as to show moving state or not, and conducts individual description of displacement verbs in these two groups. There are two findings. First, displacement verbs have actors which are usually subjects; secondly, because displacement verbs are to express actors’ moving actions, the objects that follow displacement verbs are generally to show locations, which is introduced by pronoun sometimes and sometimes is omitted.The final part is "Conclusion". It summarizes the whole process of the research, and generalizes findings and experience. It also makes necessary reflection on how to conduct the existing-problem study of ancient books under modern conditions.