Study On The Lexical Strata Of Modern Chinese

The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary(the 5th edition) contains about 65000 words and these words can express nearly every part of contemporary lexical system. These words are not only derived previously from 5.4 revolutionary movements or the Opium War, but also derived previously from the Pre-Qin period or Qin-Han Dynasties period or Wei-Jin Dynasties period or the Northern and Southern Dynasties and Sui period or maybe from Tang-Wu Dai period, Song-Liao-Jin Dynasties period and Yuan-Ming-Qing Dynasties period. Because of the Chinese long history and rich cultures, many of the ancient words have survived for a long time and have still remained in Contemporary Chinese language. The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary contains quite a lot of ancient words like them, therefore, one of the distinctive features of the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary as a modern Chinese standard dictionary is lexical strata. Focusing on the written language in the the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (the 5th edition), this dissertation traced to the lexical origin, classified the words according to the historical periods and expounded the meaning and alteration of those words, then proved the lexical strata of modern Chinese objectively. It would be a great help to teaching and studying modern Chinese.This dissertation consists of five parts:the introduction, Chapter I to Chapter III, and the conclusion.The introduction part presents the significance of our study and its objects, makes a review of current researches about the lexical system of modern Chinses, points out the problems left in previous studies, and briefly introduces the methods applied in this dissertation.Chapter Ⅰ to Ⅲ classify the written language words according to the time sequence, providing documentary illustrations. The history of Chinese before modern time is divided into three stages:1) the ancient Chinese; 2) the medieval Chinese; 3) the neoteric Chinese. The first stage is Chinses before Western Han Dynasty, dividing into two sections:the pre-Qin Dynasty and Qin-Western Han Dynasty. The second stage is Chinses between Esatern Han Dynasty to Sui Dynasty, dividing into three sections: Esatern Han Dynasty, Wei-Jin Dynasties and Northern and Southern Dynasties & Sui Dynasty. The third stage is Chinese from Tang Dynasty to Qing Dynasty, dividing into three sections:Tang-Wu Dai period, Song-Liao-Jin Dynasties and Yuan-Ming-Qing Dynasties. In each section, words are classified into four parts as "peer to peer interpretation", "defining interpretaion", "describing interpretation" and "multiple meaning terms interpretation", according to the interpretation ways of the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (the 5th edition).The conclusion part summarizes the conclusions we have drawn from this study, clarifying the historical inheritance of the modern Chinese vocabulary. The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (the 5th edition) only gives the current meanings, studying the words as a synchronic phenomenon, while our research can complement this deficiency, suggesting the earlier instance to provide some exact and specific material from different times for studying the the specific composition of the modern Chinese lexical system. Meanwhile, we try to trace to the source of the words in modern Chinese and make a classification of the vocabulary according to the time sequence. What’s more, the study also works out some problems of the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (the 5th edition) in word-entry and interpretation.The results of this study have a certain significance in studying the etymology of Chinese words and the composition of Chinese lexical system, and in teaching of Chinese vocabulary.