A Study On Quantifiers In Literary Sketches Of The Qing Dynasty

The Qing dynasty is a very important period in the history of Chinese quantifiers,it is the connecting part which links the preceding part and the following part of mandarin Chinese history.The Qing dynasty is at the transitional stage when the modern Chinese quantifiers develop into contemporary Chinese quantifiers.But so far,the quantifiers of the Qing dynasty haven't been given due attention.The proportion of specific book quantifiers study on Qing dynasty is much smaller than those on the other dynasties,and there is no cohort study on quantifiers of Qing dynasty yet.Less attention was paid to the materials in the literary sketches of Qing dynasty either.The literary sketches reach the peak in the Qing dynasty,and reflect almost all aspects of Qing time.On account of the numerous works,ample words,rich contents and reliable materials,the literary sketches of Qing dynasty could be the ideal data for study Chinese language of Qing time.Taking the literary sketches of Qing dynasty as the main data,we make the statistical analyses,descriptions and interpretations of the quantifiers,and compare with the studies before and after the Qing dynasty,including the studies on the vernacular Chinese novels of the same time,with the aim to explore the performances and characteristics of the quantifiers and their development in Qing time.The main part of the dissertation is composed of five chapters,about 20 million words in all.Chapter One is the introduction part,followed by: research bases,research idea and research methods.Firstly it introduces the research object,reviews the naming and classifying process of Chinese Quantifier,and analyses the research situation since 1959.Then it states the research motivation,the significance of the topic,and the range of corpus that selected.Finally it points out the research methods,including a qualitative and quantitative study,the combination of description and explanation method,and the comparative method.How to classify the quantifiers into sub-classes is a problem which has never been settled so far.For the convenience of following research,we clarify the standard and make our own definition and classification about quantifiers in the literary sketches of the Qing dynasty in Chapter Two.According to the Scholars' research results,divide the quantifiers in the literary sketches of Qing dynasty into two categories: objective Quantifier and active Quantifier.Then the objective quantifiers were divided into two parts: special objective Quantifier and temporary objective Quantifier.The former includes individual Quantifier,collective Quantifier,weights and measures Quantifier,rank and kind Quantifier;the latter includes container Quantifier and Adhere Quantifier.The active quantifiers were divided into four parts: General Quantifier,Self-quantifier,aided Quantifier,modal Quantifier.All these categories were displayed with chart and table.Chapter Three analyses the objective quantifiers in the literary sketches of Qing dynasty.The objective quantifiers were analytical researched on the aspects of grammar characteristics and particular cases historical development.When analyzing the grammar characteristics,we make synchronic description and diachronic comparison on the morphological characteristic and syntax characteristic.When analyzing the particular cases,we make a classification on the special objective quantifiers in the literary sketches of the Qing dynasty according to their existing condition in Study on Quantifiers of the Ming Dynasty and A Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese Quantifiers Usage.Based on the statistics and classification,and comparing its' different performances during the period of history that we chose to survey,the succession and development of each objective quantifier was described and explained clearly.We also used theories of cognitive linguistics,grammaticalization theory and dialect research results in order to increase the clarity and depth of the explanation.Chapter Four analyses the active quantifiers in the literary sketches of Qing dynasty.The active quantifiers were analytical researched on the aspects of grammar characteristics and particular cases historical development.Owing to the stylistic feature and archaize language,the use cases about active quantifiers are relatively few in the literary sketches of Qing dynasty.Furthermore,the authors used to imitate the ancient Chinese intentionally when they created literary sketches in the Qing dynasty,which also affected the usage of the active quantifiers.To have a general view,when researching on the historical development and semantic change of the special active quantifiers in the literary sketches of Qing dynasty,we consulted the studies on the vernacular Chinese novels of the same time,and made comparative analyses to explore the syntax and semantic characteristics of the active quantifiers in the Qing dynasty.Chapter Five is the concluding part.In the last chapter,we made a full-text summary.According to the analysis of the individual exchange and semantic change in three periods,this dissertation tries to sum up the developing conditions and characteristics of the quantifiers in the literary sketches of the Qing dynasty.Compared with the quantifiers of the Ming time,the individual exchange and semantic change developed slightly;compared with the quantifiers of the Contemporary Chinese,the individual exchange and semantic change developed comparatively greatly.Finally,we outlined the status of the quantifier system of the Qing dynasty in the history of Chinese language,and made a prospect of the development of Chinese quantifiers in the future.