Research On Syntactic Features And Evolution Of Idiomatical Grammatical Constructions In Modern Chinese

Based on the theories of Construction Grammar and Grammaticalization, this paper firstly discusses construction's notion and properties, and then analyzes five kinds of idiomatical grammatical constructions:"HaoLe", "V+ta+geVP", "BuShi", "CaiGuai" and "Xshuo", finally makes some theoretical summaries and points out the present problems and weakness of our research.The paper consists of eight chapters:First chapter mainly introduces object, significance, theoretical background, goal and methods of our research, and makes some explanations of our corpus.Second chapter introduces the theories of Construction Grammar and Grammaticalization, and then analyzes construction's notion and type. In my opinion, Construction is complex form-meaning pair<F, S> (F is pronunciation, and S is not literal meaning), and certain aspect of F or S is not strictly predictable from construction's component parts or from other previously established constructions. A construction has four properties:unpredictability, complexility, fixity and conventionality.Based on application features, construction is divided into two groups:lexical construction and grammatical construction. Lexical construction is substantial construction, and grammatical construction is formal construction. Grammatical construction contains verbal grammatical construction (like distransitive construction, caused motion construction) and idiomatical grammatical construction (like "let alone" construction, "the X-er the Y-er" construction). The feature of idiomatical grammatical construction is a person who knows the grammar and the vocabulary of the language couldn't know how to say it, what it means, or whether it is a conventional thing, unless he learns previously.The chapters from third to seventh are case studies:Third chapter researches "HaoLe" and its constructions. We firstly distinguish five usages of "HaoLe", and then after investigating the evolution of "HaoLe₁" to "HaoLe₃" and "HaoLe2" to "HaoLe₄", we find:"HaoLe₃" was evolved from "JiuHaoLe", and the meaning of its construction is "advise"; "HaoLe4" which first appeared in Yuan Dynasty was evolved from "HaoLe2", and its evolution was also affected by "HaoLe₁" and "HaoLe₅".Fourth chapter researches "V+ta+geVP" construction. "V+ta+geVP" is a spoken grammar construction, where ge is an object marker, to is a demonstrative pronoun. When to means somebody that has already appeared in the talk, we call it ta₁. When ta means "geVP", we call it ta₂. "V+ta+geVP" is a special double object construction. Compared to ta₁, ta₂ has lost part of its meaning. The desemanticization of ta₂ is related to its position and the phonetic reduction of ta₂ is to keep the grammar construction of "V+ta+geVP" harmonious in prosody. "V+ta+geVP" was the result of generation of two constructions "V+geVP" and "V+ta2+NP" by analogy and blending.Fifth chapter researches "BuShi" and its constructions. We firstly points out "BuShi₂" is a quasi-mood particle of sentence end, and its fundamental function is emphasis, and it has two kinds of pragmatic function:remindness and weak assertion. And then by investigating we find:"BuShi₁" is a focus marker and "BuShi2" is an emphatic marker; "BuShi2" was evolved from the link verb "BuShi", and its evolution was also affected by "BuShi₁"; "BuShi2" which had rhetorical mood at first was getting indicative mood, when its rhetorical mood disappeared slowly, and was getting some function like "Ba" and "ShiBuShi".Sixth chapter researches "CaiGuai". "CaiGuai₂"is a commentary quasi-adverb, and its construction "P CaiGuai" is sensitive to context and has different tense meanings in different type of context. After investigation we find:"P CaiGuai" is deductive counter-expectation construction, and it was evolved from compound sentence, whose evolution process is also the process of subjectification.Seventh chapter researches "Xshuo". We choose four constructions of "Xshuo": "WoShuo", "WoGenNiShuo", "BuShuo" and "YaoBuShuo".On "WoShuo". "WoShuo" has six usages, among which "WoShuo₁" appeared in WeiJinNanBeiChao, and "WoShuo₂/WoShuo₃/WoShuo₄WoShuo₅" appeared in Yuan Dynasty, and "WoShuo₆"appeared in Ming Dynasty. By investigating we find: "WoShuo2" was evolved from "WoShuo₁" and "WoShuo₃" was evolved from "WoShuo₂" and "WoShuo6"was evolved from "WoShuo₃"; "WoShuo4" was evolved from "WoShuo₁", and "WoShuo₅" was evolved from "WoShuo₄".On "WoGenNiShuo". "WoGenNiShuo₁" and "WoGenNiShuo2" both appeared in Qing Dynasty. "WoGenNiShuo " was followed by nominal object, where "shuo" is main verb. When "WoGenNiShuo₁"was followed by event object, "shuo" in "WoGenNiShuo₁"was not main verb and the verb in event became main verb, finally " WoGenNiShuo₁"had to be used as a discourse marker.On "BuShuo". "BuShuo₂" is an additive post-conjunction, there are two semantic relationships between items before and after it, that is, acceptability-scale up and acceptability-scale down. The semantic relationship between items before and after "BuShuo₄"is acceptability-scale down. The main difference among "BuShuo₂", "BuShuo₄'and "BieShuo₂"is the semantic relationship between items before and after itself:the semantic relationship between items before and after "BuShuo₂" and "BuShuo₄"is acceptability-scale, which is based on subjectivity; the semantic relationship between items before and after "BieShuo₂"is entailment, which is based on objectivity."BuShuo₁"was followed by nominal object and was getting to be followed by event object in TangWuDai. In Yuan Dynasty, "BuShuo" was used with words like "QieShuo/ZaiShuo" in order to mark the transformation between two events, where "BuShuo" was the prototype of "BuShuo₅". Two events in "BuShuo₅"sentence didn't belong to the same semantic class and there was no scale between them. In Ming Dynasty, Two events in "BuShuo₅"sentence belonged to the same semantic class and there was scale between them, under the circumstances "BuShuo₅"became "BuShuo₄". "BuShuo6"which is pragmatic negation was evolved from "BuShuo₁", and "BuShuo₇" which is semantic negation was evolved from "BuShuo...DaoShuo/FanShuo". "BuShuo₃"was evolved from "post-BuShuo₁", and "BuShuo₂"was evolved from "BuShuo₃", the evolution processes of "BuShuo2_" and "BuShuo₃"were seperately affected by "BuShuo₅" and "BuShuo₄"On "YaoBuShuo". "YaoBuShu₃"has the function of emphasis. "YaoBuShu₁" appeared in Qing Dynasty, and "YaoBuShuo2" was not seen before Qing Dynasty, and "YaoBuShuo₃"appeared in MingGuo Dynasty. "YaoBuShuo₃"was evolved from "YaoBuWoShuo/YaoBuWoMenShuo" because of brevity.Eighth chapter is conclusion, which makes some theoretical summaries, and points out some problems and weaknesses which still exist in our research.