On The New Vocabulary In Wei And Jin Dynasty Based On Corpus Of <The Great Chinese Dictionary>

Wei and Jin dynasty represent the early middle ages in the development of Chinese language, which served as a connecting link between the the preceding and the following ages. In terms of vocabulary, Wei and Jin dynasty are the turning point from ancient classical Chinese vocabulary to modern Chinese vocabulary, laying the groundwork for the latter. Chinese language, especially its vocabulary, underwent significant changes in Wei and Jin dynasty, with the changing societies and dynasties, frequent wars, emergence of Taoism and introduction of Buddhism. Through analysis and description of the new vocabulary, and discussion of the system and rules of the formation, creation and development of them, the thesis attempts to further the Chinese lexical research in this synchronic period.The thesis contains seven chapters. The introduction discusses current situation and significance of the research of Chinese vocabulary in Wei and Jin dynasty, as well as the contents and methods of research in this thesis. Selecting and using over 3,000 documents and more than 370,000 word entries, The Great Chinese Dictionary is one of the most convenient and effective documents for the study of development of Chinese vocabulary. Based on The Great Chinese Dictionary, we established a corpus of vocabulary in Wei and Jin dynasty, selecting the materials carefully to ensure they are accurate, sufficient and typical. The exhaustive analysis of linguistic data from necessary concerning angles, accurate statistics about them, and comparison of the quantities all help us to draw a conclusion about the rules of language development. The thesis also contains categorized, systematic and static description, combination of synchronic and diachronic approaches, integration of traditional explanatory theories and modern linguistic theories, conclusions about characteristics of vocabulary systems, and full revelation of the features of Chinese vocabulary in this period.From two viewpoints:typical new vocabulary which reflects the social characteristics and a general picture of them, Chapter one gives a description of the new vocabulary. The adaptation of semantic field theory in study of new vocabulary helps us to reveal the semantic system and widens our horizon in language research; the emphasis on research of semantic relations between sememes enables us to explore semantic connotations and their development. The typical fields of new vocabulary, which reflect social characteristics in Wei and Jin dynasty, include those about politics, economy, culture and nature. Each secondary semantic field can be divided into even smaller ones. For example, semantic field about politics contains fields about official system, military, and laws. Semantic field about economy contains fields about taxation, farming, fishing, hunting, animal husbandry and handicraft. Semantic field about culture includes those about metaphysics, Buddhism and Taoism. Semantic field about nature includes those about astronomical phenomena, climate, geography, animals and plants. The typical new vocabulary characterizing a society plays a significant role in the study of history of Chinese language. New vocabulary is made up of two parts: common words, words from Buddhism.The main part of this thesis is from chapter two to chapter seven.Chapter two probes into monosyllable new words according to different origins of them, and explores the patterns of their creation. Monosyllable new words can be divided into those based on existing forms and creation of new forms. According to theories about nature of linguistic symbols, monosyllable new words in Wei and Jin dynasty fall into three distinct patterns:names for new concepts, changed names for existing concepts, and expressions of existing concepts in another independent form.Chapter three and chapter four are the center of this thesis, in which studies are conducted about two-syllable new words in six sections:joint structure, modifier-head structure, predicate-object structure, subject-predicate structure, supplemental structure, additional structure and single morpheme words. Step one:systematic and static description; step two:summaries of rules based on sorting of materials, and adaptation of combined methods of quantitative and qualitative analysis. Careful analysis of inner structure of two-syllable new words is performed in terms of two clues. The first clue: division of two-syllable new compounds in Wei and Jin dynasty into 6 categories and 45 sub-categories according to structural relations between two morphemes. The second clue:division into 6 categories and establishment of sub-categories according to parts of speech, and then third-level categories according to parts of speech of inner morphemes. Altogether there are 25 sub-categories and 64 third-level categories. Then the characteristics of two-syllable new words and rules of their development are discussed respectively, with stress on the diachronic comparison of them. Judging by relations between the inner structure and external function reflected in statistics, the consistence of inner structure, word nature and parts of speech has an absolute advantage.In Chapter five researches are conducted on three-syllable new words. The development reaches a new stage from two-syllable compounds of monosyllabic words or morphemes into three-syllable or polysyllabic words made up of morphemes or words. Based on semantic contents and grammatical structure, this chapter analyses three-syllable new words in Wei and Jin dynasty. A majority of three-syllable new words are formed in two or more ways. According to their semantic contents, comprehensive three-syllable new words are divided into proper names, sub-proper names, common nouns and verbs with 17 sub-categories.17 categories can be obtained based on the inner grammatical structure. A great majority of the three-syllable new compounds are 238 modifier-head structures, which takes up 90.15% of them. And they are constructed in eight different ways. The development of three-syllable modifier-head structures in Wei and Jin dynasty is closely related to the asymmetry of the syllables.In Chapter six four-syllable new words are studied, which include common words and idioms. In common words, there are proper names and sub-proper names, with different semantic contents.66 of the new idioms, or 19.30%, are traceable, while 276 of them, or 80.70%, are not traceable. With regard to their inner grammatical structure, new idioms can be divided into 8 categories:modifier-head structure, joint structure, predicate-object structure, supplemental structure, v-v structure, compressed structure and repetitive structure. The first 5 categories also contain 56 sub-categories. Joint structures take up 47.07% of all the new idioms. Most of the idioms can perform the function of predicates, while only a small percentage function as nouns. Wei and Jin dynasty witnessed considerable development of idioms, which exerted profound impact on two-syllable Chinese words. A vast majority of the new idioms survived into modern Chinese.The ways and rules of semantic development of polysyllabic words are discussed in Chapter seven. The booming of polysyllabic Chinese words in Wei and Jin dynasty led to emergence of abundant new sememes. Polysyllabic words developed semantically in four ways:extending derivation, modifying derivation, grammatical derivation and parallel derivation.Extending derivation is divided into three ways:First, semantic extension of sememes with modifying semanteme reduced and central semanteme unchanged. Second, semantic contraction of sememes with modifying semanteme increased and central semanteme unchanged. Third, semantic shift of sememe from one semantic field to another, with one modifying semanteme kept and central semanteme changed. Modifying derivation includes metaphorical derivation and metonymical derivation. The former includes similarity of appearances, functions and moods; the latter includes substitution of material for things, substitution of part for the whole, substitution of behavioral characteristics for things or people, and substitution of natural characteristics for things or people. Grammatical derivation refers to the change of substantive words into function words. Different semantic choices of morphemes in compounds lead to parallel derivation. The relationship between new sememes and original ones are parallel rather than derivative. As one important semantic derivative way of polysyllabic words in Wei and Jin dynasty, parallel derivation contributes to the creation of a large quantity of new sememes. The semantic development of polysyllabic words in Wei and Jin dynasty is the combined consequence of inner lingual causes and social historical causes. Major contributions of the thesis:1. Diachronic, pioneering and overall researches of vocabulary in Wei and Jin dynasty enable us to observe history of Chinese language and explore the inner rules of their development.2. The thesis takes a natural lingual viewpoint to give a detailed analysis of the inner structure and external function of two-syllable new words, and exploration of their relationship.3. Traditional lexical semantics mainly attributes semantic changes to historical and social factors. Cognitive linguistic theories are used in this thesis to explore the emergence of new words. Appearance of active metonymical morphemes and establishment of new semantic categories are major features of the modifier-head polysyllabic new vocabulary system in this period. Two-syllable new words with joint structures complete the semantic structure by means of metaphor and metonymy, the main means to create new vocabulary.4. Three-and four-syllable new words are studied from two viewpoints:semantic contents and inner grammatical structure, so as to show the general picture and development of polysyllabic new words in this period. There's also the combination of lexical research with historical folklore research in Wei and Jin dynasty.5. Comprehensive studies are operated on the new sememe system in this period. Inheriting research achievements from traditional explanatory theories, borrowing ideas from semantic field theories and semanteme analysis, the thesis probes into different ways and rules of semantic development of polysyllabic words, and identifies them as extending derivation, modifying derivation, grammatical derivation and parallel derivation. Regular patterns of the emergence of new sememes in polysyllabic words are also discussed to find the inner lingual causes and social historical causes for the semantic changes in Wei and Jin dynasty.