A Study On The Chinese Postverbal Preposition Structure

In the history of Chinese language,the preposition structure had a historic movement,in which the predominant position has been shifting from a postverbal positions to a preverbal positions.Based on the postverbal preposition structures in Chinese language,this paper attempts to make a systematical research on the diachronic development of word order,including sorting out the development and trend of postverbal prepositions as well as summarizing the motivation and mechanism of the movement to explore the typological significance of word-order changes of the preposition structure.There are 7 chapters.The first chapter is the introduction and the last chapter is the conclusion.The other chapters are as follows:Chapter 2: In this chapter,we outlined the preposition system in Pre-Qin Chinese and described the general picture of the postverbal prepositions in this period.There are 8commonly used postverbal prepositions which including two categories: Prepositions such as "Zhu(诸),Hu(乎)" only occupy postverbal position,while the "Yu(於/于),Yi(以),Zi(自),Ji(及),Zai(在),Yong(用)" can either be preverbal or postverbal.Postverbal preposition structure predominantly express 4 semantic domains(Location,Time,Tool and Object).Yu(於/于),Yi(以)and Zi(自)marks prepositions.Wide domain prepositions,among which Yu(于)can mark and introduce spatio-temporal domain(Source,Goal and Location)and object domain(agentive,patientive,comitative and comparative).Yi(以)may introduce manner,instrument and patientive domain.Zi(自)can mark spatio-temporal domain(source,perlative and so on).The postverbal use of preposition structures made up an absolute majority in the Pre-Qin period.Some preposition structures gain topic or focus function by occupying preverbal positions.Some preposition structures with unfixed word order can be either preverbal or postverbal,which showed the characteristic of Chinese word order in this period.The postverbal prepositions Yu(於 / 于)and Yi(以)started to further its grammaticalization at the same time.Chapter 3: From Eastern Han to Wei Jin South &North dynasty,the development of postverbal prepositions shows some overall characteristics: i)Some old prepositions came on declining in their operating frequency as well as their functions.ii)Old prepositions and newly-emerged prepositions were coexisting and competed with each other,resulting in replacement and renovation.iii)The postverbal preposition structures gradually shifted from postverbal to preverbal positions.The utilization of old postverbal prepositions,including Yu(於/于),Yi(以)and Zi(自),declined and new space prepositions like Zhu(着),Zhi(至),Xiang(向),Jiu(就)produced.These new forms of manner and object prepositions shared the function of old postverbal prepositions.In the aspect of word-order,the postverbal preposition structures changed greatly:Firstly,some preposition structures indicating source,perlative,location and object domains gradually shifted from being postverbal to being preverbal;Secondly,the preposition structures indicating manner and tool domains were adjusted to the preverbal position,which made up the absolute majority.Only the preposition structures expressing[+Goal] have remained postverbal.In view of syntactic structures,preposition structures commonly follow monosyllable verbs which tended not to take an object or a complement.In the perspective of semantic structure,the word-order distribution of space preposition structures was restricted by semantic conditions while the syntactic position distribution of them depended on their positions before or after the main verb.A semantic framework with the verb at its core had roughly taken shape,that was,Source+ Location+ Verb+ Location+Goal.Chapter 4: From Tang and Song to Ming and Qing dynasties,the word order changes of postverbal preposition structures had been finished.The postverbal prepositions continued their grammaticalization,in which prepositions exhibited a character of renovation and reinforcement.Postverbal prepositions are important material that derived double-syllable prepositions.Yu(於)and Yi(以)have become suffix morpheme.Generally speaking,postverbal prepositions tend to develop into internal components in word.In Yuan,Ming and Qing dynasties,the function of postverbal prepositions tend to be more specialized with far more refined expression.Zai(在)replaced Yu(於)to be the most important space preposition in Chinese language.Dao(到)became a main preposition marking [+Goal].Wang(往)and Xiang(向)were used as a marker of [+Direction].Yong(用)and Na(拿)were usually used to indicate manner or tool case.Chapter 5: There are 8 postverbal prepositions in modern Chinese that are used in the structure "V+P+N".They are Zai(在),Dao(到),Gei(给),Xiang(向),Wang(往),Zi(自),Yu(于)and Yi(以).Apart from the classical Chinese postverbal prepositions Yu(于),Yi(以)and Zi(自),the other postverbal prepositions mainly indicated [+Goal] or [+Direction] by following VP.These postverbal prepositions possessed complex grammatical nature in synchronic level and exhibited hierarchical relation of gramaticalization: preposition >intermediate state > empty morpheme.Some postverbal prepositions undergoing gramaticalization have become morphemes while some had a tendency of cliticization.Considering about the unidiectionality of grammaticalization,the grammaticalization trend of Chinese postverbal prepositions were different from that of western languages,for instance,the postverbal prepositions didn’t develop into inflectional affixes.In short,the development trend of postverbal prepositions can be summarized as: postverbal preposition > clitic > morpheme.Chapter 6: In terms of the typological features,SVO was a predominant type in Pre-Qin Chinese.The order of verb and preposition structure(V-preposition structure)correlated so harmoniously with the order of V-O languages,in which the preposition structures more often follow the verb.Since Han dynasty,some postverbal preposition structures have been shifting to a preverbal position and the prepositions finally make up the absolute majority in Modern Chinese.With this transformation,V-O structure doesn’t coincide with preposition structure-V anymore.From the perspective of the word-order changes of postverbal preposition structures,the development of Chinese word order should be a rare exception to the universals of word order type.The reason for the changes is kind of complex.The influence factors for the transformation might be the replacement of prepositions,the complication of syntactic structure or the restriction by the principle of temporal sequence(PTS).Among all the factors,PTS is the most important intrinsic factor that promote the word-order changes of postverbal preposition structures.To sum up,this paper has mainly researched on the following items: Firstly,this paper cleared up the system of postverbal prepositions and described their syntactic and semantic functions in details and analyzed the development,changes and trends of postverbal prepositions in diachronic way.Secondly,detailed research into the word-order changes of postverbal preposition structures was done to explore the motivation and to reveal the relations between the word-order changes of preposition structures and the type of Chinese word order.