Research Of The Pre-Qin Chinese Nouns Used As Adverbials And Its Development

This paper aims to research on the linguistic phenomenon of pre-Qin period in ancient China when people used nouns as adverbials, and how it has been developed since then. To study the issue more systematically and comprehensively, nine classical ancient books and records from pre-Qin period have been analyzed based on the previous research work. To gain the inductive description of the usage characteristics of the mentioned phenomenon, statistical data from these books have been summarized and compared.According to the book the Research of Nouns in Zuozhuan written by Mr. Zhang Wenguo, in which the method of classifying nouns has been proposed, this paper has sorted the nouns adverbials appeared in the above nine books and records, followed with analyses for each case quoted in the paper. There are four categories for the nouns being used as adverbials in Pre-Qin period which are using a proper noun as adverbial, using an animate noun as adverbial, using a material noun as adverbial and using an abstract noun as adverbial respectively. Through analysis and induction, three characteristics have been found when using nouns as adverbials in Pre-Qin period. First, there are not many cases that using nouns as adverbials back then, however the grammar feature of Parataxis in Chinese language has been reflected clearly. Furthermore, in spite of the diversity of the combination structure of nouns and verbs, one noun and one verb combination is the main pattern. Finally, there is strong correspondence between the type of nouns being used as adverbials and that of nouns, and this relation is connected by the conceptual meaning of nouns. As straight forward as this corresponding relation, usually one certain kind of nouns only maps to one certain kind of noun adverbials, the exceptional cases for cross-mapping-kind can barely been found. This paper has also investigated the development of using nouns as adverbials from Pre-Qin to Han dynasty in ancient China. Through comparison, the main transformation has been observed: First, the amount of entity nouns and object nouns used as adverbials has been remarkably increased from Pre-Qin to Han dynasty. Moreover, the simplicity for the monogamy corresponding relation between noun adverbials and nouns in Pre-Qin period no longer exists in Han period. Along with the development, more object nouns has been used for indicating metaphor, instead of with the solely function of expressing behaviors, which illustrates that the depiction effects of noun adverbials has been enhanced from Pre-Qin to Han dynasty. In addition, the grammar feature of Parataxis in Chinese language has been confirmed more effectively through the development. And this is also one of the reasons for the transition in quantities and qualities of noun adverbials from Pre-Qin to Han period.Placing nouns directly before the head word of predicate as adverbials indicates the grammar feature of Parataxis in Chinese language. And the research for noun adverbials in Pre-Qin period provides the effective evidence to this feature, and also to the classify issue of Chinese language. The study for development of noun adverbials in Pre-Qin period demonstrates that Chinese language is moving directing to be syntactic precision. This paper could help to eliminate the unnecessary misunderstanding for the modern grammar teaching to some extent, unify the recognitions, so as to improve the teaching system for ancient Chinese grammar. For the huge amount of ancient books and records from Pre-Qin dynasty, this paper has only studied for nine ones of them. Despite of the limitation for panoramically statistical analysis for all the noun adverbials appeared in Pre-Qin period, the fundamental information and main characteristics of noun adverbials in Chinese language at that ancient time could be mirrored in a way. Similarly, although the classical works of Han that being researched in this paper could not represent all aspects of language circumstance in the Han dynasty, they are well enough to be compared with the nine Pre-Qin books, and then offering the platform for the research to observe and conclude the development process of noun adverbials for that certain period. This paper offers the inspiration for the future study for the Pre-Qin noun adverbials research towards wider and deeper.