Study Of Interrogative Sentence In Lunheng

Lunheng is the works of Wang Chong in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Since Lunheng is relatively colloquial which could virtually reflect the language situation in the early Eastern Han Dynasty, it is one of the most valuable corpuses to study the evolution path of Chinese language grammar in the Eastern Han Dynasty even from ancient times up to mediaeval times.As an argumentation prose, the questionings in Lunheng which serves for argumentation are highly purposeful. According to the pragmatic purpose, the interrogative sentences in Lunheng are divided into three systems from the perspective of language users:special questions, question-answer sentences, rhetorical questions, and the thesis makes an overall descriptive analysis of specific using of the three systems and its sub-systems (specific type, yes-no questions, alternative question, repeating question, comparative question) is done. Besides, the question-answering ways and comprehensive application of interrogative question are also studied in the thesis. Meanwhile the thesis investigates and traces the origin, making longitudinal historical comparisons and dynamic analysis so as to discuss the role Lunheng plays in the development history of interrogative questions on the basis of static description.The book consists of eight chapters in all.Chapter one is introduction, including three sections. Section one:introducing the author Wang Chong, the contents, compilation course, and versions of Lunheng. This part states that Lunheng is not only classical Chinese but also colloquial; the two features combined to reveal the transitional language. Section two:Description of the motivations and purposes of topic selection, to investigate the corpus value and language nature of Lunheng. It holds that Lunheng is very valuable in the study of Chinese language history. Lunheng is very colloquial though including much classical Chinese, which could objectively reflect the language in the early Eastern Han Dynasty, revealing the language appearance between ancient times and mediaeval times. Section three illustrates the research approach and methods of this thesis.Chapter Two is literature review. The first section and second section are the present study and research situation of Lunheng with the statistical method, in order to fully demonstrate the review of these two aspects and lay a solid foundation for further study. Section three makes a brief retrospect on the classifications of interrogative questions, and proposes the classification criteria and categories.Chapter Three, Four, and Five provide detailed description of various interrogative sentence patterns and its main interrogative marks (interrogative pronouns, interrogative mood etc.) from the perspectives of special questions, question-answer sentences, rhetorical questions respectively. Chapter Six further describes the question-answering ways and comprehensive application of interrogative questions.Chapter Seven is the comparative study of interrogative questions in Lunheng. Section One: Make internal comparisons of three interrogative questions in Lunheng and tell the differences of the three interrogative question forms. Section Two make simple external comparisons from the perspectives of object fronting, alternative question patterns, "Shuyu" sentence patterns, newly-emerged interrogative words and phrases, and the conjunction of choice, to discuss the characteristics of interrogative questions in Lunheng and the role it plays in the history of interrogative questions. Chapter Eight is the conclusion.