A Study On The Classifiers In The Four Legends In Ming Dynasty

The application of classifier is of characteristic in Sino-Tibetan family of languages. Other family of languages have the special words which can express unit, but those are always measure classifier. On the contrary, chinese is very rich in nature classifier. After investigating into the language corpus which is about one million characters in length, I survey the uses which are about the noun-based classifier, the verb-based classifier, the borrowed noun-based and the borrowed verb-based classifier, para-classifier exhaustively in The Four Legends in Ming Dynasty. At the same time, I do the quantitative numeration of all the words. Though the whole work I have done, the panorama of The Four Legends in Ming Dynasty is showed in detail.This thesis is composed of two parts. The first part is description of the classifiers in The Four Legends in Ming Dynasty. In this thesis, the classifiers are subsumed into the two following categories: the noun-based classifiers and the verb-based classifiers. The former explain measure classifiers, nature classifiers, some borrowed noun-based classifiers and para-classifiers. The latter elucidate some special verb-based classifiers and borrowed verb-based classifiers. According to semantic traits of the nouns that classifiers modify, I categorize and analyze the classifiers appropriately. I not only consider concrete uses of the classifiers, but also take evolution and development of the classifiers into account. Thus, synchrony and diachrony, static state and dynamic state are organically integrated together.The second part of this thesis is theoretical research. Though objective description of the classifiers in The Four Legends in Ming Dynasty, they can reflect characteristic of the classifiers in Ming Dynasty in use. The thesis compare not only classifiers among The Four Legends in Ming Dynasty, but also classifiers between before Ming Dynasty which is regarded as a whole and modern chinese. Thus, concerning classifiers, I can find the clue of evolution and development. The theoretical research contains six topics below:(一)The suffixlization of the noun-based classifier. It's a fairly productive method to form a word.(二)The structure of Classifier-Noun. It's a kind of bequeath in ancient chinese in use.(三)The word-building of Double-Classifier compound word.(四)Para-classifier and multi-functional classifier ( i.e a word with many syntactical functions and morphological features ). Here, I tend to elucidate the reasonable name, what's more, para-classifier is not multi-functional classifier at all.(五)The affix of the classifier in The Four Legends in Ming Dynasty. Here, the affix is very plentiful with "er", "zi", "tou"and "jia" in The Four Legends in Ming Dynasty.(六)The comparison of uses in The Four Legends in Ming Dynasty. Due to the time which the four works occur, uses of the classifier maybe have some differences.(七)The comparison of uses between The Four Legends in Ming Dynasty and modern chinese about classifiers.