"Mencius" "Han Fei Zi" Syntax FunctionDiversification And Complication Research

This thesis is an attempt to research into the development of the usage of three kinds full word on the basis of the lexical study of two classics in this period------Mencius and Han Feizi.The present thesis, by comparing and contrasting between lexical usage of Warring States time and in the language system derived from inscription on bones and tortoise shells in Shang Dynasty-outlines the major change in syntactic functions of nouns, verbs and adjectives in Warring States time and indicates that the diversity and complexity of syntactic functions of the three major content words in this period promoted and development of flexible usage of words and multi-function of words, which contributed to the formation of ancient Chinese as a varied and complicated language system.The thesis consists of three parts:Part One reports the characteristics of diversified syntactic functions of nouns, verbs and adjectives in Warring States time, which are interpreted in three sections. Section One: On the Diversity of Syntactic Functions of Nouns. This section points out that in this period, nouns, still used as subjects, objects, attributes a in remote antiquity, came to function a predicates to constitate declarative sentence. The section also indicates that general nouns in some cases can be temporarily used as adverbials, representing multi-folded grammatical meaning. Section two: On the Diversity of Syntactic Functions of Verbs. The section reports that many verbs , generally used only as predicates in the inscriptions system, worked as attributes as well as subjects, objects and adverbials additionally. Section three: On the Diversity of Syntactic Functions of Adjectives. Adjectives, in Warring States time, developed as adverbials and predicates besides subjections and objects while generally as attributes, adverbials and predicates in inscriptions system.