Study On Function Words In XinShu

XinShu is a collection of political theses by Jia Yi, which consists of 58 passages. It was compiled from his memorials to the throne and argumentations by later generations, and it basically embodies ancient Chinese in Western Han Dynasty.This thesis refers to the grammatical system of Mr. Zhaolin's Grammar and Some Essays, analyses and counts four kinds of function words in XinShu, such as adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and particles. It explores the characteristic of their usages, compares them with their counterparts in some pre-Qin documents and ShiJi, and discusses the development of function words in early Western Han Dynasty. The thesis is divided into four chapters: adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and particles. Each chapter explores each function word according to its category: counting how many times it appears in XinShu, describing its usages, comparing it with similar function words and analyzing their differences. There is a conclusion at the end of each chapter, which discusses the development of each kind of function words in XinShu.Function words in XinShu succeed function words in pre-Qin documents, so they are more comprehensive and mature, and they tend to develop. Some new function words emerge, such as adverbs "li"(立) and "shaoshao" (稍稍) ,and some gradually die out, such as syllable particles "ruo" (若) "er"(而).Some extend their functions, such as the conjunction "gu" (故), modal particles "hu" (乎 ) and "zai" (哉) , and some shrink, such as the preposition "yu" (於) .Some function words even develop special usages, for example, conjunctions "yin"( 因 )and "er"(而).In short, the usages of function words in XinShu are similar to those in ShiJi.