A Study On The Adverbs In Shiji

The study of the history of Chinese must be based on the detailed grammatical research of a reliable specific book. As a sound reflection of Chinese of Han dynasty, Shiji is an important source text for research on the history of Chinese.At present, there has not been a systematic study on adverbs in Shiji. This paper makes an investigation of the adverbs in biographies in Shiji. The paper consists of four chapters.Chapter one introduces the research destination, research steps and research ways.Chapter two discusses the definition of adverbs, other scholars'opinions on the classification and the criterions employed in the paper. Adverbs in biographies in Shiji are classified into eight groups:degree adverbs; range adverbs; time adverbs; manner adverbs; link adverbs; negative adverbs; mood adverbs; etiquette adverbs.Chapter three, the principal part of the paper, give a comprehensive description of 200 adverbs in biographies. Following steps are adopted to describe them. Firstly, the paper gives the definition of each group of adverbs and classify them into types from the semantic perspective. Secondly, the paper provides a thorough description of the adverbs from the aspects of the environment of appearance, the traits of meaning and the modification of the predicates in the sentence. A form is put at the end of the analysis part, which reflects the detailed usage of the adverbs to give a systematic and quantitative knowledge.Chapter four summarizes the adverbs from four aspects: the quantity of monosyllabic adverbs and polysyllabic adverbs, proportions of each group of adverbs and the position of the adverbs in sentences.