Research On The Grammaticalization Of "Lao"

In modern Chinese language,"lao"has the feature of various semantic features and multi-function. And it can be used as noun,adjective,degree adverb,time adverb and affix. During the pre-Qin days and the Two Hans,"lao"was used as noun and adjective . Later, with a long history's evolution ,"lao"came into being an adverb or affix gradually . And its semantic and function also got abundant. The complexity of"lao"has already caused the attention of a lot of scholars and was studied from various points of view.The thesis apply both the diachronic and synchronic approaches. Firstly, the thesis systematically describes the change of syntax and meaning of"lao"and summarize its track of grammaticalization. The semantic feature of"lao"is"overage"and other meanings of"lao"are all derive from the meaning of"overage".There are two ways in the grammaticalization of"lao".On the one hand, the adverb"lao"was grammaticalized from the adjective"lao". on the other hand, the affix"lao"was grammaticalized from the adjective"lao".Finally, the thesis analyze the main reason and mechanism of the grammalization of"lao"from five aspect, which are syntax, semantic,pragmatic,phonetic and congnitive. In the process of grammaticalization,the syntactic condition is the main reason and high frequent usage is the key to the grammaticalization.The semantic is the foundation ,which decide the direction of the grammaticalization .And the change of the meanig inflect the syntactic function.Pragmatic is the activator in the grammaticalized process. And there is a indiscerptible relation between the extension of the semantic meaning and human's cognitive mechanism .Metaphor is a primary approach in the grammaticalization of"lao".