Study Of Chinese Character Qi (å…¶) During The Pre-Qin Period

Qi (其) is one of the basic words in the ancient Chinese language, with many usages. This study focuses on the character of Qi, with the help of archives and classical sources, describing Qi's grammatical function in the Shang Dynasty, the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the Chunqiu Zhanguo Period. During the Shang Dynasty, Qi was used as an adverb of time and mood. During the Western Zhou Dynasty, it had more functions as it was used as a demonstrative pronoun, a personal pronoun, a conjuncture and an auxiliary verb. During the Chunqiu Zhanguo Period, Qi obtained all the functions used in later eras. This article also describes the fixed levels of Qi combining with other function words, and analyzes the similarities and differences of grammatical meanings and pragmatic functions when Qi is used in prose and verse. This study shows a full picture of Qi's grammatical functions during the pre-Qin period. Based on traditional achievements of ancient Chinese studies and modern linguistic theories, with historical comparative method, this research tries to sketch Qi's grammatical evolution: Qi was first used to refer to dustpan(簸箕), to represent adverb of time; after the extension of meaning, Qi got the function of acting as an adverb of mood, later as a conjuncture between sentences, then a demonstrative pronoun on the basis of its function as a adverb of time, finally a personal pronoun, a conjuncture, and an auxiliary verb. This study maintains that the mechanism and causes of Qi's grammatical evolution are the extension of its meaning, syntactic structure, cognitive psychology and reassessment. What is more, this study discusses some disputes about Qi's meaning and usage during the pre-Qin period, and tries to clarify some linguistic facts and show the original linguistic functions of Qi.