Historical Evolvement Of Semantic Field Of Chinese "Buy And Sell" Type Verbs

This article gives a research on "the general 'buy and sell' sub-semanticfield","the special 'buy and sell' sub-semantic field", "the enantiosemy of 'buy andsell' sub-semantic field" and their members who belong to the semantic field ofChinese "buy and sell" type verbs.And by the use of quantitative & qualitativeanalysis,combination of synchronicity & diachrony, traditional exegetics as well asthe theory of modern semantics. The research on those sub-semantic field is dividedinto three historical periods by the synthesis of the achievement of Chinesehistory.That is:Antiquity Chinese(Pre-qin-the Two Hans),Middle Ages Chinese (atthe end of Eastern Han Dynasty～at the beginning of Tang Dynasty) and ModernChinese (Five generation of late Tang Dynasty～at the beginning of QingDynasty).This article takes representatives of each period as examples to describe thepolymerization and combination of those three "buy and sell" sub-semantic fieldsynchronously,and then compare the alternate changes of those sub-semantic fieldand their members in diachrony, in order to probe into the developmental rule ofsemantic field of Chinese "buy and sell" type verbs.The whole text can be divided into five chapters:the first one is the generalintroduction to the background and current situation about the theory,with the aims atexplaining the contents and values of the topic, establishing the research materialsand the basic mentality. The second chapter takes the whole changes of semantic field as breakthrough,describing and analyzing the sememe, and the frequency of themain members of those three sub-semantic field,which appeared in eachrepresentative documents from Antiquity Chinese to modern Chinese.It also analysesthe alternations of members and changes of structure of sub-semantic field from theangles of synonymous polymerization, antonymous polymerization together withcombinations, and then to the diachronic comparison and analysis of changes ofsub-semantic field.Chapter three studies the evolvement of each member of thesemantic field.Through specific analysis to the members of "buy and sell" semanticfield. This chapter studies the problem from three parts:the first, the uses and declineof old words;the second,the development of old words;and the last one,Theemergence and uses of new words. Chapter four tries to probe into the developmentalrules of vocabulary and sum up the characteristics during process of historicalevolvement in this "buy and sell" semantic field,by means of investigating in theentire "buy and sell" semantic field and each specific member in diachrony.The lastchapter presents the main reasons why historical evolvement occurred in "buy andsell" semantic field and provides a summary to the whole text.The research in this article indicated that: It is a feasible attempt to make aninvestigation to the evolvement of ancient Chinese vocabulary by using the theory ofsemantic field.The synchronic description and diachronic comparison of Chinese"buy and sell" semantic field can help us make clear the historical evolvement of thisfield and testify the values of semantic field, to the study of history of Chinesevocabulary.