A Study Of Time Words In Zutangji

Zutangji which was written in 952 AD, is the earliest extant historical materials of Zen. It's firsthand corpus of tangwudai Chinese. The book of study of time words in Zutangji contributes to further understanding of time words in modern times.First of all, the introduction part clarifies the research subjects of this thesis, that is, time noun, time adverb and time phrase. Then chapter two and chapter three analyze the structure of time noun and time phrase which show time point or a period of time respectively according to the meaning of words. In this part, the author puts more emphasis on the analysis of the source of"qinzao", and five phrase structures of verb phrase +ci showing time point and a period of time indicating general. Chapter four analyzes two classifications of time adverb: tense and aspect, among which the interpretation of the meaning of"zhixia"and the source of"yishi"receive adequate attention. Chapter five sums up the characteristics of time words in Zutangji: first, there is a large amount of time words; second, the main form is disyllable; third, some time words have a flavor of Zen.