A Study On Positional Phrases In The Records Of History

Positional phrases are used as a main means to express space category in Chinese,and it is also an important language phenomenon which distinguishes Chinese from other languages.Scholars on contemporary Chinese grammar have paid very limited attention to positional phrases used in ancient Chinese,so it is impossible to know exactly the use of positional phrases in every period and difficult to describe clearly their historical development and evolution.The present study mainly adopts exhaustive counts and synchronic description to analyse the characteristics of positional phrases used in the Records of History in respect of their internal constitution,semantic meaning and grammatical features,hoping to reveal the real appearance of positional phrases used in the Western Han period.The thesis consists of five parts.The introduction briefly describes the current research on positional phrases,presents the main purpose,significance and methods of the present study,and makes some related explanations.Chapter One gives definitions for words of orientation and positional phrases,and clarifies its research object and range.Chapter Two explains briefly the three forms of positional phrases used in the Records of History:X+L,X+之+L and X+以+L,and focuses on analysing the classificatory constitution of pre-modifies used in positional phrases and the relation between positional phrases and prepositions.Chapter Three uses the theory of cognitive linguistics to analyse the semantic features of positional phrases.Chapter Four discusses the positional phrases' grammatical functions,and systematically analyses the grammatical features of every kind of positional phrases by giving descriptions and examples.