A Study Of The "Cong" Type Prepositions

The research object of this thesis is the "Cong" type prepositions (including "Cong, zi, da, you, zicong, zida, dacong, congda"). This article inspects the grammatical meaning of the "Cong" type prepositions, the syntactic function and distribution of the "Cong" type prepositional phrases, the functional difference of each "Cong" type prepositions, the origin and their grammaticalization process.Chapter one introduces the object of the research, the purpose and methods of the research, the origin of corpus and the current studying situation of the topic.The second chapter is the synchronic study of the "Cong" type prepositions. First, it analyzes the grammatical meaning of the "Cong" type prepositions and the grammatical function of the "Cong" type prepositional phrases. Second, it analyzes the syntactic function and distribution of the "Cong" type prepositional phrases. Third, it analyzes the functional difference between the "Cong" type prepositions. In the end, it also makes an analysis of the preposition framework of the "Cong" type prepositions.The third chapter contributes to the diachronic study of the "Cong" type prepositions. On the basis of the analysis of the diachronic corpus, we describe the development process of each "Cong" type prepositions and the preposition frameworks of them, and then we get the trace of engendering, developing of each "Cong" type preposition.In chapter four, we explain the development process of each "Cong" type prepositions in terms of the grammaticalization theory. There are two grammaticalization clines: the noun-to-affix cline and the verb-to-affix cline. The change of syntactic position and analogy are the mechanisms of the "Cong" type prepositions. The grammaticalization of the "Cong" type prepositions are also affected by cognitive and pragmatic factors.Chapter five summarizes the major points of the thesis.