Studies On The Valence Of The Verbs In SouShenji

Soushenji was one of Chinese earliest and the most infuential works about monsters. The work was finished when chinese was changing from the system of Literary style to the vernacular one. The spoken language has a compratively significant part in its speech, which, to a great extent, reflects the style and features of the language in Wei Dynasty and Jin Dynasty. Therefore, the work is the important language materials for us studying on the pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar in the Middle Ages Chinese and it has great value in the language studying aspect. This paper aims to describe all the verbs valence in SouShenJi (not including Lost Essay, similarly hereinafter), in order to understand their co-ordinate valence ability, the valence distribution and the matching situation on the one hand, and on the other hand, to summary the semantic characteristics of various types of verbs, hoping to have a whole understanding of the grammatical functions of verbs in the Middle Ages."Valence" is defined by L.Tesniere, the linguist of France. This theory advocates that verb is the core of a sentence and other constituents as people and scenes story are subordinate components. So Studying the verb from the Valence angle has become one of the important issues for the universal grammar theory. This theory was brought to our country in 1970s and was paid great attention. Some scholars have applied this theory to resolve many modern Chinese grammar problems. In recent years, there was a study in the ancient Chinese language with valence theory, and achievement has been gained. This paper chose all the verbs in SouShenji to make a valence analysis, hoping to further the fields of valence Grammar application and to provide some materials for accurately describing the grammar systems of SouShenji.In this paper, all the verbs in SouShenJi will be the inspection object. First, following the principle that the words' grammatical function, form and the lexical meaning are linked with each other and according to the verbs'frequency and the lexical items that appears in the language materials,557 verbs would be picked out. Then, according to their semantic characteristics, the verbs are divided into five categories:action verbs, properties verbs, relationships verbs, psychological verbs and cause verbs. Valence Grammar theory aims to reveal the dominant capacity of verbs over the subordinate component, reflecting the quantity of verbs associated with the semantic content volume. In order to fully reveal the dominant ability of verb, the semantic roles of the various subordinate elements of the subordinate verbs should be revealed. This paper divided the semantic roles of a subordinate elements of the verbs in SouShenJi into three major categories and 25 small categories in order to more systematicly and comprehensively reveal the valence of the verb and relationship between the verb and its semantics of the a subordinate components.This paper confirms that the grammatical characters of Valence is either semantics or syntax. The verbs'valence should be decided by indispensable elements in the basic sentence. The indispensable preposition constituents exist, which is caused by the parts of temporary utilizing of speech. This paper divides all verbs in SouShenji into five kinds:monvalent verb, preposition monvalent verb, bivalent verb, preposition bivalent verb, trivanlent verb. The "Valence" is a complex conception that concerns various levels and it is not enough to study the verbs'controlling ability only in a basic sentence because there are still many expansive sentences. So, we introduce "valence levels" and change the "Valence" which is a single concept into a layered system-a tier of level system with valence, link and item, and seek to maximize the number of them, in order to fully reflect various capacity of verbs.In the fourth chapter of this paper, the verbs are analyzed in detail. Through the analysis, it can be easily found that in all verbs, Two-Valence verbs are the most, a total of 357, accounting for 64.1 percent while preposition monvalent verbs are the least, only 2, accounting for 0.36 percent. In all verbs, action verbs are the most and its number is 431, accounting for 77.4 percent while causes verbs are the least and its number is 7, accounting for 1.3percent. In all types of verbs, the number of Two-Valence action verbs are large and its valence ability is the highest while the causes verbs and psychological verbs are the weakest. Thus, it can be said that the nature and semantic features of the verbs determine the capability of the verb valence.