A Study On The Pronouns Of "Yue Yue Chuan"

Shuo Yue Quan Zhuan is a book written on the early years of Qing Dynasty. Its authors are the writers from the lower class, they are Qian Cai and Jin Feng. It is the most sucessful novel based on the theme of Yue Fei battling with Jin.Besides that, it is one of the best novels about hero legend in the Qing Dynasty.This book is compiled on the basis of edition of folk storytellers and is filled with storytellers tone. It gives the first place to the narrative techniques and it is written by the popular vernacular. With its extremely dense spoken language, it has high value of language study. We will take the book as the corpus to study the pronouns in this novel.There are 116 Chinese pronouns in Shuo Yue Quan Zhuan. We found that the pronouns in this book have the following characteristics:First, the personal pronouns exhibit distinguishing features of modern ChineseThe frequency of using "I" and "you" and "he" is highest in the Shuo Yue Quan Zhuan and the usage and function is the best, becoming the general form in their respective fields. Along with "Qi" and "Bi", the ancient Chinese pronoun "Wu" "Er" and "Ru"are used for few times due to the limited range, showing decline trend. The new third person pronouns in the Nan-Bei Dynasty, "Qu" and "Yi", were not visible in the book. It can be inferred that they are basically disappeared in oral communication when the book were wriiten. The distinction between singular and plural personal pronouns become clearly.The expression of plural are functioned by "We" "You"and"They". "We" did not reflect the differences between exclusion type and inclusion type. That may be under the influence of dialect used by the author.Second, the demonstrative pronoun hierarchy based on "this" and "that" is basically formed.The demonstrative pronoun hierarchy in Shuo Yue Quan Zhuan still has a small amount of the demonstrative pronouns which are created in ancient Chinese. But emerging demonstrative pronouns "this" and "that" have more disyllabic forms, more wide range and more complete grammatical function, being basically in the demonstrative pronoun system’s reign. Among the demonstrative pronouns in ancient Chinese, "Ci" is still in use. However, its usage is restricted. It is needed to note that, "Ci" has some complex forms of fixed usage in the modern Chinese period. For example, "Yinci" and "Ruci" is still used in modern Chinese. The ancient Chinese words "Zi, Si, Shi"are not used in the book, but "Bi" is used in the special context for antique usage and it is used for few times. About the system referring other things, "Bie" and its disyllabic form were used comprehensively and is still the main part of the system referring other things. The new pronouns such as "Ling" "Lingwai" "Qiyu"have a gradual increase in frequency of usage.About distributive pronouns, "Ge" and its disyllabic form have obvious advantages in the frequency of usage."Mei" is used less, but these two words functioned differently in semantic usage:"Ge" focuses on the individuality of the objects, and "Mei" focuses on the generality of the objects. About the pronoun system referring to everything, "Zhu" were used most widely and "Yiqie" appears only once. In addition to "Yiqie", the significance and usage of other demonstrative pronouns are basically consistent with these in modern Chinese.Third, the systematic process of interrogative pronouns has complex characteristics. "Yan" and "An", which are the ancient Chinese words, are interrogative pronouns and their disyllabic forms change little. Besides that, they are restricted in the range of usage, tending to decline. "He", "Na", "Zen" and "Shen" have become the main forms of modern Chinese interrogative pronouns. They have a large number of disyllabic forms, more complete grammatical function and more clear division. In addition to inquiry function, the interrogative pronouns in Shuo Yue Quan Zhuan also have the non-interrogative usage. For example, the rhetorical question, virtual demonstration, sighs and so on. They are consistent with the usage of interrogative pronoun in modern Chinese.Fourth, disyllabic trend is obvious in Chinese pronouns. There are 82 disyllabic pronouns in Shuo Yue Quan Zhuan, accounting for 70.69% in total number of pronouns. The disyllabic trend of demonstrative pronouns and interrogative pronouns are the most significant. The semantics of disyllabic pronouns is more accurate when they are used for inquiry. They are consistent with the demand of development of oral communication and social communication, reflecting the vigorous vitality. Of course, trend of disyllabic form in Chinese itself is an important factor affecting disyllabic form of the pronoun.