Modern Chinese "sooner Or Later" And "duozan"

Zaowan (早晚) and Duozan (多å'±) are two words indicating time that active in modern Chinese. Both of them have the item of "What time ".And there is a successive relation from Zaowan (早晚) to Duozan (多å'±) both in form and in meaning. This thesis mainly discusses how Zaowan(早晚)meaning "What time" developed into Duozan(多å'±) and solves some problems in this development.This thesis mainly describes accurately the meanings and usages of some words indicating time such as Zaowan (早晚) ,Duo zaowan (多早晚 ) and Duozan (多å'±) in different period in modern Chinese through collecting, arranging and analyzing the related language data in some oral literature (Bianwen in the Tang dynasty, legends, poems, script for storytelling in the Song and Yuan dynasties, Buddhist recorded utterance in the Song dynasty, Zaju of the Song and Yuan dynasties, novels written in the vernacular of the Ming and Qing dynasties and The works by some modern writers) And tries to explain how Zaowan ( 早晚 ) developed into Duo zaowan (多早晚) and how Duo zaowan (多早晚) further developed into Duozan ( 多å'±) .This thesis also explains the meanings in various literatures of Duozan(多å'±)in order to clarify the confused uderstanding of this word in present lingnistic circles. In the process of Zaowan (早晚) developed into Duozan (多å'±) , a series of words containing Zaowan (早晚 ) and Zan ( å'± ) indicating time appeared. This thesis classifies and rranges the meaning and usages of these related words in various period in modern Chinese. Besides, many words indicating time involved in this thesis are not in use in present-day Chinese putonghua but remain in some dialects. As proof of the meanings and usages of the related words in modern Chinese, the last part of this thesis describes briefly the using state of these words in dialects.