Loving Interrogative Study

Handed down from the Han Dynasty, Han Shi Wai Zhuan is the only study of the classical work Shi with the official script current at that time. Traditional researches of Han Shi Wai Zhuan primarily focused on its collation, footnoting, compilement and textual research of its origins. Scholars abroad began to make investigations into it from literary aspect since 1950s, while domestic researches started since 1980s from literary, idealistic and cultural aspects. The research scope is widened. However, linguistic interpretation of this book is relatively few.This thesis takes Han Shi Wai Zhuan as our data. We count in every interrogative sentence, making a comprehensive description, a qualitative and quantitative analysis, so as to explore the characteristics of interrogative sentence in Han Shi Wai Zhuan. This paper classifies the interrogative sentences into inquiring interrogative sentence, conjuncture interrogative sentence and rhetorical sentence in the light of the classification made by Lu Shuxiang.There are 248 examples of inquiring interrogative sentences, which occupy 53 percent of all the interrogative sentences in Han Shi Wai Zhuan. They can be classified into specific interrogative sentences with 184 examples, yes-no sentences with 56 examples, alternative sentences with 5 examples, and positive-negative sentences with 3 examples. The specific interrogative sentences consist of seven sorts making use of interrogative words such as HE, SHUI, HE, XI, AN, HU and YAN. The yes-no sentences consist of four sorts with different modal particles such as HU, YE, YE, YU. The alternative sentences can be with alternative conjunctions or without. Throughout the whole book, we can only find three examples of positive-negative sentences with the sentence pattern of "VP·HU·CON WU".There are 16 examples of conjuncture interrogative sentences, which occupy 3.4 percent of all the interrogative sentences in Han Shi Wai Zhuan, employing such adverbs as DE WU, YI ZHE, WU NAI and QI.There are 204 examples of rhetorical sentences, which occupy 43.6 percent of all the interrogative sentences in Han Shi Wai Zhuan. They can be assorted into specific interrogative sentences with 96 examples, yes-no sentences with 89 examples, progressive complex sentences with 15 examples, and alternative sentences with 4 examples. The specific interrogative sentence form consist of these used words such as HE, AN, YAN, SHU, WU, XI and SHUI. In order to show the rhetorical mood, the yes-no sentences make use of rhetorical adverbs such as QI, YONG, DU and JIANG, auxiliary words such as KE, GAN and NENG, negative words such as BU and FEI, and other forms. The progressive complex sentences employ conjunctions such as ER KUANG, KUANG, HE KUANG and KUANG HU. There are also two types of alternative sentences, which are sentences with alternative conjunctions and sentences without. Modal particles at the end of the interrogative sentences can be used separately or can be used together; There are nine modal particles which are used separately, namely, HU, YE, ZAI, YE, YU, YAN, YI, WEI and ZHE, with an occurrence rate of 338 times, and, six modal particles which are used together, namely, HU ZAI, YE ZAI, YI ZAI, ZHE HU, YU HU and YI HU, with an occurrence rate of 12 times. According to the above analysis, we can see that the varieties of modal particles used together are fewer and occurrence frequency is lower than modal particles used separately.