The Semantic Relevance Of Passive-agent Markers In Chinese Dialects

This thesis focus on the passive-agent markers and their relevant semantic functions in Chinese dialects mainly by semantic-map method and grammaticalization theory.There are six chapters in this dissertation. The first chapter is preface including literature review, research method, the value of the research, etc. In chapter two the semantic functions involved in this thesis are defined. Chapter three introduced how the existing semantic map developed (Haspelmath2003) and the modification of the map by Chinese scholars based on Chinese materials. Chapter four and five are the key parts of this thesis. According to the existing research, the source of Chinese passive-agent markers can be divided into three categories:encounter, give and causative, among which the semantic relevance of give is described and discussed in Chapter four. In addition to that, in this chapter another kind of passive marker, Ge "搁" in Changli, which is not reported before, is also discussed. Via a cross-linguistic comparation, the various patterns of passive-agent semantic relevance are described, and the existing semantic map is modified. Chapter five focus on the evolution path of "Ge" in Changli on the basis of semantic map model and grammaticalization theory and proved that its passive-agent function purely comes from its instrumental function. Besides, a simple analysis is made on the semantic relevance of companion related in the research, emphasizing that there could be more than one analytical possibilities on one semantic map. The sum-up chapter briefly summarized the value the research and the areas worth of further study.