The Research Of Modal Particles In"A Dream Of Red Mansions"

"A Dream of Red Mansions" is a Chinese Zhanghui novel written in Qianlong Period of Qing Dynasty, the middle of18th century. The status of "A Dream of Red Mansions" in vernacular history of literature is pivotal. It carries on modern times and arouses the modern age. The modal particles are an extremely important part of speech in Chinese grammar system. Chinese modal particles in ancient and modern times evolve differently. There are easily noticeable differences in literary style and vernacular modal particles. But, in the near modern age there was a visible modal particles transformation process, from the antiquity literary style to the modern vernacular style."A Dream of Red Mansions" has acted an important role in this process. Clarifying modal particles usage in "A Dream of Red Mansions" and confirming its status in Chinese history is the main subject of this research.This thesis classifies these modal particles into different groups according to their frequency of usage and their historical development tendency after having counted the main modal particles. It makes a meticulous description and analysis on the modal particles in the novel and a proper chronic comparison. In the thesis, the usage of every modal particle has been discussed mainly from the aspect of pragmatics and their origins and late development have been studied mostly. The purpose is to display the comprehensive use of the modal particles in the middle of18th century and to clarify the development and formation of the modal particle system at the same time.This thesis consists of three parts:The first part is the synopsis and the previous research results about the tone of the word.The second part is this thesis’main part. In this part, we describe the whole tone of the word comprehensively and systematically and expound the usage of the tone of the word one by one, including their source, usage and the link among them.The third part is conclusion.