The Historic Evolution Of The "Zero-Causative" In Chinese

The "zero-causative" is the verb expressing the "allowed" meaning in Chinese, which represents a force that is neither promoting nor blocking the occurrence of something. This thesis will call such a "causative" as "zero-causative"."Zero-causative" is a semantic class of "non-native" which initiated in the period of Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty. There are some previous researches which mainly place emphasis about the members of "zero-causative" on the historic evolution and semantic research, but few scholars summarize and explain the verbs from the point of the "causative". Lv Shuxiang is the first person who studied them from the point of the "causative". He classifies "causative" into "positive causative","negative causative" and "neutral causative" from semantics. Among them, the "neutral causative" is similar to the "zero-causative". However, scholars have not been deeply studied such verbs from the meaning and function of causative after Mr. LV. On the basis of theories about semantics, syntax and cognitive linguistics, this thesis aims to explore the semantic sources and syntactic conditions in historical level and analyze its semantic, syntactic and pragmatic feature in synchronic level with the method of description, case analysis and induction. And this thesis reveals its trend to the concession conjunction and unconditional conjunction and its evolution condition. This thesis consists of five chapters.In the first chapter, it will define the zero-causative and analyze its relationship with the causative category; introduce the previous researches about the zero-causative and the concession conjunction and unconditional conjunction which is evolved from zero-causative.In the second chapter, it will discusses the evolution path of zero-causative.This thesis selects seven representative zero-causatives to describe semantic evolution in historical periods and sum up the evolution path. In addition, a brief description of the other four zero-causatives will be made.In the third chapter, it will introduce the grammaticalization of zero-causative. In Chinese history, the zero-causative shows the consistent evolution law to the concession conjunction and unconditional conjunction. It will explore its evolution path and evolution law through analyzing the relationship between zero-causative and conjunction.In the fourth chapter, it will analyze the semantic, syntactic and pragmatic feature in synchronic level of zero-causative. From the point of cognitive linguistics, the zero-causative includes four elements:causer, causee, event, force. With the analysis of these four elements, it can better reveal the zero-causative and its relationship with causative. The fifth chapter is summarization. On the basis of historical exploration and synchronic analysis, we found:from the point of semantics, the selected eleven zero-causative verbs show a shift from the source meaning to allowed meaning, but the source meaning is obvious and semantic evolution path is different; from the point of syntax, the compatible structure is common syntax condition of zero-causative; from the point of pragmatics, the compatible structure which the zero-causative uses shows the format significance of "passive concession", and expresses the subjective attitude of allowance. In addition, it exists the evolution path from zero-causative to the concession conjunction and unconditional conjunction in Chinese history.