Study On The Semantic Change Of "Zheng" And "Fang"

"zheng " and "fang " are both common words since ancient Chinese. This research is based on the handed-down documents from the pre-Qin period to the Wei Jin South and North dynasties. We objectively describe the semantic change of "zheng " and "fang" respectively, try to reveal the internal rules and to make a theoretical explanation. The original meaning of "zheng" is "march forward to the city straightly", it extended to three related meanings, i.e. "face forward", "the right direction" and "in the middle of". The rest of the meanings are all extended by these three meanings. The functional meanings of "zheng" are mostly grammaticalized by the meaning "face forward". "face forward â†'exactly rightâ†'be being/only" is the main extended path. However, the original meaning of "fang " is unreachable, so it will be more complicated to describe its semantic change. Content word "fang" has two different systems of semantic change, one is extended from "abreast", and the other one is extended from "four directions". As to the function word "fang", it is extended from "abreast". It had been used widely since the Zhou Dynasty and "be being" is the most common used meaning. The time adverb usages increased from Han Dynasty, which can be used as the perfect tense, future tense and time preposition.After ultimately analyzed the semantic change of "zheng " and "fang", we put them together in order to make a comparison. This dissertation cites Bybee’s hypothesis of "source determination", illustrates the point of view that the actual meaning of the construction that enters into grammaticization uniquely determines the path that grammaticization follows and, consequently, the resulting grammatical meanings. And also points out that the semantic change is determined by the meaning that serves as source for grammaticization, while the syntax and morphology of the source construction should be considered as well.In the end, the dissertation points out that the semantic change is attribute to the use of language, the most important motivation is the use of pragmatic principles, especially the "quantity principle", and the mechanism of semantic change is pragmatic inference and the solidification of the implied meanings. As to the metonymy, metaphor, context, etc., are just the methods in order to make the implied meanings prominent.