A Study On Grammaticalization Of Prepositions In Lixin Dialect

Grammaticalization has been a popular research topic about Chinese language from the end of last century.Its aim is to explain language phenomenon found in synchronic linguistics with diachronic evolution.Almost all of prepostions in Chinese are grammticalized by verbs,so they are an important part of grammaticalization in Chinese sdutying.There are many similar on prepositions between Lixin dialect and Chinese Mandarin,so this paper only select some special prepositions to analyze their grammaticalization process.The prepositions that mens cong in Mandarin is a feature in Lixin dialect,which contains four prepositions—Cong Zou Qi Ya.The function of them is very similar,but the resources and grammaticalization processes are very different.Cong has been a preposition from ancient times,Lixin dialect borrowed this preposition from common language.The preposition zou has been grammaticalized from the verb zou which means walk,which was been reflected in modern Chinese.Qi has been an preposition from medieval Chinese,which is used widely in Chinese North language. Grammaticalization process of the preposition Ya is so complicated that we can’t ravel is out.Ge is a trivalent verb that means put,because of omissions of the subject and preposition of the object,it changed to be a bivalent verb that means exist.And because always being used as the first verb,it changed to be a preposition that meas at or from.Gei and Jiao can both be used as passive and handling preposition,and their grammaticalization process are very similar.The usage of Gen is very special,it had been an preposition in the process of grammaticalization.In the developing process of language,some elements disappeared, some renewed,and some of them are used with some change in other languages or dialects.Therefor,we can only study these superposition in some degree.The layer of the cong prepositions is Qi Ya Zou Cong Yaqi Yacong.Ba and Bei are have been used in Lixin dialect influenced by Mandarin. Gei and Jiao have been used earlier than Ba and Bei.