A Study Of Affixes A(?) And LAO(?) In The Vernacular Novels In Ming And Qing Dynasties

This paper desribes and analyses affixes “A” and “Lao” in in the vernacular novels in Ming and Qing dynasties and show their features in this period.This paper mainly adopts the method of comprehensive description and synchronic and diachronic research to analyze the characteristics,diachronic changes,similarities an"in Ming and Qing vernacular novels.Meanwhile,this paper analyses the geographical distribution differences about some usages of the two affixes.The introduction part introduces the reasons for choosing this topic,the research status of affixes “A” and “LAO” to illustrate the necessity and significance of this study,and gives a brief description of the corpus adopted in this paper.The first chapter introduces the main functions and characteristics of the affix“A” in vernacular novels of Ming and Qing Dynasties.The affix “A” in Ming and Qing Dynasties inherited many functions of previous generations.It can be used in names,before relatives terms,before pronouns,before adjectives and for ranking.When it develops until Ming and Qing Dynasties,affix “A” has developed some new functions.For example,in personal names,affix “A” directly form personal names and its grammatical function is further strengthened.And it is mostly used in people with lower social status.When “A” before kinship terms or before pronouns,the functions change little compared with the previous generation.“A” before kinship terms is one of the most active functions;“A” before numerals mostly forms personal names rather than for ranking.The second chapter introduces the main functions and characteristics of the affix“LAO” in vernacular novels of Ming and Qing Dynasties.The functions of “LAO”become more active in Ming and Qing Dynasties.It can be used in names,before relatives terms,general appellations,before animal names,for ranking and used as suffixes of nouns.When it is used in personal name,it mainly appear in last name rather than first name.When it is used in relative terms,it usually refer to non-relatives members to show its social communication function.The affix “LAO”could appear along with a lot of general appellations,expressing rich emotional color.“LAO” with numbers for ranking is a new function in Ming and Qing Dynasties and develops fast.The third chapter shows the similarities and differences of affixes “A” and“LAO”.This chapter summarizes the similarities between “A” and "Lao" as noun prefixes,such as usages in person names,kinship terms,working as informal appellations.And then show their differences in some special usages,such as collocation object,emotional color and pragmatic functions.The fourth chapter shows the geographical distribution differences of affixes “A”and “LAO” according to the dialectal background of the work.In Ming and Qing Dynasties,the affix “A” usually appears in Wu dialect and Cantonese dialect,but “A with kinship teams ” also appears in other dialect backgrounds.This may be because[A] is close to the original pronunciation and is easier to retain in kinship appellation.In contrast,the affix “LAO” is more widely distributed.In specific functions,the affixes “A” and “LAO” also show regional differences.The fifth chapter mainly analyses the reasons why the affix “A” declines in modern Chinese northern dialect and why the affix "Lao" prospers.The decline of affix "A" is the result of both internal and external factors.The prosperity of affix“LAO” is mainly due to its rich emotional color.Finally is the conclusion part.