The Study Of The Multifunctional Words In The Oracle Bone Inscription

It has been almost two cycles of sixty years since discovery of the first Oracle.And researches on Oracles have achieved fruitful results.Among these,the interpretation,classification,dating and the conjugation of the oracles,the study of the history of Yin Shang,Oracle grammar and vocabulary have gained remarkable progress.Within comparatively mature vocabulary system of Oracle,there are nouns,verbs,adjectives,adverbs,numerals,prepositions,conjunctions,etc.which have been under thorough and profound study.However,researches on multifunctional words of Oracle are rare.The study of multifunctional words of Oracles can reflect the connection among different words with various functions.Moreover,this study perspective is of great value to the study of Chinese history.Based on the previous researches,multifunctional words of Oracle are sorted out and studied using quantitative and inductive analysis methods.There are six chapters.The first chapter is an introduction including the significance of the research,research objectives,research resource,research methodology and the literature review.The second chapter describes the discrimination of words and the criteria for judging the words class,the definition and judgment criteria of Oracle,and introduces the general situation of Oracle.The chapters three and four are the main part of the thesis,which divides 37 multifunctional words of Oracle into two categories,namely,content words and words functioning both as content and function words.The former include words functioning both as noun and verb,and words as noun,verb and adjectives.The latter includes words functioning both as verbs and adverbs,as verbs and prepositions and as adjectives and adverbs.Under each category,the grouping,Chronological classification,and two-line distribution(south and north system)of these multifunctional words are discussed.And the usage of each multifunctional word in the vocabulary system is also briefly explained.Meanwhile,statistical analysis is used to explain the causes of the above multifunctional words phenomenon.It is believed that the generation of the words functioning both as content word may stem from the extension of meanings,and the generation of the words functioning as both content and functional word may be derived from grammaticalization.Chapter five discusses the multifunctional words with academic agreement,and chapter six is the conclusion.