| As the Chinese language lacks strict morphological changes,much grammatical and semantic information has to be expressed with the help of function words.Among the function words,the structural particle de is marked with a high frequency and great complexity.De-constructions and de-sentences have been used in various forms to achieve different purposes.Scholars have conducted research on the usages of particle de from various perspectives,and yet the controversy still remains.In essence,piles of literature boil down to one core subject,i.e.,its function and property.This study is dedicated to exploring the function of the particle de from the perspective of philosophy of language.Three research questions are put forward as a driving force,namely,(1)What functions is the structural particle de employed in the grammar of Chinese?(2)How are these functions linguistically realized by the structural particle de and other related structural elements of Chinese grammar?(3)Why is the structural particle de employed in the grammar of Chinese to perform these functions?As a language-philosophical study,this thesis starts with an ontological reading of the issue,i.e.,meaning.To address this issue,Saussure’s philosophy of language is explored in Course in General Linguistics and Writings in General Linguistics.In Saussure’s thoughts,the analytic,referential approach to meaning is discarded.Instead,he puts forward a new way,which suggests that language is based on the principle of arbitrariness.Language is regarded as a pure system consisting of language signs.The meaning of linguistic terms does not come from the external world,but from the system itself.Meaning,in Saussure’s eyes,is best represented by the notion of value.The value of a sign lies in the opposing relations between the sign and others in the language system.In addition,the syntagmatic and associative relations all have an influence on the creation of value.The main usage of the structural particle de is to form a de-construction or a desentence.With the notion of value,how words in a de-construction or a de-sentence acquire their values will be at the heart of discussion.Linguistic facts concerning the structural particle de are retrieved from corpus for analysis.Based on a closer examination of the data,the findings are as follows.When the word class of a term in de-constructions is not clear,the insertion of the structural particle de can help solve the puzzle.As long as the class of a word is settled,its meaning can be determined consequently.Then the whole de-construction can have a modification meaning.In addition,when de-constructions are used in a referential way,they undergo a change both in the grammatical and semantic sense.The presence of de in such a construction enables it to transfer from a verb phrase to a nominal one with a meaning,denoting an object or a person.The semantic value cannot be generated without de.Apart from determining the linguistic values of words,de is also responsible for determining values of de-sentences.The presence or absence of de will place a direct influence on the structure and meaning of de-sentences.The pragmatic values of de-sentences are dependent on de as well.Therefore,the structural particle de is responsible for assigning values to the elements related to it.Based on the analysis of related linguistic facts in the data,it is proposed in this study that the structural particle de has a value-marking function in the grammar of Chinese.In cases of modification,transferred-designation or self-designation,the structural particle de is indispensable in determining the values of the words or sentences related to it.It is the language system that assigns the structural particle de to mark the linguistic values of these elements. |
