A Research On The Verbs And Its Related Basic Syntax In Tai Ping Jing

Verb and its related syntactic problems in modern Chinese grammar have been research hot spots,but they lack re-examination of the verb system.For the diachronic research of Chinese grammar,verb-related syntactic problems have also been hot spots,yet they still do not draw much attention to the verb itself.The remains of Daoist Literature,Tai Ping Jing(《太平经》),is an important piece of information which reflects the linguistic situation of East Han Dynasty.However,until now there are no comprehensive research papers on its verb system.This paper uses verbs in Tai Ping Jing as the platform,and based on comprehensive examinations,focus the exploration on:what is the verb system in Tai Ping Jing? What are the specialities of Tai Ping Jing? What is the basic syntactic characteristic of verbs in Tai Ping Jing? How is the development situation of verbs? To what extent are the similarities and differences between the verb system of Tai Ping Jing and that of modern Chinese? Is there any diachronic coverage of the verb? Which standards should be chosen to distinguish verbs? What is the definition of the verb? At the same time this paper also explores the following issues:What are the changes during the tranformation of verbs to other parts of speech? How does the scope of causative category? How to judge a verb- completement format?Based on the principle of combination of grammatical form and meaning,this paper has firmly done:combination of synchronic description and diachronic comparision,combination of fixed quantitiy analysis and fixed quality analysis, combination of static description and analysis-indution,combination of common-property research and individual-property research,combination of description and explanation,combination of factual description and theoretical thought.By means of general linguistic theory,it reveals the nature and characteristic of the verb,and explains grammar-related phenomena,and hence explores the usage and the rules of transformation of verbs in Chinese linguistic history.The whole paper includes eihht chapters.The main contents are summerised as follow:The First chapter is the Introduction:first part on general introduction of the characteristic of linguistic literature in Tai Ping Jing,full assurance of the research value of verbs in Tai Ping Jing;second part on tracing back the verb-research situation in the history of Chinese grammar,giving comments on various standards of verb classification;third part on suggestions of the research and method for verbs in Tai Ping Jing;the last part on general examples.The second chapter fully describes behavior verbs in Tai Ping Jing.It divides the verb into relation verbs and non-relation verbs according to whether they can be biased towards the relation among several thematic roles.In the first part it generally introduces the characteristic of behavior verbs in Tai Ping Jing.The second part describes non-relation verbs in Tai Ping Jing with six small groups,then it describes relation verbs with eight small groups.After the description of every group of behavior verbs,there is an introduction to the characteristic of this group of behavior verbs,including structural characteristic,semantical characteristic and basic syntactical charactristic.The third part summarises the basic characteristic of behavior verbs in Tai Ping Jing.The third chapter describes lexical verbs in Tai Ping Jing.The first part describes respectively non-emphatic relationship of lexical verbs,emphatic hi-directional intereaction of lexical verbs,emphatic relationship between an agent and a word-target of lexical verbs,emphatic relationship between an agent and a word-content of lexical verbs,emphatic relationship between an agent and a direct quotation of lexical verbs.The second part induces the structural,semantical and basic syntatical characteristics of lexical verbs in Tai Ping Jing.The fourth chapter describes fully psychology verbs in Tai Ping Jing.It divides psychology verbs into two categories of cognition verbs and sensation verbs.The first part describes cognition verbs which do not include cognitive results,and then describes cognition verbs which include cognitive results,and then induces the structural,semantical and basic syntactical characteristics.The second part describes every sensation verb,then induces the structural,semantical and basic syntactical characteristics of sensation verbs.The fifth chapter describes fully causative verbs.It divides causative verbs into three categories of causative-behavior verbs,causative-situation verbs and exclusively causative(使令) verbs.The first part describes causative-behavior verbs,then induces in short its structural,semantical and syntatical characteristics.The second part describes causative- situation verbs,then induces in short its structural,semantic and syntatic characteristics.The third part describes exclusively causative verbs.It describes important monosyllabic exclusively causative verbs in Tai Ping Jing,and roughly outlines their sources.This part also simply introduces the polysyllabic exclusively causative verbs.The sixth chapter concludes the characteristic of the verb system in Tai Ping Jing. It induces the common properties and individual properties of the verb system in Tai Ping Jing and the verb in modern Chinese linguistics.This chapter divides into four parts.The first part concludes the structural,semantical and basic syntatical characteristics of the verbs in Tai Ping Jing.The second chapter concludes the structural,semantical and basic syntactic characteristics of modern-Chinese verbs in the prevailing grammar system.The third part compares the verbs in the two systems from three aspects of the structural,semantic and basic syntatic characteristics,and found out the common and individual characteristics.The fourth part re-examines the description of verbs in the traditional grammar system based on comparision.It points out the problems in traditional Chinese verb system.It reckons that the verb in western grammar system is classified according to the characteristic of its form and mode,not according to that of its oringinal property,and that traditional grammar system copies the western grammar system.Based on the problem pointed out,the paper reckons that the verb is the part of speech that crosses the scope of time and languages,and suggests a new standard to establish the diachronic verb system.It defines the verb as the part of speech that expresses actions and events.The seventh chapter talks about the contribution to the amendment value of Hanyu Dacidian by the verbs in Tai Ping Jing.The chapter points out there are 350 verbs in Tai Ping Jing that Hanyu Dacidian does not include,139 ones in Hanyu Dacidian with examples late of Tai Ping Jing,48 ones with explanation incomplete, 12 ones with both explanation incomplete and examples late of Tai Ping Jing.The chapter investigates and analyzes the useage in Thirteen Jing,Shi Ji,Han Shu,Lun Heng,San Guo Zhi(十三经,《史记》,《汉书》,《论衡》,《三国志》),and eihgt sutras of east Han Dynasty of the verbs in Tai Ping Jing but not in Hanyu Dacidian.The chapter also explores the causes of produce these problems.The eighth chapter explores the diachronic problem of the Chinese verb based on the the verb system in Tai Ping Jing.The chapter divides into five parts,exploring respectively the following special topics:1.becoming bisyllable,which is the structural change in the Chinese verb,2."de-eventualization",which is the weakening of Chinese verbs,3.implication and stress,the change of Chinese verb argument structure,4.from synthesis to analysis,the formation of Chinese exclusively causative verbs,5.the distinction and age of production of Chinese "Object- Indicating V-C" struture.While exploring various problems mentioned above,the chapter doubts about certain academic opinions.It suggests the author's view points.The first part of this chapter points out the deficiency in academics to treat all parallel compound words as syntactical words.The second part deals with the semantics-disappearance phenomenon due to the transformation of behavior verbs into adjectives,prepositions, adverbs,conjunctions and particles,and it generalizes this phenomenon as "de-eventualization".The third part questions the belonging of modern and old Chinese verbs to different parts of speech as viewed by academicians.It indicates that modern and old Chinese verb systems actually belong to the same type,only with little local changes.The fourth part explores the phynomenon of the formation and expansion of the function of Chinese exclusively causative verbs.It mentions that the formation and expansion of the function of Chinese exclusively causative verbs is an important factor to cause "causative-verb of adjective" usage to deteriorate.The fifth part summefises important research results of verb-complement structure in academics,and suggests a standard to differentiate one type of verb-complement structure:"Object-Indicating V-C" structure.It points out that the latest occurrence of "Object- Indicating V-C" structure was in East Han Dynasty.