A Grammaticalization Study Of Complement Yixia In Modern Chinese Based On Corpus

About the grammaticalization of yixia, most of the previous research starts from a diachronic perspective. Based on a synchronic corpus, this dissertation investigates yixia’s semantic, syntactic and functional distribution and its characteristics as a complement in modern Chinese, traces its grammaticalization from phrase lexicalization to a grammatical marker, and discusses further the judgement of its grammaticalization degree and the motivation and mechanism of its grammaticalization.There are six chapters in this dissertation. The first chapter is introduction; the second chapter is the construction of the corpus; the third chapter is the research on metering meaning of yixia; The fourth chapter is the research on short-time meaning of yixia; The fifth chapter is the research on modal marker yixia; The sixth chapter is conclusion.In chapter one the author introduces the reasons for choosing the complement yixia in modern Chinese from the perspective of grammaticalization as the research topic, previous research summary, the guiding theory, research methods, research contents and research significance of this dissertation.In chapter two the author introduces the construction of the corpus used in the study, the guideline for building the corpus, corpus collection and processing, the basic data of the corpus, and the statistical results of yixia, and the data-based word collocation extraction and statistical techniques used in this research.In chapter three the author discusses the semantic characteristics, and predicative collocation of the metering meaning yixia (hereinafter referred to as yixial) in modern Chinese. First, set a semantic criteria in judging the complement yixia as yixial, and find out its frequency of use in modern Chinese corpus. Second, find out the predicative collocation items of yixial using the collocation extraction technique based on window, summarize and analyze its semantic category, syllable number, and ways of formation. By doing so, the author finds that the collocation items of yixial can only be action verbs either taking only human beings as its doers and or indicating the motion of objects. And most of the action verbs are monosyllables. And double syllables, if any, are mostly coordinate compound words. It is thus clear that the range of the use of yixial is relatively narrow, frequency of use is relatively low, and collocation ability is weak, with weaker semantic suitability. This usage is the inheritance of ancient Chinese. From the view of its syntactic attributes, yixial is a quantitative phrase made up of numeral yi and special action-measure words xia.In chapter four, the author investigates the semantic features, predicative collocations, and functional characteristics of the short-time meaning yixia (hereinafter referred to as yixia2) in modern Chinese. The usage of non-metering meaning yixia is more frequent in modern Chinese, and it expresses a short-time meaning of the action. Compared with metering meaning, it is a comparatively abstract semantic type. First, it reveals a short-time, fuzzy and ambiguous characteristics semantically; second, by analysing the predicative collocation items of yixia2, it is found that its measure objects have expanded from specific action verbs to the general action verbs, especially those action verbs with abstract semantic meaning, and even to those psychological stative verbs which are more abstract in meaning; from monosyllabic measure words to various types of bi-syllable words, even polysyllabic words; from instant continuous double bounded measure verbs to general double bounded verbs and non-double bounded verbs; from mere measure verbs to dynamic adjectives, even nouns. It is thus clear that semantics of yixia2is abstract in meaning, and the part of speechs of the words it collocates are diversified. Third, the changes of yixia2from concrete to abstract in meaning, from narrow to wide in linguistic environment inevitably cause a " chain reaction" syntactically and functionally. Syntactically, yixia2has evolved from quantifier phrase to a time quantifier, which can be confirmed by the fact that yi can not be replaced by other words and that the syntactic status of xia has been lowered. Functionally, yixia2can also be regarded as a short-time aspect marker. It possesses the characteristics of a short-time aspect marker in delexicalization, structural adhesion and phonetic weakening. After the delexicalization of yixia2, it already doesn’t possess the metering lexical meaning, but expresses a fuzzy short-time quantity, and the whole structure plays the role of limiting the time feature of the verbs it collocates. In structure, its connection with the word before it is close; and other components usually can’t be inserted. As an aspect marker, it describes the internal structure of actions; that is, their semantic direction is the former predicative component rather than the following object. In pronounciation, its sound weakens and even disappears.In chapter five, the author discusses the grammaticalization of yixia from short-time meaning yixia2to modal marker yixia3in modern Chinese. First, the author explores the transformation of yixia from its propositional function to discourse function in semantic expression during the grammaticalization, from a short-time aspect marker to a modal marker. Yixia2, as temporal aspect marker, is permeating to modal marker yixia3, and the increase of marker function is the exhibition of the further grammaticalization of complement yixia. Second, from the predicative collocation items and the types of speech act sentences it is in, the author investigates the use of yixia3in modern Chinese. Research reveals that subjunctive sentences which mostly expresses directive speech act and intention speech act are its typical language environment. Finally, on the basis of above research, the author discusses the pragmatic functions of modal marker yixia3in different types of speech act sentences.In chapter six the author investigates the criteria of the judgement of the degree of grammaticalization of yixia and the motivation of it. Fisrt, the author discusses the judgement of the degree of grammaticalization of yixia with delexicalization, collocation expansion, decategorization, and phonetic weakening as parameters. Second, from the angles of use frequency, cognitive factors and internal language factors as well as the semantic subjectification, the author discusses the motivation of grammaticalization of yixia and find that high use frequency is one of the essential conditions to induce the grammaticalization of yixia. Cognitive factors are the main reasons to prompt the delexicalization of yixia. The meaning of yixia expanding from space category to time category and then to the evaluation category reflects the influence of cognitive context on language use. From the view of internal language factors, reanalysis mechanism of yixia is displayed in the fusion of the elements to realize lexicalization. In addition, yixia2establishes close relationship with the unrealistic modal context and thus provides syntactic environment for yixia3to become a modal marker. Besides, the semantic subjectivity is the important cause of the grammaticalization of yixia. With the proposition meaning slowly weakening, the discourse function highlighted, yixia has grammaticalized to be a function marker. Investigating the motivation of the grammaticalization of yixia has reflected the principle of linguistic research from descriptive adequacy to explanative adequacy. At last, the auther summarizes the research process and conclusions of this dissertation, and points out the weaknesses in the research.In this dissertation, the innovation points are the following three aspects:Firstly, based on previous diachronic research, through the investigation of the differences and characteristics in semantics, syntax and functional distributions of complement yixia in synchronic system, the author has revealed that the synchronic distribution difference is the reflection of its grammaticalization diachronically. And at the same time the author has also discussed the feasibility of sufficiently describing and analyzing the grammaticalization in a diachronic system.Secondly, by using the method of corpus linguistics, the author has built a corpus with more than eighteen million annotated characters sampled form more than forty six million characters’modern literature. This corpus can provide the detailed quantitative data for researching the frequency of use and collocation of complement yixia in synchronic system, which can guarantee a qualitative analysis on the basis of sufficient description.Thirdly, through deep analysis of the short-time yixia2, the author has found that yixia can be used as a modal marker. Therefore, the author has concluded that "modal marker" should fall into the scope of grammaticalization system. The investigation of its formation mechanism is helpful to explore the new forms of grammaticalization, and deepen the research of grammaticalization theory.The significance of the research:From the perspective of synchronic grammaticalization, the author has used corpus research method to study complement yixia in modern Chinese, clearified the "chain reaction" of semantic change, the structural variation and function difference. And a reasonable explanation has been given. This will help us deepen the understanding of the internal rules of the development of Chinese grammar, and reveal the reasons for the constant richness in forms of language. From the perspective of the complexity of the synchronic language system, the grammaticalization of various stages of a language unit not only has the diachronic inheritance, but also has the synchronic compatibility. At the same time, from the the synchronic angle, studying how the semantic category and pragmatic functions of yixia are represented by syntactic forms, and testing the grammaticalization degree of different functions or different forms of yixia by the related grammaticalization criteria, are just what people do in making synchronic grammaticalization research. Therefore, this research can provide and add a new example to synchronic grammaticalization theory.