A Study Of Marked Conditional Semantic Categories In Two Han Dynasty

The marked conditional semantic categories in literary Chinese spoken during the Western Han and the Eastern Han Dynasties could be defined as a category that,logically satisfying sufficient conditions,semantic relations of conditionals is expressed semantically,and marked conditional sentences are adopted in the language,and it must be conditional semantic in the language.This paper selects five books composed in the Western Han Dynasty,including of Records of the Grand Historian of China,The Huai Nan Zi,The Discourses on salt and iron,Xin-Xu and Xin-Shu,another five books written during the period of the Eastern Han Dynasty: Lun-Heng,The History of the Dong Han,Comprehensive Meaning of Customs and Habits,Qian-Fu-Lun and Synopsis of Golden Chamber;it also refers to Yuefu folk songs and unearthed literature materials.This paper studies conditional markers with exhaustive measurement by applying statistical methods,to explore and discuss the features of various forms of conditional semantic categories and its evolution in the Han Dynasties.The traditional Three-plane theory is combined with many new theories such as Grammaticalization,Lexicalization,Cognitive Linguistics,Construction to delineate the marked conditional semantic categories in the Han Dynasty.The marked conditional semantic categories in the Han Dynasty could be divided into two classifications according to different syntax positions:the markers of partial sentences and the markers of main sentences.The hypothesis of a conditional sentence originate from its conditional partial sentence.Therefore,this paper concentrates on the conditional semantic categories formed by the markers of partial sentences.The markers of partial sentences consist of the markers generated by monosyllabic negative words,the markers generated by monosyllabic referentialauxiliary words,the markers generated by monosyllabic verbs,adverbs and conjunctions,and the marker of polysyllabic compounds.Besides,The markers of main sentences focus on their syntactic features and functions.All types of the form of markers have some common peculiarities in logic,syntax,semantics and pragmatics,which are the foundation of the conditional sentence.Logically,they indicate sufficient conditions and depends heavily on the logical relation of sufficient conditions.On the aspect of syntactic composition,the form of a marker is not crucial for semantic formation of conditional sentences;For syntax position,the position of the conditional partial sentence and the main sentence in the Han Dynasty Chinese cannot be exchanged.For the demonstration of syntax,the categories of conditional semantics present some features in tense,mood,modality and aspect.For instance,utilizing the inflexion form to express conditional semantics while lacking tense and aspect markers.On the aspect of semantics,the semantics of the partial sentence possesses hypothetical,referential,topic,temporal and systematic properties;the main sentence has the subjective property on the aspect of pragmatics,the conditional semantic category is often applied to express the speaker's intense subjective emotional attitude.The monosyllabic negative marker can be used to express the conditional semantic category since the marker of negative words closely relates to the category of conditional semantics,such as they are both marked forms.The conditional semantic category with negative markers also has its own syntactic and semantic features.For example,the verbs in this category orient to the semantic polarity.Moreover,the conditional markers of negative words "Wei ?" "Bu ?" "Fu ?" "Wei ?" "Fei ?" "Wu ?" and "Fou ?" also have their own characteristics,such as the marker "Wei ? " expresses counterfactual hypothesis,etc.By studying the conditional semantic category with negative-word markers,it can be discovered that the similarities in form and semantic relationships between the conditional category and the negative category.The markers of monosyllabic referential auxiliary words could be used in conditional semantic categories.However,it has not been considered and studied as a system before.Referential markers are closely related to conditional markers,for example,the two types of markers are expressed by the same words.Moreover,the category of conditional semantics of referential markers have a sort of characteristics,such as the conditional partial sentences have the referential property,which could be utilized in possibility hypothesis and other contexts.The referential auxiliary markers,"Fu ?" "Qi ?" "Bi ?" "Zhi ?" "Er ?" "Zhe ? " and "Suo ? " also present some features in the category of conditional semantics,e.g.the marker,"Zhe ?",is merely arranged at the end of clauses,and it had evolved from pronouns to modal particles.The referential property of the marker,"Zhi ? ",is weak,and it often combines with other conditional markers.The "Qi ?" as a marker refers to the character and state of subjects.The marked conditional semantic categories are originated from monosyllabic verbs,adverbs and conjunctions are significant in marked conditional semantic categories during the Han Dynasty.They contain 13 markers from verbs according to their syntactic position,the words "Ruo?" "Ru ?" "You?" "Ji ?" "you?" "Huo ?" can exist at the beginning of sentences or before verbs.The words "Shi ?" "Ling ?" "Jia ?" "She?" "Shi ?" "Ji ?" Jiu ? " merely appears at the beginning of sentences.Specifically," Ruo ? " " Ru ? " " You ? " are derived from " comparative meaning ";" You ? " " huo ? " originated from " existential meaning ";" Shi? " " Ling ? " " She ? " " Shi ? " are derived from " causative meaning "." Jia ? " is developed from " false meaning ",the word " Ji ? " and " Ji ? "are originated from " time meaning ".The above markers are grammatically transformed into conditional markers after reanalysis from verbs under the influence of conditional sense context.There are 18 adverbial conditional markers including modal adverbs and adverbs of time,in which modal adverbs are " Cheng ? " " Guo ? " " Gou ? " " Xin ? " " Bi ? " " Dang ? " and " Yun ? ".Originally they were modal verbs toexpress emphasizing in contexts.When its function changes from emphasizing following verbs to modifying the whole sentence,it grammatically transforms from modal adverbs into conditional markers.The transformation is decided by the syntactic characteristics and context of modal adverbs.There are four types of adverbs of time based on temporal semantics.The first group is the adverbs for the past,such as" Tang ?,Shang ?,Chang ?,Xiang ?,The adverbs for the present could be "Shi ?,Zheng ?,Chang ?".Then,the adverbs for the future includes "Jiang ?,Yu ?".Finally,the other temporal adverb "Shi(?)".Time closely relates to conditions because temporal words frequently transforms and possesses conditional semantics.The conditional markers of conjunctions are relatively fewer,merely five members,and have the same frequency in the Chinese of the Western and Eastern Han Dynasties.The reason is "Di ?" "Ze ?" "Qie ?" "Nai ?" are function words with various usages.They are not stable when they are applied in conditional sentences as a type of borrowing markers.However,"Sui(?)" frequently exists in conditional sentences since it has single semantics as the special marker of conditional sentences.The multisyllable marked conditional semantic category is copious and retains ten categories,such as"Tang?category""Xiang?category""She?category""Ru?category""Ruo?category""Shi?category""Jia?category""Gou?category""The other category"and"The three-syllable category".Most of the markers are derived from the lexicalization of the combined relation of syntactical structure,except"Zifei??""Buze??""Yidan??""Buran??""Buzhe??"that are derived from the lexicalization from trans-layered structure.Syntactically,the markers are usually situated at the beginning of a sentence,and their combinations are regular rather than arbitrary.On the aspect of semantics,all syllables have an effect on expressing conditional semantics.It's not one of them serving as a conditional marker and the other words as an attachment.At the same time,the disyllabic condition markers are used in counterfactual hypothesis in most of situations.The co-occurrence frequency of the markers of partial sentences and those of main sentences is rather low(about 25.39%).The markers of the main sentences do not decide the formation of the conditional semantics sentence.The markers in main sentences could be"Ze?""Bi?""Gu?""Er?""Gu?""Ji?""Shang?""Yi?""You?""Nai?""Si?""Ji?""Shize??",etc.They highlight conditional semantics,summarize results and enhance causal relationship in conditional sentences.The following discoveries are concluded through comparative studies of the conditional markers in the Western Han Dynasty and those in the Eastern Han Dynasty.The amounts of conditional markers as negative words in the two groups are roughly equal.The application of referential conditional markers was more in the Western Han Dynasty.However,the number of conditional markers are originated from monosyllabic verbs,adverbs,conjunctions,and conditional markers as multisyllabic compounds were relatively higher in the Eastern Han Dynasty exceed that in the former Han Dynasty.In ancient Chinese,parataxis dominated conditional sentences,and afterwards,hypotaxis containing markers in the Mediaeval Chinese procedurally increased and replaced parataxis.This indirectly proves that the Western Han Dynasty was closer to the ancient times,while the Eastern Han Dynasty was closer to the middle ancient times.In addition,the results of studying conditional markers in the Han Dynasty extended from the previous five source types into nine types:comparative meaning,causative meaning,modal adverbs,the markers of negative words,referential markers,existential quantification,conjunctive meaning,temporal words and false meaning.The academic achievements enriches the source of conditional markers and clarifies the development of partial conditional markers.Therefore,the studies on the marked conditional semantic category is based on the ancient Chinese during the two Han Dynasties.It researches the form of markers as one category thus is favorable to discover the commonness of conditional sentences and the respective features ofmarkers.Moreover,it is conducive to explore the development of Chinese in the transitional period.Furthermore,it has significant influence to discover the relationship between conditional category and other categories.Thus it is crucial for studying the history of Chinese.