A Study On The Phonological Features And Their Rheological Characteristics Of Ancient Chinese Modal Particles

Chinese sentence-final particles(SFPs)is different from other vocabulary types,because its grammatical function is single,and its tone is illusory,which reflects obviously non-verbal features and phonological properties.Phonetic form is the material shell of language.Considering the phonetic characteristics and pragmatic functions of Chinese sentence-final particles,we should not leave the study of phonetic features to investigate the diachronic changes of Chinese sentence-final particles and their motivations.So this dissertation has certain innovative and supplementary values for the study of the evolution of Chinese linguistic history.In each historical stage,we analysised the phonetic form of the commonly used sentence-final particles in the written language,which possesses the strong phonological and pragmatic functions of sentence-final particles.We based on the corpus support,combined with the academic research results of the Chinese phonetic evolution,used the research methods of the combination of phenomenon description and theoretical interpretation,the combination of synchronic comparison and diachronic comparison,and the combination of quantitative statistics and qualitative analysis to investigate the phonetic features and historical evolution of Chinese sentence-final particles,and to explore the systematic influence of phonetic elements on the derivation and evolution of ancient Chinese sentence-final particles.We find that the Chinese sentence-final particles have a strong tendency in the choice of phonetic form.The pronunciation of sentence-final particles from Zhou Dynasty to the Six Dynasties presents the phenomenon of“the third-dimensional rhyme clustering”,which owns many opening-pronunciation words.The sound of the ancient Zhi(之部)should be divided into two parts:[?]series and[?]series.The vowels of the ancient sentence-final particles belong to the Yu(鱼部)and the Zhi(之部),and the initials of the ancient modal particles belong to the side sounds and the squeaks,which belong to the unscented syllable.Most of the Yu(鱼部)low-tongue vowel sentence-final particles convey the meaning of"question and exclamation";Most of the Zhi(之部)medium-tongue vowel sentence-final particles bear the pragmatic function of the"description".Compound vowels are derived from the substantive words,not simply the phonetic particles.We based on the frequency of Chinese sentence-final particles in the corpus to distinguish the three levels of use in the ancient grammar system.We find that the ancient core modal particles and sub-core sentence-final particles are mostly taking[a]as the main vowel.Comparing with the pronunciation of Zhou Dynasty,Qin Dynasty and the early-Han Dynasty,the biggest change in this period is the derivation of the[?]series pronunciation,which are the opening third-class rhymes generally.During the Tang Dynasties,the system of Chinese sentence-final particles changed qualitatively,and the relationship between the phonetic form and the meaning of Chinese sentence-final particles may be further weakenlly.The phonological pronunciations of the Tang Dynasty are roughly divided into[a]series and[i]series.[u]series belongs to the literary sentence-final particles that gradually withdraws from the common sentence-final particle system.[i]series developes from the medium-tongue vowel of ancient Chinese sentence-final particles.The phonological pronunciations of the Song Dynasty and the Yuan Dynasty are roughly divided into[a]series,[i]series and[u]series.The[u]series and the[i]series modal words are the linguistic modal words that tend to disappear in the written language and the Chinese sentence-final particles derives from the Tang Dynasties.The pronunciation of sentence-final particles in the Yuan Dynasty is basically the same as that in the Song Dynasty.We find that,the[a]series is the core form of speech in Chinese written sentence-final particles,the[?]series and the[?]series are the sub-core forms of Chinese sentence-final particles,the[i]series,the[e]series and the nasal consonant tail vowel are the marginal phonetic forms of Chinese sentence-final particles,which is equally applicable in the modern Chinese sentence-final particle system.After the Yuan Dynasty,the relationship between the pronunciation and mood of Chinese sentence-final particles has weakened.It may be the result of the evolution of language and the sophistication of human thinking.We also examined the corpus differences between the use of Chinese sentence-final particles in the unearthed and handed-down documents as well as Chinese-translated Buddhist scriptures and Chinese-Chinese literature.We find that,the sentence-final words in unearthed documents are more than those in the handed-down documents.In the derivative stage,the sentence-final particles often appear in the literature with a higher degree of colloquialism.Based on corpus support,we analyses the evolution mechanism of sentence-final particle system in ancient Chinese.We believe that the development and evolution of the Chinese sentence-final particle system is the result of the synthetical effect of phonetics,grammar,vocabulary and characters.In the process of derivation and evolution of synonymous Chinese sentence-final particles and emerging modal particles,it is very necessary to possess the appropriate phonetic conditions and the grammatical environment to be able to dim into Chinese sentence-final particle and then use frequently.Especially in a set of substantial meaning words with similar mood meanings and syntactic functions,which one can bluff success and be able to exist for a long time,the appropriate form of phonetic often plays an accelerating effect.As the evolution of the Chinese phonetic system,the low-tongue vowel heightening and the monosyllable compounding may be the important motivations for the use shrinkage or even disappearance of some ancient written Chinese sentence-final particles,such as "Hu"(“乎”),"Fu"(“夫”),"Yu"(“与/欤”)and "Zai"(“哉”).Besides phonetics and grammar,the factors affecting the Chinese sentence-final particle system are also related to the expressive power of Chinese characters.Compared with notional words,people usually choose phonetic characters with no real meaning to act as the shape of Chinese sentence-final words,so as to achieve the organic unity of the form,sound and meaning of Chinese sentence-final words.