On The Phenomenon Of Shifts Of Categories Between Nouns And Verbs Of Ancient Chinese From Many Aspects And Angles

The dissertation makes a multiangular research on the phenomenon of shifts of categories between nouns and verbs of ancient Chinese. Regardless of the two parts"introduction"and"conclusion", the whole paper is divided into five chapters:The part of"introduction"mainly discusses the value of the topic, the situation and the train thought of research , among of both of which the former is main content. The section makes a profound and detailed overview about the situation of research about use of category shifts from the nine respects, namely, the definition and scope of use of category shifts, the distinctions between use of category shifts and that of original category, the conditions of use of category shifts, the relationships between the use of category shifts and word meanings, the relationships between the use of category shifts and derivation of word meanings,"those which are dead can be all used as live", the use of category shifts and rhetoric, the valuation of the theories about the use of category shifts, etc. and holding that the research of many essential problems about the use of category shifts is not profound yet.In the parts of from the first to the third chapter, the scope of shifts of categories between nouns and verbs of ancient Chinese is discussed from the angles of semantics and grammar respectively. The first chapter"shifts of categories between nouns and verbs and derivation between the meanings of verbs and that of nouns"discusses the relationships between the two form the two aspects. Viewed from the relationships of derivations of word meanings, while only the use of verbs brought about by direct derivational meanings can be regarded as category shifts between nouns and verbs, that brought about by indirect derivational meanings had better be regarded as derivation between the word meanings of verbs and nouns. Viewed from the manner of derivation of word meanings, the phenomena of two kinds of uses of as nouns and verbs in turn can be classified as two types: one kind is that the conception meanings of words before and after the category shifts are identical, although the categories are different , so the kind apparently belonging to category shifts between nouns and verbs; another kind is that the conception meanings and categories of words before and after the category shifts are both different, in which of situation the verb meaning of the word of two use of as noun and verb can be derived from the essential feature meaning, nonessential feature meaning, or social culture feature meaning. It turns out that only the kind of the verb meaning coming from the essential feature meaning of nouns is category shifts between noun and verb, and the other two types belonging to derivation of meanings of verb and noun.The second chapter"the word meanings and category shifts between noun and verb"holds that the category shifts between noun and verb all possess their evident cognitional semantic foundation. It turns out that only the noun whose feature meaning coming from the dynamic features of person or thing expressed by it can be used as verb usually; on the contrary, if the feature meaning coming from static features such as the appearance, quality and state, etc. of thing expressed by the noun, the noun can not be used as verb usually. The thing expressed by noun can be the agent, receipient, result, instrument, place, etc. The conception structure of verb evidently maintains the thing expressed by the noun.The third chapter"category shifts between noun and verb and more than one reference by one category"at first discusses the principle of distinguishing between more than one categories of one word and more than one meaning of one category: a certain kind of use having or not property of analogy for the words of same kind, a certain kind of use having or not conditional restriction on syntax constructions, the increased semantic elements being or not same after the change of use of words of the same kind. Those according with these principles are more than one meaning of one category, otherwise are one categories of one word, namely, category shifts. According to the above, in ancient Chinese, the causative verb use and conative verb use of nouns, nouns used as judging and exposing predicates, can only be regarded as one of thd normal grammatical functions of nouns. Only nouns used as general predicates belong to category shifts between nouns and verbs.On the basis of having ascertained the scope of category shifts between nouns and verbs, the fourth chapter"the classification of category shifts between nouns and verbs"at the first discusses the criterion of classification: if the word meanings of noun use and verb use are identical, it is concurrent categories of noun and verb; if are not identical and the feature meaning coming from the feature of appearance or property and state of persons or things expressed by it , it is generally noun being used as verb. If coming from the feature of actions or behaviors of persons or things expressed by it and if the manner of derivation of word meanings to verb is possessed by all the nous of same kind, it is concurrent categories of noun and verb; on the contrary, if the manner of derivation of word meanings to verb is possessed exclusively by the noun, it is generally noun being used as verb. If the frequency of use as verb is considerably high and is characteristic of very high stability and succession, it is probably the concurrent categories of noun and verb; otherwise is noun being used as verb by chance. After that, the concise description and analysis are made on the common phenomena of concurrent categories of noun and verb and that of noun being used as verb by chance in ancient Chinese in the light of the above five principles, among of which the last one contains common three types: those being brought about by special types of writings, those by picking-up as a form of rhetoric and those by blind imitation through all dynasties.The fifth chapter"category shifts of nouns and compiling of dictionaries"mainly discusses the application of the conclusions being drawn from the above to compiling of dictionaries. The investigations and analyses show that there seems a big disorder concerning the problems of admission of verb meanings brought about by category shifts of nouns by philological dictionaries, the main embodiments of which are mistakenly admission of nouns being used general verbs by chance, the causative use and conative use of nouns, etc.; in addition, the contemporary meanings being given by syntactic constructions of nouns functioning as expositional predicates.The section of"conclusion"conducts a summary of whole article, and puts up with several problems to be solved about category shifts in ancient Chinese.