| In modern Chinese, there is an auxiliary word"de"(的) which could be used between two nouns to express possessive relation. In French, there is also a preposition"de"with similar sound having similar grammatical functions. Chinese and French belong to two different language families. The odds that two words have similar sound and grammatical functions are small. Thus, we try to find some similarities between the two by tracing their histories within the theoretical framework of grammaticalization.The first chapter states the main issue and the significance of this thesis. The second chapter gives a literature review on the former studies of the origins of Chinese"de"(的) and French"de"and then introduces grammaticalization theory. The third chapter discusses the grammaticalization processes of the two"de". We take the opinion that Chinese"de"(的) derives from its formal locality noun"di"(底). Then I give a description of the grammatical functions of French"de"as a preposition and a partitive article. French"de"comes from Latin"de"and gradually grammaticalized into partitive article in French. In chapter four, I summarize the grammaticalization processes of the two"de".Given all the similarities, we still can not arrive at a specific conclusion about the relationship of the two words. More evidences are needed and more researches are called for. However, we still put forward this interesting phenomenon in our thesis for the purpose of arousing people's interest in it and triggering heated discussion on this issue. |
