Metrical Study On Auxiliary Word In The Water Margin

Modern Chinese marks an important time for the development of Chinese particle vocabulary. During this period, not only new particle words emerged but also some new minor word categories that were absent in ancient Chinese, and as a result, the particle system in modern Chinese has evolved into one with its own new characteristics and completeness."The Water Margin", a popular novel written by Luo and Shi, was finished between late Yuan dynasty and early Ming dynasty. The authors blended their collections of heroic stories of heroes of mountains and waters from previous scripts of story-telling and miscellaneous dramas with their own composition to create this novel in vernacular at early stage. Written with a vivid and intense colloquial language, this novel reflects to a great deal the framework of Modern Chinese in late Yuan and early Ming dynasty. However, though of much interest and significance, there is a few report available on a systematic research of the particle usage in this novel.In this work, the functionality and usage of the particles including aspect particles, structural particles, modal particles and comparison particles in"The Water Margin"are examined in a systematic and quantitative manner. There are three sections to this article: Preface, Chapters 1 to 4, and Conclusions. Preface is a brief introduction of modern Chinese particles and research merits of the novel"The Water Margin"in terms of language history study. Preface also gives the basic backgrounds of this research and how it is organized. Chapters 1 to 4 analyze and focus on the details of four types of particles used in"The Water Margin", with some exploratory explanations regarding some special usage of the particles. The Conclusions section provides a summary and concludes that the Chinese particle system was experiencing an enormous change and development at the time between late Yuan and early Ming dynasties as shown in"The Water Margin".The current research reveals the functionality and special usage of some particles in"The Water Margin", which demonstrates a self-adjustment consummation process of the Chinese particle system and categorization of functionalities of individual particles. While quite different from ancient Chinese, the particle system in"The Water Margin"resembles very much modern comprehensive Chinese in many ways, mostly manifested in the rich vocabulary for each particle category and versatility in the functionality and usage of each individual particle.