Research On Grammaticalization Of The Chinese Character "bi" (比)

The Chinese character"bi"(比) is used most extensively and frequently on the comparative category in Mandarin Chinese. As a grammatical markers of comparision, the character"bi"experienced the process of evolving from verb to preposition..In the process of its synchronic development and change, the character"bi"(比), on the one hand, keeps its initial grammatical function as a verb; on the other hand, its active meaning has gradually become weaker in some syntactic forms, with the result that it develops into a grammatical marker of structural auxiliary as a function word. On the basis of the systemic description of its evolution, this dissertation summarizes the four key steps and causes that bring about the grammaticalization of the character"bi"(比), and makes the character"比"(比) in the whole system of grammar ,and makes explanations by means of relative theories in cognitive linguistics.This thesis is made up of four parts, ended with an epilogue and preceded by an introduction which gives an account of the sense of the research on grammaticalization of the character"bi"(比) in modern Chinese, the research method, the theoretical basis, the corpus source and notes on certain symbols.The first part gives a brief introduction to the grammaticalization phenomenon and makes a review on the historic and present studies of the character"bi"(比). The second part describes in detain the syntactic and semantic evolution of the character"bi"(比).The third part makes the character"bi"(比) in the whole system of grammar ,and makes explanations by means of relative theories in cognitive linguistics.The fourth part mainly explores its structural change and the corresponding cause as well as mechanism of"bi"(比) in the process of grammaticalization.