Study On The Historical Evolution Of Shi Wang Words In Chinese

Shi Wang Words(适往词,SWW)is an important verbal system expressing displacement. In the history of Chinese this group of words have experienced a series of development and evolution in some aspects, as in system , function and usage.SWW have appeared an adjustment in archaic Chinese. Before the Qin dynasty,"往","徂","逝","如","适"and"之"are the main words in the Wang(往)branch."往"is in common use among them."至"is the only leading word expressing arrival in the Dao(到)branch. During the Western and Eastern Han dynasties,"往"develops further and have consolidated a strong position."徂","逝","如","适","之"declined rapidly."至"keeps an essential position. Meanwhile"到"develops gradually.SWW continue their development in middle chinese."往"keeps the powerful position. SWW begins to admit"去"and"上"into this system. However, both yet can not form forceful competition with"往"."至"is still the main word in the Dao(到)branch."到"gets great development in this period although it still can not compete with"至".SWW have experienced some important changes during the modern Chinese. During the Tang and Song dynasties,"往"newly gets the prepositional usage ."去"begins to appear frequently and has formed forceful competition with"往"."到"becomes the most important word of the Dao(到)branch, while"至"has lost its powerful position. During Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties,"去"becomes the main word in the Wang(往)branch. The verbal usage of"往"has shrunk, while preposition becomes its main funtion."至"is replaced by"到", so it has gradually faded out from spoken language.Judging from the content, the change and development of SWW embody mainly in the appearance of the new words, the withdrawal of old words from SWW, the competition between the new words and the old ones, the changes of main words in the function and usage, and so on. There are some important evolutions in the history of SWW, such as the appearance of"去", the formalization to preposition of"往", and two substitutions, i.e."去"replaces"往", and"到"replaces"至". Judging from the time, there are two key periods in the development of SWW. One is the Western and Eastern Han dynasties. The other is the Tang and Song dynasties. Yuan , Ming and Qing Dynasties is the formation period when it has established the basic frame of SWW in contemporary Chinese (PTH). Besides, the evolution of SWW has reflected two very common rules. First, the evolution of vocabulary is closely related to the ways of human cognition. The substitution of the words is often accompanied by the expansion of meaning and usage. Second, in the vocabulary system there is an internal adjusting mechanism. Any change of an individual word is controlled by the lexical system.