A Study Of Disyllabic Words In Historical Records

With a comprehensive probe into polysyllabic words in literary works, the author found the shortcomings and disadvantages of the current research state. Based on this, the thesis adopted the practical identification standards of Chinese compound words and the identification standards of single disyllabic words recognized by the academic circle to explored the total polysyllabic words in Emperors’ Biographies, an magnificent part of Shih chih by Si Maqian who was a great historian in West Han dynasty, qualitatively and conducted the statistical analysis quantitatively.Chapter One: First of all, the thesis related the value of the research of polysyllabic words literary works inclusive Shih chih and analyzed the present achievements and shortcomings in the field. Then the author introduced the research ideas and methods the thesis made use of and clearly illuminate the identification standards of polysyllabic words adopted in the thesis.Chapter Two: First, the author identified the polysyllabic words of Emperors’ Biographies and then classified and counted them exhaustedly. Second, the author made a probe into the ways of the polysyllabic word formation, structure types and the number of the type. In order to reach it,the author divided the polysyllabic words into single disyllabic words and complex disyllabic words. And then the latter was split into two sub-classes, namely, compound word and derivative.There are seven sorts of compound word formation inclusive combined compound,modifying compound,predicative-objective compound, subject-predicate compound, redicative-complement structure, serial verb construction and reduplication structure.Next the word number of every sort and their proportions in the whole compound words were worked out respectively. Finally, the author explored the meaning structure and property structure of these compound words.Chapter Three: The research objective is to probe into the inner forms and meanings of the polysyllabic words and make a preliminary classification on the polysyllabic words’ grammar.First, the thesis explained the word inner forms and its related senses, and then illuminated the relationship between the forms and the word original meaning. Second, in order to research the inner forms of the complex disyllabic words deeply, the thesis divided them into signification and metaphor. Signification can be divided into whole-signification and semi-signification. The former falls into six sub-classes inclusive qualitative, associative, coincident, narrative,dominative, and service one. It should be noted that the semi-signification could not been divided again. Metaphor is only of the exterior form of semi-explanation without sheer one. Next based on the illumination on the meanings of the whole polysyllabic words,the author counted 2814 monosemic words and 110 polysemic words. And in regard to word property, the polysyllabic words can be classified into ten sorts as follows:noun,verb,adjective,adverb,quantifier,numeral,onomatopoeia,pronoun, conjuction, and preposition. Among them, the number of noun, verb and adjective are largest.Chapter Four: The thesis reached the conclusions in respects of polysyllabic word formation ways, number, inner forms, meanings and properties: eight kinds of word meaning formation,thirty-two kinds of word property formation, eight inner forms and ten word categories. With the statistical results, polysyllabic words accounts for 52.22%accounting of the total words in the biographies. As a result, the author speculated on the fact that the polysyllabic word formation level of the words in Xi Han dynasty had researched 50 percent. Meanwhile, comparisons of the polysyllabic words in the biographies and the counterparts in Zhuang Tzu showed that succession and change of the polysyllabic words’ formation had taken place since late Warring states period to east Han dynasty.The seven highlights of the thesis are as follows: Firs,the new identification standard of polysyllabic words is adopted to recognize the polysyllabic words and count them exhaustedly in Emperors’ Biographies. Second, the polysyllabic words in the biographies are elaborately classified and the categories are summarized. Third, the inner forms of the polysyllabic words are analyzed in detail and come down to several classes and sub-classes. Fourth, efforts are made to exhaustedly account the word senses’ number and the property of the polysyllabic words. Fifth,the classification of the grammar of the polysyllabic words was made. Sixth, comparisons of the polysyllabic words in the biographies and the counterparts in Zhuang Tzu are made. Seventh, the proportion of the polysyllabic words of the biographies in the total words are worked out and the result showed the disyllabization process of the polysyllabic words in East Han dynasty.