| The title of Vimalakirti-Nirdesa-Sutra is translated into Chinese as Weimojie Suo Shuo Jing, or Weimojie Suo Shuo Bu Si Ti Jing, Bu Ke Si Yi Jie Tuo Jing, Weimo Jing, Weimojie Jing etc. There now exist three kinds of Chinese versions of the sutra among which the three-volume version (A.D. 406) translated by Kumarajiva in the Dynasty of Yao Qin is of the greatest influence and prevails at that time.Developing from the basis of Sunyata thought in Prajnaparamita-Sutra, the sutra is a kind of Mahayana sutra and one of the classics in the early period of Mahayana Buddhism. Tun-huang transformation text is a kind of popular literature that prevails in temples and among the people in Tang Dynasty. Compared with other contemporary documents, it is closer to the real spoken language and has distinct characters of being folk and colloquial. With the classical style of writing in Qin and Han Dynasty as its ancestor and the modern colloquialism in Song and Yuan Dynasty as its descendant, it is a bridge in the developing history of Chinese that links between Middle Age and Modern Age Chinese and is high both in language material value and historical status. There are seven about the Vimalakirtii-Nirdesa-Sutra in Tun-huang transformation texts. These texts are written in the early 10th century or so and are of the transitional period to popular literature. Judging from its profundity, it is delivered by monks instead of average people. The texts take the Vimalakirti-Nirdesa-Sutra translated by Kumarajiva as the foundation and tell about its contents in the form of "quoting—explaining—chanting in rhymed prose". The foundation of this thesis is the texts taken from the Tun-huang Transformation Texts Proofreading and Annotation, which is collated most carefully, and is the most complete and authoritative version.In the thesis, the author first picks out most of the usages of the word "zhi" that links between attributive and head both in the transformation text and the sutra. Then taking all these attributive-head structures linked by "zhi" as research targets, the author makes a comparative study of their syntax and semantics by using the three-dimension grammatical theory. The sutra is 500 years earlier than the transformation text, therefore it has significance to describe the features of the attributive-head structure in them and reveal the developments and changes.The thesis is composed of 5 parts, with a conclusion appended.Chapter one is the preface. It begins with the introduction of the sutra and the transformation text and continues with explaining a general situation of the usages of "zhi" picked out of them.Chapter two is a comparative study of the syntax of the attributive-head structure in the sutra and the transformation text. The emphasis is to study and compare the type, development and character of the components of attributive and head. The author also analyzes the syntax functions of the attributive-head structure, and describes the organization model of the attributive-head structure.Chapter three is a comparative study of the semantics of the attributive-head structure in the sutra and the transformation text. Firstly, the types of the semantics relation between attributive and head are combed from the angle of the head and a comparison is given. Secondly, a detailed analysis of the semantics functions of the attributive-head structure is put forward. Thirdly, there comes an analysis of the two kinds of special attributive-head structure, i.e. identical and supernormal relation.Chapter four is a comparison of the changes of the attributive-head structure linked by "zhi" in the sutra and the transformation text In the process of chanting the transformation text, when the classics are quoted, the colloquialism of that time is repeatedly used to explain. At that time, changes of the attributive-head structure take place between the sutra and the transformation text The chapter mainly discusses the changed attributive-head structure of "zhi".Chapter five is about the sameness of the usage of "zhi" and "er" in the transformation text When probing into the usage of "zhi", examples of the same usage of "er" are discovered. They are identical in the links between the adverb and the predicate, and the connection of two predicates.By choosing only the attributive-head structure in the Vimalakirti-Nirdesa-Sutra and the transformation text to give syntax and semantics analysis, it is expected to be beneficial to a deeper comparison and to make up the weak points of the previous researches. The originality of the thesis is to juxtapose the sutra and the transformation text and to discover the developments of the attributive-head structure in those 500 years. |
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