The Kumarajiva Transwhiz Interrogative Pronouns

Chinese Buddhist scriptures are of great value in studying the Chinese language. It is more valuable in the study of mid-ancient Chinese language because of the lack of oral materials. In this paper, we research interrogative pronouns of Buddhist scriptures which were translated by Kumārajīva. Based on the throughout enumerate, description and explanation, comparison between in the same dynasty, and between in the different dynasty, we sort out the system of interrogative pronouns of Buddhist scriptures, point out the characteristics and the reason behind it. We hope that it will help to understand the intrinsic essence, and development and history, of interrogative pronouns. We also hope that the work, in this paper, will be beneficial and necessary additive to the research of Chinese language history.Through research, we have discovered the followings:Some interrogative pronouns of Buddhist scriptures which were translated by Kumārajīva were inherited from the remote ancient Chinese, whose function and usage had a further development, and built a large number of new interrogative pronouns. There were a lot of interrogative pronouns built by He (何)。Yunhe (云何) had prodigious development, whose grammatical function and usage developed greatly, and reached its peak period. Yunhe become the most active interrogative pronoun of He system. He, Hedeng (何等), Hesuo (何所)presented a declining trend in the meantime. Shui(谁)'s grammatical function obtained a big expansion, and distributed widely. Shui had rich usage and semantics, whose frequency of use was extremely high, and monopolized the superiority. Shui become the most main character interrogative pronoun. Shui which can be also used to inquire tings had comparatively high frequency of use .There come to be some interrogative pronouns of speciel structure such as Daxiao (大小)and Yuanjin (远近) .An interrogative pronoun of Buddhist scriptures translated by Kumārajīva still had many kinds of inquiry functions usually. Inquiry functions of interrogative pronouns overlapped between each other partly. Interrogative pronouns of Buddhist scriptures which were translated by Kumārajīva presents a strong disyllabic tendency.On the whole, the interrogative pronoun system of Buddhist scriptures which were translated by Kumārajīva presents a state of integrity and mixture of new and old interrogative pronoun terms.