A Study On "Sheng"、"Jiang" Verb Categories In Yili And Liji

This paper tries to study the two verb categories–(升降Sheng Jiang) Ascendingand Descending in the two books (《仪礼》《礼记》,Yili, Liji.) Through analyzingof the syntagmatic relation of the “Sheng” and “Jiang” in these two books, thepaper reaches a general usage situation of the two categories by making a furtheranalysis and contrast on their lexical meaning and grammatical features. Then thepaper focuses on the lexical meaning and the grammatical features of the twowords “Sheng” and “Jiang” from the synchronic and diachronic perspectives. Bydoing so, the paper tries to answer the question as to whether the two words evolvefrom the originally moving verbs to proper nouns used in ceremonial behavior.This paper is composed of five chapters.Chapter one is the introduction, which includes: the reason of choose the theme,research background, research object, research status and research methods, etc.Chapter two and chapter three describe the verb categories Sheng and Jiang inthese two books respectively to reach a basic understanding of their syntagmaticrelations and the grammatical features. In short, there are six kinds of syntagmaticrelations: single use, V+N, V+pronoun, V+V, V+quantitative structure, and so on.And there are some differences in the syntagmatic relation of the members withinthe verb categories Sheng Jiang.Chapter four makes an exploration to the verb categories Sheng and Jiang inthese two books based on the previous study in the chapter two and three and theresearch results of predecessors. First, the author discusses the usage features of theverb categories Sheng and Jiang in these two books; second, the author discussesthe relationship between Sheng jiang used in etiquettes and the verb categories ofSheng and Jiang. Based on some sample studies, the paper finds out that theoriginal meaning of the verb categories Sheng and Jiang refer to the simple movingverbs, and they do not have a distinct usage in the ancient document. For example,“Sheng（升）” and “Deng（登）” is quite often used alternatively.“Jiang（降）”and “Xia（下）” originally used alternatively but later became distinctly. The verbs suchas “Sheng（升）”,”Deng（登）”,”Teng（腾）”and”Cheng（乘）” are all cognatewords, all of which have a close relation in the semantic and grammatical senses.Therefore, the paper concludes that there is no enough evidence to support theargument that the verb categories of Sheng and Jiang are developed from themoving verbs to proper nouns used in ceremonial behavior.Chapter five is the conclusion, which sums up the main argument in this paperand indicates the existing problems in this research.