"Arts For The People", "the" Usage Study

On the grammaticalization of zhuo"(着), many scholars have deemed the zhuo’s attached significance as the source of the tense and aspect particle "zhuo" and located the time at the Wei,Jin and the Southern and Northern Dynasties."Qi Min yaoshu" is an argriculture master written by Jia Sixie in the Northern Wei. A large number of zhuo’s cases in the book offerd us enough and meaningful fundamental materials to study the grammaticalization of "zhuo". The paper has selected232items about the attached and placed significance cases of "zhuo" exhaustively and divided them into three categories as single verb,"serial verb constructions" and "closed verb structures".According to the same criteria and methods, we collected49items of "zhuo" from "Sou Shen ji" and "Shi Shuo xin yu" at that time. Items of "zhuo" collected from the up three books are taken as the certificate materials to study the "zhuo" in the whole Wei,Jin and the Southern and Northern Dynasties.By analyzing the data collected, we find that "zhuo" was mainly used as a independent verb during that period. In comparison, the core meaning of "zhuo" in the "serial verb constructions" and "closed verb structures" has already weakened. Besides,the frequent use of "zhuo+locative" greatly promoted zhuo’s transformation from a verb to a preposition. It was essential that "zhuo" in the "closed verb structures" has reached the standard of "closed structure form" besides the "weakened core meaning". Therefore, we take the "closed verb structures" of "zhuo" as the cradle of it’s grammaticalization. In addition,we conjecture that "closed verb structures" of "zhuo" in the Buddhist scriptures written in Chinese characters played a great role in promoting the grammaticalization of "zhuo"We consider that "zhuo" in the Wei Jin and the Southern and Northern Dynasties was just a word transiting from the subsidiary verb to a preposition. As "zhuo" had not yet reached the standard of "dedicated" and "voice weakening" it was not a real preposition yet at that time.