Research On Emerging Classifiers In Modern Chinese In The Past Thirty Years

This thesis studied the development and evolution of the newly-emerged Chinese classifiers in nearly three decades from the history of modern Chinese and the theory of cognitive linguistics.It comprehensively and meticulously described the newly-emerged Chinese classifiers in nearly three decades from the synchronic and diachronic perspectives,examines their origins,analyzes their evolution processes,and explains the reasons for their emergence from the perspective of cognitive linguistics.There are six parts in the article,which are divided into four chapters besides the introduction and conclusion:The introduction part first introduced the background of this article,and then summarized the research of classifiers from the perspective of domestic and foreign.Then it introduced the research content of this paper,as well as the theoretical methods adopted.And finally,it elaborated the research value of this paper.The Chapter at first took 2002 as the midpoint,divided the whole 30 years into two stages,collected the emerging classifiers in the two stages respectively.In the first stage,by comparing the“Modren Chinese Classifier Handbook”(1987)and “Modern Chinese Classifier Usage Dictionary ”(2002),we conclude that 17 new classifiers have emerged in the past 15 years,namely,“dan,dang,kuan,zhi1,tao,piao,peng,shou,chou,tong,zhao,jian,mile,h Pa,nanometre,mole”.The second stage compares “Modern Chinese Classifier Usage Dictionary ”(2002)with“Chinese Classifier Dictionary”(2013),together with the newly emerging classifiers that have not been included in the dictionary in recent years,and concludes that there are 8 classifiers in the second stage.They are “mei,ji,zhi2,hu1,hu2,pan,ti,xian”.Then the 25 classifiers mentioned above are interpreted one by one.Finally,quantitative statistics and qualitative analysis are carried out from the angle of overlap mode,source,collocation and so on.The second chapter studied the 13 classifiers other than metric words in the first stage.It described the usage of each classifier in a comprehensive way,including its combination of competence and pragmatic environment;it traced its sources and evolutionary approaches;and it explained the mechanism of its production.Finally,the first stage of the new classifier development and evolution of the law were summarized.The third chapter fully described,analyzed and explained the 8 classifiers in the second stage from the perspective of the usage,source,evolution and production mechanism of each classifier.Finally,the development and evolution rules of the emerging classifiers in the second stage were summarized.The fourth chapter explained the development and evolution of Chinese classifiers in the past three decades.Mainly from three aspects: internal reasons of language,external reasons of society,and reasons of human cognition,trying to reveal the law of the development and evolution of classifiers.The conclusion part summarized the contents of the first to fourth chapters and pointed out the insufficiency of the research.