A Study Of Quantifiers In Vernacular Of Tang And Five Dynasties

The number of Chinese quantifiers is abundant and the system is perfect.To clarify their etymology,development context and evolution law is a key link in the study of Chinese grammar.Jiang Shaoyu(蒋绍愚,2005)pointed out that the vocabulary outlook of one era,or the vocabulary difference between one era and another,can be understood more clearly through the study of vocabulary in a special book.The study of quantifiers should also be consistent with the discussion.Up to now,the academic circles have achieved gratifying results in the study of classifiers in the Tang and Five Dynasties,but the research on classifiers in special books is in a relatively weak link.However,"Dunhuang Collected Works"(《敦煌变文集》)and"Dunhuang Quzici Collections"(《敦煌曲子词集》)can reflect the language features of the period most truly and comprehensively because of its precise time,rich content and strong oral language.This article selects the first three volumes of"Dunhuang Collected Works"(《敦煌变文集》)and"Dunhuang Quzici Collections"(《敦煌曲子词集》),which cover folk legends and historical stories,as the research corpus,and uses the methods of literature,classification statistics,descriptive analysis and diachronic comparison to attempt to analyze quantifiers and their grammatical and semantic characteristics from a synchronic perspectivel,and from the diachronic level investigates the similarities and differences between the quantifiers in the vernacular of the Tang Dynasty and the vernacular of the Wei,Jin,Southern and Northern Dynasties,In order to explore the evolution law of vernacular classifiers in this period and summarize its basic features.The full text is divided into four parts:The first part covers the reasons for the topic selection,research significance,research methods and corpus descriptions,and briefly summarizes the literature on the focus of the research on quantifiers at home and abroad.It can be seen that there are relatively few results of the study of quantifiers in the Tang and Five Dynasty book.Regarding the classification of quantifier subcategories,people in the academic circle have spoken differently.In order to facilitate the research,in the second part,the grammatical function standard is combined with the lexical meaning to define the classifiers in the vernacular of the Tang and Five Dynasty,and according to the classification standards of Huang borong and Liao Xudong(黄伯荣、廖序东,2017),the classifiers are divided into nominal classifiers and verbal classifiers.There are two categories.On this basis,noun quantifiers are divided into special noun quantifiers and borrowed noun quantifiers.The former includes individual quantifiers,collective quantifiers,and metric quantifiers;The latter includes two types of borrowed nouns(mainly container quantifiers)and borrowed verbs.Verb quantifiers include special verb quantifiers and borrowed verb quantifiers.At the same time,combined with the actual use of vernacular quantifiers in that period,the quantifiers that meet the standards are listed as detailed as possible under the subcategory classification,and described in a comprehensive and systematic manner.The third part mainly focuses on analyzing the grammatical and semantic characteristics of the classifiers in the vernacular of the Tang and Five Dynasty from a synchronic perspective.Regarding grammatical features,we mainly start from the lexical and syntactical aspects,and discuss from the perspectives of word formation,form of structure,syntactic function,and combination ability.Regarding semantic features,we mainly use Shao Jingmin’s(邵敬敏)theory and research framework for preliminary analysis.The fourth part is based on the vernacular quantifier system of the Wei,Jin,Southern and Northern Dynasties with strong spoken language,analyzes the similarities and differences in the grammatical and semantic features of the quantifiers in the vernacular of the Tang and Five Dynasty from the diachronic level,and examines the increase and decrease of the meanings of the quantifiers in the typical vernacular of the period.The ebb and flow of classifiers and their inheritance are expected to further reveal the law and general picture of the development and evolution of classifiers in the vernacular in the Tang and Five Dynasty.The conclusion summarizes the changes in the vernacular quantifier system of the Tang and Five Dynasties,and believes that compared with the previous generations,the vernacular quantifier system in this period has initially realized the transition from the mature stage to the complete stage,and at the same time points out the direction of the later research.