A Study On The Diachronic Evolution Of The Words Of Praising And The Speech Acts Of Praising In Chinese

The monosyllabic and disyllabic words,and the speech acts,which express the concept of “praise” in Chinese have diachronically changed.This article intends to discuss related issues from four aspects.First,the diachronic evolution of monosyllabic words with the meaning of “praise.” In this part,a detailed examination of the relevant words concerning the meaning of “praise” is conducted.The words contain “誉” “颂” “嘉” “称” “赞” “许” “美” “多” “褒” “夸” and “扬”.This part also focuses on the syntactic and semantic changes of monosyllabic words,containing the meaning of “praise,” in different historical periods,and pays attention to the differences in the identities of the two sides,agent and patient of acts,and the restrictions of the use of context.The diachronic evolution process of the monophonic words,with the meaning of “praise” is roughly believed as follows: from the pre-Qin era to the Western Han Dynasty,“誉” was prevalent,with a wide semantic scope,and without restrictions to the status of agent and patient.During the Eastern Han Dynasty,“褒” was dominant,and the frequency of use of “誉” decreased apparently.By the time of the Wei and Jin and the Southern and Northern Dynasties,“称” became a dominant word with absolute superiority,and the scope of collocation continued to expand.Besides collocating with the words relating to persons and things,“称” can also be collocated with praise discourse,expressing “praise”through direct speech acts.During the Tang and Song Dynasties,the dominant words did not change,but the single-use frequency of most old words,with the meaning of “praise”,declined,and most of them appeared in compound words and functioned as word-building components.The old words reflected an early stage of morphemization.By the Yuan,Ming,and Qing Dynasties,the degree of morphemization of old words further deepened.The dominant words changed from “称” and“嘉”,from Wei Jin to Tang and Song Dynasties,to“赞” and “夸”.The frequency of the use of the two words increased,with a wider semantic field,in which the object and the subject of “praise” did not change.The syntactic was also freely distributed during this period.Second,the diachronic evolution of the structures with the meaning of “praise”.The development of monosyllabic words in the sense of “praise” is usually accompanied by some lexicalized phenomena,such as the morphemization of monosyllabic words and the structures with the meaning of “praise”.This paper studies the evolution of the structures with “称” and“赞”,and respectively describes and analyses their synchronic distribution and diachronic evolution.This paper also examines the relevant evolution process of the morphemization of“称” and “赞” from the perspective of the change of lexicalized degree.We find that the process of lexicalization of related structures began and developed as early as the pre-Qin period,but,at this time,the degree of lexicalization of disyllabic words（phrases）and the degree of the morphemization of monosyllabic verbs were low,and the polyphonic configuration was dominated by phrases;From the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Sui Dynasty,the gap in the number of compound word members and phrase members in polyphonic structures greatly narrowed,which,to a certain extent,reflected the deepening of lexicalization and morphemization;During the Tang and Song Dynasties,the compound words achieved numerical transcendence,the process of lexicalization of polyphonic structures accelerated,and the degree of morphemization of monosyllabic old words further deepened;By the time of the Yuan,Ming,and Qing Dynasties,the type frequency of compound words was much higher than that of polyphonic phrases,which can be regarded as the morphemization of “称” and “赞”.Third,the functional changes of the monosyllabic and disyllabic words containing the meaning of“praise”.Along with the process of polyphony,a series of synonymous monosyllabic and disyllabic words with the same morpheme and the meaning of“praise”appeared.This paper selects the monosyllabic and disyllabic verbs that have appeared frequently since the beginning of modern Chinese,to analyze the differences in semantics,syntax,pragmatics,and prosody between the monosyllabic and disyllabic verbs.The results are as follows:During the Tang and Song Dynasties,the use of the monosyllabic words,“称”and“赞”,especially“称”,on the level of semantics,syntax,pragmatics,and prosody,was freer,and wider in range,than disyllabic words.At the same time,the disyllabic words,with the meaning of“称赞”were still under development;During the Yuan,Ming,and Qing Dynasties,the difference in semantic aspects between the monosyllabic and disyllabic verbs,containing the meaning of“praise”,greatly reduced,and the colloquiality of the monosyllabic verbs was higher than that of the disyllabic verbs.Regardless of the structure in which they appeared,the prosody patterns of monosyllabic words were more flexible and diverse than those of disyllabic verbs.Fourth,the diachronic changes in speech acts,containing the meaning of “praise”,in modern Chinese.In this part,three kinds of corpora are selected as the subjects of research:they are Dunhuang Bianwen,Jin Ping Mei Ci Hua,and The Record of Revelation of Officialdom.The paper analyzed the development of praising speech acts of modern Chinese from three perspectives: praising subject,way of expression,and mode of response.The result shows that,from Tang Song to Ming and Qing Dynasties,praising speech acts are relatively the same in topics,way of expression,and mode of response.Specifically,ability achievement is the main topic,direct praise is the main way of expression,and transfer/avoidance is the main response strategy.