The Emergence And Variation Of Tense-aspect Markers Of Modern Chinese

“Tense-aspect Markers of Modern Chinese”,like Zhe(着),Le(了),Guo(过),Zai(在),De(的),You(有)and Dao(到),is functional words which express tense meanings or aspect meanings.The conclusions of studies about De,Zhe and You were more controversial,so that these three words were restudied as key points in this dissertation.At first,the emergence of tense-aspect meanings and the variation of usages of tense-aspect markers were researched,and then the universal mechanisms of changes of tense-aspect markers in Modern Chinese were put forward.The general research methods of this dissertation is “to explain past by present”,that is,to use the present phenomenons of tense-aspect markers to reason the emergence process of tense-aspect meanings of them,and take past utterances as evidences.Four principles were adhered to in this dissertation:(1)To analyse the meanings of tense-aspect markers detailedly,not to fabricate an synchronic tense-aspect system.(2)To take usages of tense-aspect markers in real utterances as evidences,and attach importance to context.(3)To make reasoning on the basis of analysis of linguistic data,not to make deduction on the basis of hypothesis.(4)To take individual language users as the basis unit of analysis,when we explain the changes of tense-aspect makers.The conclusions of this dissertation are as follows.In Modern Chinese,De is a tense-aspect marker with the meaning of perfective.The tense-aspect marker De is mainly used in dialogues and in two structures:"S+V+NP的"and"S+V的NP".The appearance of Shi(是)and the type of NP can influence the meaning of De.The present usages of De indicates that the tense-aspect marker De was developed from the particle De."S+V+NP的"was developed from"V+NP的是S"and"S是V+NP的";"S+V的NP"was developed from"NP是S+V的"and"S+V的是NP".Zhe(着)in Modern Chinese is a tense-aspect marker with the meaning of resultative and imperfective.The tense-aspect marker Zhe after different types of verbs has different meanings and complex relationship with tense-aspect marker Zai(在)and Le(了)at the end of sentences.The present usages of Zhe indicates that the tense-aspect marker Zhe was developed from "V+Zhe" structure,where Zhe was an complement and a verb meaning “attach”,and expressed the meaning of "achieving a purpose" or "continuing a state" in different contexts.When V is a verb with harmful meanings,the pronunciation of Zhe which means "achieving a purpose" is weaker and then Zhe becomes a resultative marker.The range of verbs before Zhe meaning "continuing a state" expanded gradually,and the meaning of Zhe changed in the same time and became a imperfective marker eventually.In Modern Chinese,there are some phenomenons of variation of tense-aspect makers,such as the using of “有 VP” and “-ing”,the variation of resultative marker Dao(到)and perfect marker Le(了)in structure “A 了”.You(有)is a perfect marker in the structure of "有 VP" which is used by more and more people,and have more and more usages.In the context of internet,the English progressive marker “-ing” is often used in Modern Chinese;the range of words before resultative marker Dao(到)expanded greatly;the perfect marker Le(了)in "A 了" lost the tense-aspect meaning and became a modal particle.The changes of tense-aspect markers in Modern Chinese should be explained from three aspects: preconditions,motivations and patterns of language change.Comprehension ability is one of the preconditions.The motivations can be divided into external motivations and internal motivations.Individual motivations consist of intentional motivations and unintentional motivations,which can be found in the phenomena of language standardization,language unfamiliarization and automation.The changes of tense-aspect markers in Modern Chinese indicate that grammar is a dynamic system which consists of three levels: latent form,unfamiliar form and normal form.These changes can be explained well by The Individual Language System Based on Frequency.