从类型学视角浅探《左传》时期去声别义规律 = A STUDY OF QUSHENGBIEYI IN CLASSICAL CHINESE OF THE PERIOD OF ZUOZHUAN IN TYPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Qusheng bieyi is a morphological process where a new word whose meaning is related to that of an existing word is derived by changing its lexical tone into qusheng. Most of the existing studies on qusheng bieyi focused the classification of its functions while the rules governing this phenomenon have received much less attention. The methodology of existing studies which do focus on the rules of qusheng bieyi is not so desirable. This study aims to investigate the rules of qusheng bieyi in Classical Chinese of the period of zuozhuan from a typological perspective. Verbs and nouns which are derived from verbs are chosen for this study. It is found that verbs which undergo verb-to-verb derivation and those undergoing nominalization are in complementary distribution. This suggests that there are rules governing which word class a verb belongs to after its tone is changed into qusheng. The verb-to-verb derivations summarized by Dixon are adopted in this study to classify verb-to-verb derivations in Classical Chinese. The results of the study display that there are five types in Classical Chinese: passive, anticausative, antipassive, causative and applicative. There is a correlation between the transitivity of the original verbs and the type of derivation they undergo. It is very likely that this correlation is influenced by which semantic class the original verb belongs to. Aikhenvald's classification of the semantic types of nouns derived from verbs is adopted in this study to classify verb-to-noun derivation. The results show that the semantic type of verb-to-noun derivation is related to the semantic type of the original verb.Qusheng bieyi is a morphological process where a new word whose meaning is related to that of an existing word is derived by changing its lexical tone into qusheng. Most of the existing studies on qusheng bieyi focused the classification of its functions while the rules governing this phenomenon have received much less attention. The methodology of existing studies which do focus on the rules of qusheng bieyi is not so desirable. This study aims to investigate the rules of qusheng bieyi in Classical Chinese of the period of zuozhuan from a typological perspective. Verbs and nouns which are derived from verbs are chosen for this study. It is found that verbs which undergo verb-to-verb derivation and those undergoing nominalization are in complementary distribution. This suggests that there are rules governing which word class a verb belongs to after its tone is changed into qusheng. The verb-to-verb derivations summarized by Dixon are adopted in this study to classify verb-to-verb derivations in Classical Chinese. The results of the study display that there are five types in Classical Chinese: passive, anticausative, antipassive, causative and applicative. There is a correlation between the transitivity of the original verbs and the type of derivation they undergo. It is very likely that this correlation is influenced by which semantic class the original verb belongs to. Aikhenvald's classification of the semantic types of nouns derived from verbs is adopted in this study to classify verb-to-noun derivation. The results show that the semantic type of verb-to-noun derivation is related to the semantic type of the original verb.