Nominal Functions and Nominalisation in Classical Chinese
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NOMINAL FUNCTIONS AND NOMINALISATION IN CLASSICAL CHINESE BY JERZY FREUNDLICH A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF LONDON 1988 ProQuest Number: 10672786 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10672786 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Abstract The present study is concerned with the identification and analysis of the major syntactic functions occurring in the classical Chinese sentence. Of these, it concentrates on those functions which exhibit one of the following two characteristics: that of initiating discourse or predication (e.g., SUBJECT); or that of being governed (e.g., OBJECT). The generic term assigned to these functions is ‘nominal’, and is employed not because they are always performed by members of the lexical category ‘noun’ (the syntactic unpredictability of classical Chinese word-classes is notorious), but because they are predominantly so performed and, significantly, because proper names, which are nouns par excellence, occur almost without exception in these functions. Although the study deals mainly with the functions described above, it is inevitable that considerable attention is also paid to other, ‘verbal’ functions with which the nominal functions are inextricably bound, either through governing the latter, or by forming the basis of the predication which the latter initiate. In this way it is hoped that an overall view of classical Chinese sentence structure may be presented. Known and established nominal functions such as SUBJECT and OBJECT are analysed so as to illustrate their special properties with regard to classical Chinese; hitherto unidentified functions such as CLASSIHCATORY COMPLEMENT and COMPLEMENT OF PLACE receive somewhat fuller treatment to establish their status as nominal functions. In addition, the function TOPIC is treated in some detail. The question of nominalisation also comes in for scrutiny. Qualifying under this head are those constituents which perform nominal functions but are not nouns or noun phrases. Separate chapters are devoted to both non-finite verb phrases and embedded sentences. The corpus under examination consists of concordanced pre-Han texts of the period c.500-c.250 BC, with occasional reference to earlier texts where a diachronic view is desirable. Acknowledgements My thanks must first of all go to the British taxpayer who, albeit unwittingly, supported my research for three years in the form of a British Academy Scholarship. This project would not have been possible without such assistance. Secondly, I should like to express my gratitude to all those who taught me in my undergraduate and postgraduate studies. Of particular value has been the instruction received from Professor A.C. Graham, who not only stimulated my interest in the subject of classical Chinese grammar during my undergraduate days, but also took the time and trouble to provide detailed criticisms of my work even after his official retirement. I have benefitted greatly from the depth and breadth of his knowledge, for which I am most grateful. In a very important sense this thesis would not have been written without the help of Lillian Chia and David Aspinall, both involved in the Chinese Computer Project being conducted at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. They were kind enough to allow me to use their Chinese word-processing facilities. David Aspinall prepared and formatted the final version of the thesis for printing and Lillian Chia gave me much valuable assistance with inputting and proof-reading. I extend my sincere thanks to them both. The greatest debt is, of course, due to my supervisor Dr. Paul Thompson. He has patiently sat through my often too fervent outpourings and has quietly but firmly moderated my too extravagant ideas. When I lacked direction or coherence he provided it and his broad view has helped give this study form and shape. As if this were not enough, he it was who designed the Chinese word-processing software which enabled this thesis to be produced with machine-written characters. Those mentioned above have contributed significantly to anything of value in this study; the responsibility for errors and shortcomings rests, of course, entirely with the author. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................. 1 Some Notable Previous Studies in Classical Chinese Syntax ...................... 1 The Nature of the Problem ........................................................................................................ 2 Premises and Methodology ........................................................................................................ 4 The C orpus .................................................................................................................................. 12 CHAPTER 1: SUBJECT AND O B JE C T........................................................................................... 15 SUBJECT and PREDICATE........................................................................................................ 15 The SUBJECT-FINITE VERB Relationship.............................................................................. 18 Are SUBJECTS Absolutely Necessary in CC S en ten ces?.................................................... 20 Grammatical SUBJECT vs. Logical SUBJECT ...................................................................... 26 OBJECT....................................................................................................................................... 28 CO-VERBS and their C om p lem en ts ....................................................................................... 30 Are CO-VERBS Transitive?........................................................................................................ 32 CHAPTER 2: LOCATION AND RELATION................................................................................... 34 Location in a P la c e ..................................................................................................................... 34 Yu TV Ift in Expressions of Location and R elation ............................................................. 35 Yu T V M as Marker of P l a c e ................................................................................................ 38 Yu with Stative Verbs and Ergative V erbs .............................................................................. 43 The Directive Uses of y u ........................................................................................................ 44 COMPLEMENT OF PLACE vs. OBJECT................................................................................... 48 CHAPTER 3: CLASSIHCATORY VERBS AND CLASSIHCATORY COMPLEMENTS .... 52 Classificatory V e r b s ................................................................................................................. 52 Similarity and A n a lo g y ............................................................................................................. 54 ru tiU/ruo .............................................................................................................................. 54 si ........................................................................................................................................... 60 you >f|li ....................................................................................................................................... 62 MARKER OF COMPARISON.................................................................................................... 64 Some Distinctions between Similarity and A n alogy ............................................................. 65 Naming and C a llin g ................................................................................................................. 66 Capacity and R o l e ..................................................................................................................... 72 A Note on they* J £ ( . wei ^ P a ttern ................................................................................... 75 Class-Membership and Identity ................................................................................................ 80 Differentiation between Identity and Class-Membership .................................................... 87 B-term CLASSIHCATORY COMPLEMENTS Expressing Reason or C a u s e ...................... 89 CHAPTER 4: TOPICS.......................................................................................................................... 92 Topicalisation .............................................................................................................................. 92 Deletion of the Resumptive Pronoun ......................................................................................