Practically speaking, the findings of this study can help those who studyclassics of ancient Chinese and further promote our Chinese culture to the world.Moreover, it provides us with a new perspective to understand the way people in thePre-Qin Period think and express.
CHAPTER TWOLITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Yě and its compounds in the ancient Chinese modal particle system
In 1728, Joseph-Henry-Marie de Prémare, a famous French Jesuit missionarywho came to China in the Qing Dynasty created the Notitia Linguae Sinicae in Latin,which was translated into English by J. G. Bridgeman in 1847. It was recognized asthe first book that made a detailed description of the modal particle yě in the historyof Chinese grammar. Yě there was a final particle, and those at the end of sentenceswere used for making judgments, those at the end of clauses were responsible formaking pause and soothing mood, and the rest were put after proper nouns. And itscompound and inversion uses, and the difference between yě and yǐ were mentionedas well. Then, Ma Jianzhong (1898) made a significant attempt to analyze thesystem of the Pre-Qin modal particles in his masterpiece Ma Shi Wen Tong, in whichhe established a two-way mode of xin (affirmation) and yi (doubt). Yě belongs to thefirst mode, and Ma believed that yě is used to make judgment at the bottom of asentence, to make a pause and pursue rhetorical effects in the middle of sentences,and to stress and sooth mood when it appears after proper nouns. Likewise, Ma also noticed the compound and inversion uses and compared yě with other modalparticles.
Notitia Linguae Sinicae and Ma Shi Wen Tong are two famous and influentialmasterpieces about modal particles of ancient Chinese, and yě, in particular, receivesthe most attention for its high frequency of occurrences. The two books are similarin structure in terms of describing modal particles, but the latter one is morecomprehensive and systematic, while the former took an initiative in breaking awayfrom the Western grammar system and standing on the linguistic facts of ancientChinese. However, due to the limits of time and knowledge, the two just describedthe apparent attributes of yě, while the reasons for and rules of performing suchfunctions were not explored inwardly, that is, the inner linguistic values of yě hadnot been discovered.
2.2 The distributions of yě and its compounds
He Leshi (2004) pointed out that yě has two main categories of distribution:one is its occurrence at the end of a simple or complex sentence, and the other is itsoccurrence in the middle of a sentence or at the end of a subordinate clause of anendocentric complex sentence. Hua Jianguang (2013), based on data from Zuozhuanas an important resource, found that the order of occurrence rate sentences endedwith the SFP yě is that: declarative sentences take the first place, interrogativesentences take the second place, and imperative sentences come third. Moreover,scholars like Chen Huanhuan (2017) found that yě tends to appear in all the fourmain sentence categories including declarative sentences, interrogative sentences,imperative sentences and exclamation sentences.
From what was mentioned above, yě has a wide distribution in ancient Chinese,and this partly accounts for its wide use in different sentences. And in differentlocations, it has different linguistic values. Thus, studying its distribution is rather significant.
CHAPTER THREE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK....................................13
3.1 Saussure’s conception of value...................................13
3.2 Arbitrariness and negativity........................................14
3.3 Community and syntagmatic and associative relations................................16
CHAPTER FOUR RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...................................20
4.1 Corpus-
