4.1.1 Zuozhuan as the corpus............................ 20
4.1.2 Establishing a corpus..........................................21
CHAPTER FIVE DATA ANALYSIS.................................... 26
5.1 Linguistic values based on positions of the SFP yě......................................26
5.1.1 The judgment value in judgment sentences with full stops............... 26
5.1.2 The explanation value in statement sentences with full stops............37
CHAPTER FIVEDATA ANALYSIS
5.1 Linguistic values based on positions of the SFP yě
As a language sign without lexical meaning, the SFP yě’s positions in sentences ordiscourses become rather important. By way of analyzing its positions, the linguisticvalues of it in Zuozhuan can be further divided into the judgment value, explanationvalue, setting value, juxtaposition value and affirmation value. Each type of it willbe illustrated with given examples as follows:
5.1.1 The judgment value in judgment sentences with full stops
Compared with other usages, the SFP yě with a full stop is the major one (thefollowing table can be seen as evidence), in which it usually appears in judgmentsentences to help make judgments.
CHAPTER SIXFINDINGS AND CONCLUSION
6.1 Major findings and conclusionsBased on Saussure’s theory of linguistic values, Chapter 3 builds a theoreticalframework that suits the language reality of the study. It mainly clarifies theimportant concepts of value, arbitrariness, negativity, community and syntagmaticrelations, and presents two approaches (from the positions of the SFP yě withdifferent punctuations in various sentences and its comparisons with surroundingSFPs) to figure out the linguistic values of the SFP yě in Zuozhuan. According to theresearch procedures illustrated in Chapter 4, a small corpus has been established.And based on the two approaches, various cases have been selected and analyzed inChapter 5. Therefore, the three research questions listed in Chapter 1 can beanswered respectively with findings as follows:
As a new thing that firstly and largely appeared in Zuozhuan, yě, the mostfrequently used SFP, plays an important role in expressing speakers’ emotions andintentions. From the SFP yě’s positions marked by different punctuations inZuozhuan, it is found that the object often appears in judgment sentences to makejudgments on the target component’s identity, status, relation, behavior and states.Making judgment is the primary and paramount linguistic value of it. Besides andbased on the judgment value, it also helps to give explanation to essentialinformation in statements, i.e. explanation value; provide settings of time, condition,debating, hypothesis and so on for the following contexts and show juxtapositions indeclarative clauses, i.e. setting value and juxtaposition value; and affirm and supportthe main modalities in its compounds, i.e. affirmation value. After comparing it withits surrounding SFPs (yǐ, hū and zāi), it is found that the major linguistic value ofmaking judgment is operated in a static way; and the SFP yě also helps to assist informing query in some common structures, i.e. assistance value; and in certainneeded contexts, it serves to deliver exclamations or strong emotions, i.e.exclamation value.
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