THESIS: A Study on the Numeration in Middle Chinese
SPECIALIZATION: Chinese Linguistics and Graphetics
POSTGRADUATE: Zhang Yancheng
MENTOR: Professor Liu Shizhen
ABSTRACT
The inadequate study on the numeration in Middle Chinese has been hindered the thorough diachronic research on the Chinese numeration. My research shows that the numeration in Middle Chinese has developed quite a few new forms and usages, comparing with that in Old Chinese. The main points and new observations made on Middle Chinese in this thesis can be summarized as follows.
Firstly, the syntactic function of the numerals had new development. For instances, the formation Num + LM (classifiers and measure words) had developed many non-adnominal usages; Num +LM+N could function as a single word in certain conditions; Num+LM+N and V+Num+L which is popular in Modern Chinese had emerged more frequently than N+Num+LM and Num+L+V which was often used in Old Chinese; etc. Based on exhaustive description and case study, I also explored the regularity underlying the process of the diachronic development on the basic patterns of the numeration in Chinese.
Secondly, the structure of the compound numerals appeared new features. The variants of the numeral two had gained new usages. The ellipsis of one in a compound numeral was relative to the factors on the style, structure, pragmatics, prosody and rhythm. The ellipsis of the round number was also a new phenomenon. The conjunctive"有"among the compound numerals in Old Chinese remained to be used for some reasons.
Thirdly, there emerged many new types of number approximations concerning approximators, exemplar numbers, and redundant forms of approximation. I tried to classify the approximators into four types according to a reference point number. I found that the development of expression on approximating quantities related closely with the formation of the structures made up with four morphemes, which could accounts for the inproductivity of the AABB structure of numerals in Modern Chinese.
Fourthly, many new observations on ordinals, fractions and multiples were made in this paper. For examples, Di(第)+Num+Head was emerged in Western Han dynasty, then used more in Eastern Han dynasty and widely used in Middle Chinese. Num1(denominator)+fenzhi(分之)+Num2(numerator),the typical pattern of fractions , had become very matured; meanwhile, there emerged some new proper names of fractions because of the development of mathematics, astronomy and calendar.
In the end, I explored especially the numeration characteristics in the sutra in Eastern Han dynasty, with the conclusion that the numeration in the sutra showed the new trends on the development of Chinese numeration and the rich redundant forms of numeration in the sutra was a distinctive feature which could be accounted for by not only the expressive need on the meanings in the sutra but also the historical accumulation of the residual forms of the numeration in Old Chinese.
Key words: Middle Chinese Numeration Diachronic development