Passives in Classical and Han Chinese: Typological considerations.

摘要

This study examines five syntactic constructions in Classical and Han Chinese which are frequently labelled "passive." It discusses whether or not they meet a typological definition of passive based on the promotion and demotion of grammatical relations and also sketches the synchronic and diachronic relationships of the constructions and how they fit into the general syntax of the literary language of these two periods.;Chapter 1 introduces the theoretical framework and textual and methodological concerns relevant to the study. Chapter 2 establishes the basic word classes of nouns and verb, then distinguishes several verb classes, based on syntactic and semantic criteria relevant to the use of passive. Chapter 3 reviews the role that morphology may have played in passive formation during the Classical era. Chapter 4 discusses the use of the co-verb ?jag, both as a marker of "agents" and as a syntactic particle appearing in a variety of constructions. Chapter 5 analyzes the two other major "passive" constructions of the Classical era: the kianh construction, and the gwjar construction. Chapter 6 discusses two new "passive" constructions which evolved during the late Classical or early Han era: the gwjar-srjag and pjiarh constructions. It traces the relation of the new forms to the old forms and describes the evolution of these constructions during the Han period. Chapter 7 reviews how the constructions studied conform to the theoretical definition of passive proposed in the first chapter. It concludes that while promotion from object to subject is difficult to show, loss of transitivity and demotion from relation to non-relation both existed.