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A Semantic Analysis of Middle Construction in Ancient Chinese

  • Journal of Chinese Language and Literature
  • 2023, (94), pp.205-229
  • DOI : 10.15792/clsyn..94.202312.205
  • Publisher : Chinese Literary Society Of Yeong Nam
  • Research Area : Humanities > Chinese Language and Literature
  • Received : November 20, 2023
  • Accepted : December 13, 2023
  • Published : December 30, 2023

Hyang Lan Park 1

1경북대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study examines the semantic characteristics of the middle construc- tion in ancient Chinese based on the existing discussion on the middle construction. The middle construction is one of special structures that has the verb form of an active sentence, even though it is close to passive sentence, because the object of a transitive verb is placed on the position of the subject. The middle construction has the characteristics of being concurrent with the implicit agent, non-eventive state, present tense, the use of adverb words, and the meaning of possibility and expresses the change of a state, due to the intrinsic nature of a passive subject. While, there was a point that is intersected categorically between the active sentence and passive sentence in view of the construction of ‘可/足’ and ‘難/易’ in ancient Chinese, it is an issue that the specificity of these structures is overlooked. Therefore, this study investigates the semantics of the middle construction in ancient Chinese with ‘可/足’ and ‘難/易’ in a way that the construction of ‘可/足’ and ‘難/易’ corresponds to the middle construction that shows the possibility of a state change and the possibility degree due to the attributes of passive subject.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.