In order to observe the relationship between the intonation patterns and their functions of interjections as responses, 192 pairs of conversations were synthesized by combining 4 kinds of sentences of different sentence types and 4 kinds of interjection response words (ɑ、ɑｉ、ｏ、ｅｎ) loaded with different intonations to observe the matching degrees between the types of the former sentences and the responses of the latter sentence in the Chinese conversation sequences, as well as the functional orientations of the interjections in different intonations. It is found that，the actual behavior types inferred from the response function selection results of the latter sentences are roughly consistent with the function types of the former sentences, but it also highlights the asymmetry of the former sentences in forms and functions. Respondents’ choice of interjection and intonation affected subjects’ choice of response function at the same time, and the influence of intonation was more obvious. The rising or falling intonations can realize the basic distinction of positive or negative response functions, and the functions of complex intonation such as rising-falling and falling-rising are mainly determined by the rising or falling trend of the back part of the curve.

The article’s detailed examination of the interactive function and evaluative expression of confirmatory progressive sentences leads to the finding that this syntactic structure is used to evaluate activities by responding to existing evaluations in a confirmatory manner before advancing to the speaker’s evaluation. It occurs in a relatively stable distributional position in discourse and serves as an interactive function of either weakening differences or strengthening agreement, thereby uniting the listener. The presence or absence of an implied transition between clauses determines whether its interactive function is to weaken differences or strengthen agreement. Its evaluative meaning is derived from some evaluative devices involving evaluative parameter, nature of evaluation, and scalar difference of evaluation. Within this structure, there are three types that implement different evaluative behaviors; and the most frequently implemented evaluative act is to evaluate the same object using different words. The clause relationship, interactive function, evaluative means, and evaluative behavior of this structure are all interconnected.

“To play” is a universal basic concept in various languages. The verb meaning “to play” in the Hakka dialect in Ningdu has been recorded as \[ho\]、\[hui\]、\[xi\]、\[vi\]、\[vi\], and \[fei\], also as the dissyllabic \[huai tshau\]、\[fei tshau\]. According to the history of the Chinese language and synchronic study of various dialects, this word should be written as “huai” (坏) and “huaichao” (坏钞), evolving from “huaichao” (坏钞) (“to pay the expense”) in the early Mandarin. The verb meaning “to play” in Fuguang cluster of Gan dialect, which was written as “wei” (猥), may be written as “huai”, too, because they are practically of the same word. It shows the close relatioship of the Ningdu Shicheng cluster of Hakka dialect and Gan dialect.

Employing ERP technology, this study investigates the semantic processing mechanism underlying the antecedent of Chinese counterfactual conditionals, via manipulating the degree of consistency between contextual information and semantic information in Chinese counterfactual conditionals and causal conditionals. The results showed that: 1) at the departure point of the conditionals, as a hypothetical conjunctive, “yaoshi” evoked larger P3a and P600 responses than “yinwei”; 2) verbs inconsistent with context incurred a larger P600 amplitude; 3) at the end of the antecedent, in contrast to the effect of easing integration of the consistent noun in causal conditionals, no N400 difference between consistent and inconsistent nouns in counterfactual conditionals was observed. These results reveal that the processing of semantic information in the antecedent of Chinese counterfactual conditionals could be separated into three stages: Firstly, as a counterfactual ingredient, the hypothetical conjunctive “yaoshi” triggeres the construction of counterfactual context. In turn, the readers construct and process the counterfactual representation. Subsequently, the readers construct the factual representation and process the counterfactual representation and the factual representation simultaneously. Our research supports and expands the dualrepresentation accounts for counterfactuals.

This paper adopts the phase theory to explore the generative mechanisms of Chinese existential sentences. The verbs in Chinese existential sentences are unaccusative verbs, and some unergative and transitive verbs which receive unaccuasativization in the lexicon. These verbs have no external agent-type arguments and only depict event and state, which results in the non-phase nature for VP. The post-verbal NPs agree with T and are valued with nominative Case, and the pre-verbal locative NPs exhibit dual features of subject and topic through the optionality of topic feature encoded in the lexicon. The comparing of Chinese existential sentences and English existential there-sentences shows that existential verbs in English are more restricted and there only has the feature of the subject. All the differences of this construction in Chinese and English can be attributed to the feature differences of lexical items in the lexicon

After combing the unearthed documents, the paper observes that the characters  “lü” (履) and “ju” (屦) were used interchangeably and that they were also written as a number of variant forms during the Warring States Period. Under the influence of policy of Uniformity of Script, this problem was solved respectively during the period of the Qin dynasty. According to the investigation of unearthed and handed down documents from the pre-Qin to the early Western Han dynasty, the character ju was eventually replaced by “lü” and “lü” became a commonly used word for “shoes” no later than the Qin dynasty, resulting from the policy of Uniformity of Script. This case shows that policy of Uniformity of Script did have an important impact on the change of Chinese words.

The paper examines the postverbal constraint in Chinese and the preverbal constraint in Mande languages, i.e., the number of constituents that follow the verb in Chinese and that precede the verb in the Mande languages, respectively, is limited, exhibiting a different word order type than ordinary SVO and SOV. Modern Standard Mandarin contains a few exceptions to the postverbal constraint, but their usage is restricted. The postverbal/preverbal constraint can be categorized as “quantitatively constrained word order”, in contrast to “quality-based word order” and “position-based word order”. The introduction of quantitatively constrained word order which is differentiated from the other two types of word order would enrich our understanding of the word order typology.

Based on the Chinese translated Buddhist scriptures from the Eastern Han to Wei Jin and the Southern-Northern dynasties, and adopted the view of the semantic continuity in contexts for grammaticalization, the paper discusses the various usages of adverb of “zhuǎn” in the Middle Chinese period and its grammaticalization process. In this period, “zhuǎn” as an adverb demonstrates three usages: degree adverbs, manner adverbs and modal adverbs, all of which are evolved from the verb “zhuǎn ” indicating the meaning of “change”. The new grammatical functions are finally formed in the “transition environments” through “bridge context”. The “transition environments” can be figured out through certain formal standards. This paper also discusses the temporal adverbs of “ zhuǎnfù” “zhuǎnbiàn” “zhuǎngèng”, which are basically found in the Buddhist scriptures. The paper points out that these adverbs come from errors of acquisition of the foreign Buddhist monks (bilingual practitioners) who are not familiar with Chinese.

[本刊编辑部按] 在《语言科学》创刊一周年之际，本刊曾推出《〈语言科学〉刊发论文的学术规范》一文。此后每年，为加强学风建设，保障学术自由，促进学术交流、学术积累和学术创新，规范语言科学研究工作，《语言科学》都会重新发表《规范》的修订版，与学界同仁共勉。本文的撰述是《语言科学》编辑部为致力于语言学论文写作和发表过程的学术规范所做的一种尝试；也有增加本刊编辑过程的透明度，敬请广大读者与作者加强对本刊工作监督之意。学术规范是一项长期的制度建设，希望我们大家共同遵守，共同推动语言学学术规范的建设。由于这方面的学术规范还没有一个统一的标准，本文尚存在不少问题，欢迎读者们提出进一步的建议。本文的撰写参阅了国际上一些有影响的刊物的规范与通行的标准，还吸收了学术界的一些研究成果。

The Chinese and Zhuang languages in South Central Guangxi share two grammatical features. One is that reduplication of classifier expresses free reference, and the other one is that the word “对” meaning CORRECT has two functions, namely as existential verb first and as location/time preposition second. The model language of the two features is Zhuang, and Chinese replicates its grammatical functions. The first shared feature evolved from the following structure: V1+CL+where, CL+that+V2>V1+CL, CL+V2>V1+CL+CL+V2, triggered by the context of five-character Zhuang ballads. The origin of the second shared feature is that the Zhuang people realized that their “V+ｔｅ1” corresponded to the Mandarin's “V+ 对 dui,” deducing that Zhuang “ｔｅ1” was equivalent to Mandarin “对 dui.” They then analogized the Zhuang “ｔｅ1+N” structure to the Zhuang-style Mandarin “对dui+N.” As the Zhuang-style Mandarin “ 对 dui+N” expanded in Yizhou mandarin, “ 对 dui” acquired the functions of an existential verb and a location/time preposition.

The distribution and the change of oral and glottal stop codas have generated much discussion in the study of Chinese dialects, yet there has been relatively limited research conducted on the acoustic differences between these two types of coda. This paper compares the acoustics of the oral and glottal stop codas of the Chaozhou dialect, and their influences on preceding vowels. The results show that they are significantly different in terms of variation distribution, temporal structure, vowel formants and phonation. This paper also discusses the phonetic underpinning for the structural differences between the rhymes ended with oral and glottal stops in the Southern Min dialect, and proposes new perspectives on the phonetic details of the historical development of stop codas.

“Hai”（还） is used as an adverb and sentencefinal modal particle which can be named “hai1” and “hai2” respectively in Chaozhou Min dialect. “Hai2” can form the structure “XP1+hai2”.“Hai2” has two functions including: （a） as particles in rhetorical questions （“hai2a”）; （b）as affirmative particles （“hai2b”）. The usage of “hai2” developed from “hai1” through syntactic ellipsis and reanalysis. Transformation of the structure results in the focus of the semantic scope of hai to move forward and accordingly the semantic content changes, which leads to the evolution of “hai2a”＞“hai2b”.

The paper describes the syntactic distribution of prepositional topic markers “yige” （一个） and “nige”（你个） in Xinhua dialect. It shows that, like the topic markers in Japanese, Korean and other languages, prepositional topic markers in Xinhua dialect do not have the occurrence constraints on sentence types. According to grammaticalization theory, the paper holds that topic markers “yige” and “nige” are derived from the demonstratives “yige” and “nige” respectively, so they are influenced by the phenomenon of “semantic retention”. Due to the difference of time distance, space distance and psychological distance between the object of the topic and the speaker, “yige” and “nige” are obviously different in the occurrence and distribution. 

Based on the recent phenomenon of final variants in the town of Minqing Bandong (坂东) in eastern Min dialects, through acoustic analysis, we find that the final variants have different length structures between different tones. On the basis of the acoustic analysis of diphthongs in two representative dialects in southern and northern zone of Min dialects including Fuzhou (福州), Lianjiang (连江), Ningde (宁德) and Zhouning (周宁), we propose that the influence of tones on vowel duration comes first, subsequently the change of the vowel length leads to an increase or decrease in its loudness. Therefore, it may also be said that the tone affects the length of the vowel and that the relative loudness of the vowel is related to vowel length. So the tone, the length and loudness of vowel are the three factors which constitute the mechanism of the emergence of final variants. Finally, with reference to the common characteristics and historical evolution of eastern Min dialects, the article summarizes the basic rules of final variants in two types, i.e. the head component expansion and the end component expansion whereby the final variant developing in different directions according to the different tone condition.

Language typology mainly defines and describes the main word classes in different languages according to cross-linguistic morphological and syntactic criteria. Through the systematic investigation of different morphosyntactic parameters, adjectives of Turkic languages has typical morphosyntactic features that are different from nouns and verbs, and can be recognized as an independent word class. The typical adjective A1 mainly encodes the core attribute meaning, which has both modifier and declarative functions, while the derived adjective A2 mainly encodes the edge attribute meaning, and the modifier function is more prominent than the declarative function. The correlation between the formation of adjectives and their syntactic functions reflects the heterogeneity of the word class in agglutinative language. The attribute meaning is an important criterion to exclude some marginal word class members. The gradual weakening of the attribute meaning determines the dissociative state of some non-morphologic small words in the adjective-verb continuum.

Under the framework of plurality split, this paper analyses the two pronominal plural markers “li” and “jige” in Yichun Gan dialect, focusing on figuring out the semantic differences of them and trying to develop a framework to account for their distinct features. We found that the marker “li” should be analysed as a maximality operator that applies to a plural sets and picks out the plural entity with the maximal members and “jige” is a group operator that applies to the maximal plural enetity and then turns out a more cohesive atom with plural members.“li” and “jige” lie in different syntactic positions. While “li” lies in D, “jige” lies in a higher position, which is defined as the head of a GroupP. The two plural markers in Yichun Gan represent two different types of plural markers.

This paper examines the properties of demonstratives and demonstrative phrases in Lianhua Gan from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. There are three basic demonstratives: \[ku35\], \[ku35\] and \[k35\]. Among them, \[ku35\] and \[k35\] can refer to locations and also persons/objects; \[ku35\] can be used as a proximal demonstrative and also a neutral demonstrative that does not encode the distance contrast. Besides the commonly used demonstrative phrase of “DemDetClN” across Chinese, Lianhua Gan also employs the definite locational attributive structure of “DemLoc\[ku\]ClN”. Different from the direct way of the former phase, the latter structure indirectly refers to a person/object by specifying the location where the person/object is situated. These synchronic states are the result of subsequent diachronic development. Both old and new uses of different diachronic stages remain in modern Lianhua Gan, making the synchronic demonstrative system quite complicated. This paper aims to explore cross-dialectal/cross-linguistic similarities and differences of the development of demonstratives on the basis of the full understanding of the demonstrative system of Lianhua Gan, and to provide a case study to illustrate the relationship between the synchronic description and diachronic reconstruction as well as that between studies on a specific dialect and cross-dialectal/cross-linguistic comparative studies.

Irregular splits of Qusheng tone into Yinping and Yangping tones is found in Pingdu-type dialects in Shandong province. This article pointed out that these dialects generally used to distinguish between Yinqu and Yangqu in history after the analysis of the tone sandhi preceding neutral-toned syllables and reconstructs the ancient tonal values of Pingdu-type dialects as Yinping*21, Yangping*55,  Shangsheng*213, Yinqu*31, Yangqu*42. The situation of irregular tonal splits of Qusheng in modern Pingdu-type dialects are resulted from the competing change between *55>42>31and *31>42.

The present research describes the bridging repetition in Liangshan Yi, sometimes also known as tail-head linkage. It is a narrative phenomenon beyond the level of the clause and a discourse pattern of high frequency. The related phenomena include multi-verb construction, clause-chaining, and subordination. The present study proposes four defining features of bridging repetition in Liangshan Yi. The core requirement is for the bridging clause to repeat the complete or partial predicate of the reference clause, including its arguments. It is also found that the repetition in Liangshan Yi must cover the verb(s) of semantic head. After examining the folk stories, four methods of repetition are identified, viz. simple copy, modification of verbs of non-semantic head, structural simplification and structural expansion. They can act, either individually or interactively, to produce three kinds of repetition results. The main functions of the bridging repetition are to maintain the discourse cohesion, carry forward the event line, and reduce the workload of information processing for both narrators and hearers under the changing oral context. Bridging repetition is a prevalent construction in languages of the world, such as Papuan languages and Tibeto-Burman languages. The common feature shared by those speech communities is that they have either no writing writings at all, or a highly confined writing system which has not been mastered by the ordinary ethnic speakers. Finally, the present research presents the different distributions of bridging repetition in written stories and oral stories of Liangshan Yi.

This paper analyses the phonetic transliteration of the Changzhou dialect using the Beijing dialect as found in the late-Qing novel The Biography of the Heroic Youth. The result is then compared with the synchronic material collected from 93 localities in the Changzhou dialect area to reconstruct the Changzhou dialect 140 years ago. The reconstructed Old Changzhou dialect is then compared with the Changzhou dialect as recorded by Chao Yuan-ren in 1928 to investigate the many phonological changed occurred during the 50-year-period from 1878 to 1928 with explanation given. Through this particular study we illustrate the importance of dialectal material in the novels of Ming and Qing dynasties to researching dialects. Meanwhile, we also stress that the combination of textual analysis and synchronic materials from dialect geography will be of great significance in the study of areal changes among dialects.

Hengtu（横图） is adapted on the basis of Qiyun Shebiao（切韵射标） by adding repeated characters with different tones. The actual phonetic characteristics of Qieyun Shebiao  are consistent with those of  Shuwen Yinyi Biankao Sibian  （书文音义便考私编）. Based on the Nanjing mandarin, Shuwen Yinyi Biankao Sibian is an rhyme book with the feature of dengyun（等韵）, which is revised to the phonology of Hongwu ZhengYun（洪武正韵）. It creates a terminology system to distinguish the small rhymes with the same initial and different pronunciation in the same rhyme by names of hu（呼）, and at the same time, it retains the differences in the origin of each rhyme and character. [WTBX]Qieyun Shebiao is a kind of rhyme table rearranging the rhymes in Shuwen Yinyi Biankao Sibian according to the phonological origin of Shiyun(诗韵) in the form of traditional rhyme chart with 36 initials and the unit of finals. Its compiling style, the structure of rhyme system, notes to rhyme chart, the names of hu, arrangement of characters and even the method of pronunciation are all influenced by Shuwen Yinyi Biankao Sibian. Shebiao develops and perfects names of hu, and takes hu as a term to distinguish final features, thus Chinese four kind of hu are finalized. Hunhu(混呼) is a special way of compiling, which refers to the mixing of different finals or characters in different finals in Shebiao. The note at the end of rhyme tables in Shebiao is an analysis of the difference between the actual voice and rhyme chart voice. Combing the relationship between Hengtu, Qieyun Shebiao and Shuwen Yinyi Biankao Sibian is of great significance to have an objective and accurate understanding of the theoretical source, compilation features, phonological basis and phonetic nature of Hengtu, and to clarify the development of the rhyme theory of  Hengtu series from the source.

Rgyalrongic belongs to Qiangic of the Tibeto-Burman in Sino-Tibetan family, including the three languages of Rgyalrong, Lavrung and Horpa. This paper focuses on description and analysis of the lexical nominalizing derivation and the clausal nominalization in Rta’u variety of the central Horpa, and compares them with the genetically related languages and dialects within the Rgyalrongic, tracing the historical trajectories of their evolvements and the common innovations of the nominalizing morphology and the syntactic structure of Rgyalrongic, in an attempt to construct a typological grammar system for Horpa and provide some critical nominalization evidences for morphological reconstruction and genus classification of the languages and the dialects in Rgyalrongic.

From the synchronic perspective, the distribution of consonant endings is not balanced in the Sino-Tibetan languages. From the diachronic perspective, consonant ending is a phonetic phenomenon in earlier period. The present distribution is the result of evolution of consonant endings.  Based on the data of consonant endings in 95 Sino-Tibetan Languages collected within the territory of China, this paper proposes a number of types and universals of these endings, including the combination types and commonness between the consonant endings and vowel, and explores the universals of the sound change of consonant endings.

From the perspective of pragmatic tolerance, this study investigates L1-Mandarin Chinese L2-English speakers’ derivation of scalar implicatures, with a focus on L2 speakers’ pragmatic tolerance when facing a violation of pragmatic principle. Results from a graded judgment task show that L2 speakers have native-like pragmatic tolerance of underinformative sentences. More importantly, this pragmatic tolerance does not differ between L2 speakers’ native and second languages. This study aims to provide insight for experimental design in semantics-pragmatics research, as well as for second language acquisition of scalar implicatures.

In the Chinese translations of Buddhist sutras, we can often see two kinds of structures: “zai suo V”  （在所V） and “zai suo N” （在所N）. “ zai suo V ” should be analyzed as “ zai /suo V”, and can be understood as “do whatever you want”. “zai” （在） means “at one’s will” , which is the contraction of “zizai” （自在）. “ zai suo N” should be analyzed as “zai suo/N”, in which N is generally a locative noun, and can be understood as “anywhere”. The formation of “zaisuo” （在所）  is completed in the construction of “zai suo V chu” （在所V处） ，which is originally consisted of preposition “zai” and its locative object. As is always used to translate the relative clauses of Sanskrit which express the location, combined with the influence of syllables, “zai suo V chu” is reanalysed as “zaisuo/Vchu”.“zaizai” （在在） is an imitation of the original language, the repeated “zai” is also derived from the preposition “zai”.

It is observed that “V-gei” double object constructions in Pingyao dialect can license verbal measure words, forming a special “compound verbal measuring doubleobject construction” (henceforth VMDOC), such as “踢给兀家一脚” “冻给狗日一晚间” and “跌给你一跤”, etc. This paper claims that VMDOC in Pingyao dialect can express both “giving” and “causation” meanings. VMDOC exemplified by “踢给兀家一脚” belongs to ditransitive constructions in which actions are identified as transferred objects. While VMDOC exemplified by “冻给狗日一晚间”“跌给你一跤” should be categorized as causative constructions which includes “permissive” and “general” causatives. In the former “gei” express “giving” meaning and verbal measure words are quasi-classifiers. While in the latter “gei” express “affective” meaning and verbal measure words are true classifiers. With the functional change of “gei” and verbal classifiers, VMDOC evolved from ditransitives to causatives.

“mi”(咪) is a common negative adverb in Guangzhou dialect that expresses prohibition or dissuasion. According to the dialect survey data and the historical literature of the dialect, it is proved that the forbidding words “mi” in Guangzhou dialect is a combination of the negative structure “msi” (唔使) from both the phonological and semantic aspects. “mi” and “si” in the negative structure “msi” used to be pronounced as a yinshang tone. The current  yangshang reading is a tone adjustment based on the the voiced nasal features of its initial consonant; “msi” was historically used usage of  to mean necessity negation or prohibitive negation. The abbreviation of “msi” to “mi” is realized in prohibitive imperative sentences, and the abbreviated “mi” inherits the prohibitive negation of “msi”.

Based on the property that word sense disambiguation is the return of word sense to context, we propose a dynamic word sense disambiguation method based on full-sentence co-occurrence of node word. The method firstly uses the full sentence as a window to limit the node word usage context, secondly uses statistical methods such as mutual information, chi-square test and ratio of relative word rank to extract semantically related words, and builds a related semantic category database by referring to “Tongyici Cilin” (A Dictionary of Synonyms), and finally uses the co-occurrence frequency as a weighting factor to disambiguate the low and medium frequency co-occurring multi-sense words by relying on the distribution rate of single-sense word meaning clusters. The method is used to disambiguate 1030 multiple-meaning words with less than 7 meaning categories that co-occurred with “meili” (beautiful), and a correct rate of 85.2% is achieved in the test.

This paper focuses on the phenomenon of modalization of syntactic components, that is, the modal function of syntactic components or clauses becomes prominent while their syntactic and semantic functions are reduced or even lost. This paper points out the features and criteria of the modalization of syntactic components, and describes the causes and conditions of the modalization of three types of syntactic components and their functional evolution: “Quasi-modality” formed by the in-situ evolution of syntactic components, “Quasi-modal particles” formed by combining clauses, “Modal structure” and modal components formed by directly adding extra-structural components. The paper also analyzes and discusses the factors that induce the modalization of syntactic components. 

Building on previous studies on Qiang, this paper aims to identify the type of prosodic word in Qiang and argues that prosodic morphology plays a crucial role in determining the shape of morphology. This paper arrives at two significant conclusions: 1) Similar to Mandarin Chinese and the Jingpo language, Qiang is characteristic of disyllabic prosodic morphology, highlighting the “syllable counting” nature of the Sino-Tibetan family. 2) Disyllabic prosodic words are crucial factors that play an important role in shaping morphology. The results of a series of morphological phenomena, such as compound words, contraction words, and complementary words are influlenced by prosodic words. 

Suihan Yinyi (随函音义) of  Qishazang (碛砂藏) was created in the early Song Dynasty. In this book, except for a few special cases, more than 90% of the Qiexiazi (切下字) were improved, which were to spell the finals of the characters with initials in the Jing  (精) or Zhuang (庄) group and Zhishe (止摄) opening-mouth vowels. Further more, these characters were completely not used as Qiexiazi to spell the other characters, which reflects that the Zisi rhyme (甾思韵) had emerged independently. The nature of the Zisi  rhyme is an apical vowel, including two conditional variants  and  respectively following the initials in the Jing and Zhuang  group. The Zisi rhyme further developed into the Zi (赀) rhyme of Yunhui (韵会), and its evolution path was different from the Zhisi rhyme (支思韵) of  Zhongyuan Yinyun (中原音韵).

This paper provides a comprehensive study on the copula  shi\[z /z \] in the Linhai (Gucheng) dialect, a variety of Taizhou Wu dialects. Grammatically, shi can fulfill its core function as the copula in nominal predicate constructions, encoding both equational and classificational meanings. Shi can be reinterpreted as focus marker and presentative marker, but it cannot serve as topic marker, emphatic adverb or the response particle for imperative clauses. Phonetically,  shi is realized as two complementary distributed forms, which is a common phenomenon for copulas in Taizhou Wu (especially in Linhai and Xianju), Wuzhou Wu and Chuzhou Wu subgroups. One form of shi with nonentering tone can be used at the sentence-final position, collocate with negator fu\[f  \](no)  and appear in pro-sentence zhengshi(actually, indeed) , while the other form with entering tone occurs in the rest cases. In combination with cross-dialectal evidence, this paper argues that to some extent the non-entering shi is capable of bearing heavier semantic burden. Given the geographical discrepancy on the use of glottalized shi, it is vital to investigate the glottalization of copula on both syntactic and morphological levels.

It is inappropriate to resort to traditional theta theory to define the semantic roles of the numeral-classifier-noun phrases in structures like “Yi Zhang Chuang shui san ge ren / San ge ren shui yi zhang chuang”, since the relevant noun phrases are actually not the selected arguments of the verb “shui”. Relevant NPs are actually selected by the quantifier operator of distribution, which is responsible for the core semantics of this type of structures. Quantifier phrases denoting measurement are obligatory in this type of structures, whereas any definite noun phrases may undermine its semantic denotation, hence the term “for/use’ variants”. Abiding by the grammar architecture of Minimalist Program, after Narrow Syntax accomplishes the transfer of the syntactic object, Conceptual-Intentional system, by resorting to the semantic content of the distributional “mei”（每） and the direction of c-command between the relevant two Numeral Ps, assigns semantic representations to “for” and “use” variants. Meanwhile, Sensori-motor system, on the basis of the spell-out optionality of the functional morpheme and manner roots, assigns four different but related variants for the Amount Alignment Structures. 

The voiced obstruent initials had become devoiced in Jiaotai Yun （交泰韵）, a rhyme dictionary in the Ming dynasty. By statistically analyzing the sounds of syllables with voiced stops and affrications in this dictionary, and also referring to the notes on the use and sinigraphic spelling（反切）, we conclude that the ancient words in uneven tones with voiced stop and affrication initials had become unaspirated initials around Bian-Luo（汴洛） area in the 17th century. The various ways that Lü Kun（吕坤） made to reconcile speech sounds showed that Lü respected the linguistic facts on the one hand and the outdated phonological theory could no longer perfectly explain the dynamic change of language on the other. The devoicing manners of ancient voiced obstruent initials in Jiaotai Yun include aspiration in even tones and unaspiration in uneven tones.

The word-formation of Chinese noun-classifiers not only expresses the conceptual meaning of the nominal element, but also carries the special grammatical meaning of a collective generic reference. This is closely related to the unique compositional characteristics and generative mechanism of the word-formation of noun-classifiers. Previous studies have focused on the structural types and lexical meanings of the word-formation of noun-classifiers, but have not explored the grammatical justifications for the formation and semantic changes in this word-formation structure. Based on the Distributed Morphology (DM) theory, this paper explores the syntactic conditions for the formation of noun-classifier structure from a syntactic perspective, and explains the rationale for the acquisition of grammatical meaning of noun-classifier based on the syntactic structure. This paper argues that Chinese classifiers are functional categories, and that the word formation of noun-classifier results in the construction with an additional form after noun morphemes which are created by syntactic structure. The combination of nominal and classifier morphemes is driven by the functional classifying element in the process of word formation, and the grammatical features of the functional components in different levels of the noun phrase structure are acquired through displacement, and then the combination is lexicalized into words with grammatical meaning, which have developed into grammatical words in essence.

The present shapes of both the characters “卞” and “弁” are lately emerging forms. Some scholars have associated the form of the character “卞” with the ancient forms of the character “鞭” that occurred in the Chu writing system during the Warring States period, speculating that “卞” was derived from the simplification of these types of characters. Other scholars believe that “卞” is a vulgar form or abbreviation of “弁”. This article reviews related character shapes and concludes that the shape of “卞” appeared around the Eastern Han Dynasty. The “   ”character shapes in the Chu bamboo slips have no connection to the more recent “卞” character shape and they just resemble each other in some parts by chance. The appearance of the “弁” shape was as late as the late Zhao period, and was the result of the regularization of the clerical script. The “卞” and “弁” characters in clerical and regular scripts should both have evolved from the early “   ” shape in the clerical script.