The adposition yi and word order in classical Chinese
古汉语中的"以"字及与其有关的词序问题
Chaofen Sun 孙朝奋

Abstract 摘要
Linguists seem to have a different opinion on the syntactic properties of the PP’s in Classical Chinese. While many assume that Classical Chinese had predominantly postverbal prepositions, many others believe otherwise. This study finds that the latter view is perhaps correct and that the PP’s in Classical Chinese could be either postverbal or preverbal. On text-count level, PP’s of the two types are about equally divided. Furthermore, this paper shows that the adposition yi 以 can be used as a preverbal preposition, a postverbal preposition, or a preverbal postposition in Classical Chinese. Evidence will be given to contend that the variation between the preverbal and postverbal uses of yi seems to be motivated by discourse factors. The nominals following the preverbal yi seem to be much closer to their antecedents than those after the postverbal yi. In addition, the high degree of variability of yi may follow from an earlier grammatical change, i.e. changing from postpositional to prepositional. Thus, it is hypothesized that the postpositional use of yi perhaps was simply a vestige of earlier Sino-Tibetan syntax.

语言学家对古汉语中介词短语的句法特点有不同的看法。有的认为古汉语中的介词短语大都是在动词的后面，但也有人持反对意见。本人支持后者的观点。事实上古汉语中的介词短语用在动词前后均可。在应用上，动词前和动词后介词短语的使用频率似乎是不相上下。在古文中，“以”字有时用在动词前，有时用在动词后，在动词前的，有时还是后置词。有不少例子显示“以”字的用法可能是有一定规律的。动词前的和动词后的“以”字句可能是和上下文的话语结构有关。动词前“以”字后的名词一般都较动词后“以”字后的名词较接近它的先行词“antecedent”。至于“以”字后置词的用法则可能是因上古语法的演变而造成的。汉语的词序可能是从汉藏语的主宾谓演变成主谓宾。所以，古汉语中的后置词用法可能是古汉藏语语法的痕迹。

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