어기조사 啊와 呀의 역사적 변천에 대한 고찰

Abstract

This study investigated the Mandarin modal particles ‘a 啊’ and ‘ya 呀’. In the previous research, the view that ‘a’ is the underlying representation and ‘ya’ is an allomorph that appears according to the condition of the coda in the precedent syllable cannot be simply dealt with. The analysis results of this study reasonably suggested that ‘ya’ and ‘a’ have experienced historical changes along distinct development paths in different periods, and even if there was a process of mutual integration, each still has significative functions by far. Chapter 1, as an introduction, referred to the previous research and put forward the problems that became the theme of this study. Chapter 2 examined the historical evolution of ‘a’ and its functions in various sentence patterns, and then drew conclusions based on the statistical analysis of 17 works from the Song, Jin, and Yuan dynasties to the Qing Dynasty. It is understood that ‘a’ has a deep connection with ‘he 呵’ and ‘a’ in history, and eventually inherited the functions of these two modal particles while also developing independent functions to become what it is today. Chapter 3 inspected the ways of historical changes and the functions of ‘ya’ in multiple sentence patterns based on 51 works from the Song and Yuan dynasties to modern times. In the investigation of the historical evolution process, a total of 27 works from the Ming Dynasty to the Republic of China era were statistically analyzed to draw relevant conclusions. According to this study, ‘ya’ is closely related to “ye 也” and “ye 耶”, and ultimately evolved from a variety of sentence patterns to fulfill multiple functions as an independent modal particle. In Chapter 4, a study was conducted on 21 popular literary works from the Qing Dynasty to the period after the popularization of Mandarin, in which ‘shi a 是啊’ and ‘shi ya 是呀’ appeared, and then the different functions of ‘a’ and ‘ya’ were discussed. As a result, although it is a preliminary finding, a reasonable conclusion is proposed that ‘ya’ cannot be simply regarded as an allomorph of ‘a’ according to the coda in the precedent syllable but rather has inherent functions. The significance of this study is that it took historical transitions as the first step when analyzing Mandarin modal particles ‘a’ and ‘ya’ to provide dependable clues to the existence of modal particles’ functions. Due to the requirement of the article length, the issue of when the two modal particles combined is not discussed, and there is a limitation in not formally addressing whether the two appear based on phonetic conditions. Regarding this, in the future, abundant historical works will be considered to be taken as the analysis object to examine the conditions of the coda in the precedent syllable for the occurrence of ‘a’ and ‘ya’ to get reliable conclusions.