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The history of De involves two kinds of development:
(1) grammaticalization and (2) lexical replacement. In
this paper, we make a quantitative analysis on these two
processes, based on historical colloquial texts from
Zutangji (around 953 A.D.) to contemporary Mandarin. The
variety of the V-De constructions and abstractness-tendency
of the meanings feature the grammaticalization of De. From a
diachronic perspective, we make an analysis on the statistics
of three sets of linguistic variation to substantiate our
claim on the grammaticalization of De. They are (1) the ratios
of the three correlated constructions, i.e., V-De, V-De-O
and V-De-C in each period, (2) the ratios of the 'resultative'
and 'potential' meanings in the V-De-(O) constructions, and
the proportion of the four types of the V-De-C forms, i.e., V-
De[R]-C, V-De[P]-C, V-De[D]-C and V-De[E]-C and (3) the
ratios of the two Des, i.e., De 得 and de 的 in the three V-
De, V-De-O and V-De-C constructions. As for the
lexical replacement, we examine in detail the delicate
relationship among the three resultative complements, De, dao
and zhao, sharing a common semantic feature of [telic], with
close attention to the processes of co-existence,
competition and decline/rise. This thesis consists of five
chapters. Chapter One is an introduction. Chapter Two presents
the literature reviews of the histories of De and
the V-De constructions. In Chapter Three, grammaticalization
of De is our major concern. Chapter Four discusses lexical
replacement of De by dao and zhao. In Chapter Five, we draw a
conclusion.
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