Diachronic Studies in English Indefinite Pronouns

在2005年至2007年的项目期间，作者出版了一本书和6篇文章，并做了四次口头报告。本文的研究成果主要体现在以下三个方面：第一，作者成功地识别出了两类不定代词分配用法的特征（即“不定代词+一个”像许多一个和“不定代词+一个+一个单数名词”像许多一个-），后者是在世纪不定冠词a/an的发展之后发展起来的，并与前者在度量方面的用法形成对比，其次，作者考察了从中古英语到现代英语的英语谚语，特别是以one开头的谚语，发现one的意义完全取决于它的使用，特别是在从属和定语用法中，一个基本上表示数字“一”， ...更多信息 而在独立的名词性用法中，它通常表示可与“男人”转换的“人”，在以“男人”开头的谚语中，大多数都伴有不定冠词a，除非与"女人“形成对比，否则它并不表示”男人“，在以man或men开头的谚语中，没有任何冠词，除非与一个表示“a”的词形成对比，否则它从来没有“a male”的意思。第三，由于研究了不定代词与形容词相比所附词尾的丢失过程，作者能够发现以下有趣的事实和发现。首先，复数词尾-e在许多代词和其他代词中的使用频率很高，并且在习惯用法中使用时可能会下降。第二，曼德维尔游记中的形容词经常与一个既定的概括背道而驰，大意是它们没有单数形式的结尾和强烈的变化，否则就是-e。第三，这些例外并不是没有规律的，而是分为三类，每一类都有无标记形式和有标记形式，在定语用法中有一个既定的规则，即形容词的有标记形式不能占据其中心语之后的有标记位置。210-《英语构词法中历时性和共时性构词法的现状与问题》是作者2002-2004年研究的一部分。少

During the term of project 2005 to 2007 the author published one book and 6 articles and made four oral reports. The results of the research are summarized in the following three points.First, the author succeeded in identifying the characteristic features of the two types of distributive use of indefinite pronouns (I.e. "indefinite pronoun + one" like many one and "indefinite pronoun + a + a singular noun" like many a -), the latter of which had developed after the growth of the indefinite article a/an in the 13th century, and had come to contrast with the former type of use with respect to metrics, word-formation and information structure during about 200 years from the 15th to the 17th century.Second, the author investigated English proverbs, especially those beginning with one from Middle English to Present-day English, and showed that the meaning of one is completely dependent on its use, specifically in dependent and attributive uses one indicates fundamentally the numeral 'one', … More while in independent nominal uses it usually indicates 'person' which is convertible with 'a man', that in the proverbs beginning with 'man' most of them are accompanied by the indefinite article a, which does not mean 'a male' unless it is contrasted to 'a woman', and that in the proverbs beginning with man or men without any article accompanied it never means 'a male' unless it is contrasted to a word which indicates 'a woman'.Third, as a result of investigating the process of loss of the endings attached to indefinite pronouns compared to that of adjectives, the author was able to find the following interesting facts and findings. First, the plural ending-e in many and other pronouns is high in frequency of its use and likely to drop when used idiomatically. Second, adjectives in Mandeville's Travels often run counter to an established generalization to the effect that they bear no ending in the singular form and strong declension, otherwise-e. Third, these exceptions are not without rule but grouped into three types, each of which has both unmarked and marked forms and in attributive uses there is an established rule that marked forms of adjective cannot occupy the marked positions after their heads.As for the book and articles published by the author during the three-year term of the project the book "Word Formation of Old English" (pp. 210- 277) in English Word Formation-Present Situations and Problems of Diachronic and Synchronic Studies-is part of the results of the research the author had made during 2002-2004. Less