FEATURES OF PREPOSITIONS OF CAUSES AND PURPOSES IN MODERN CHINESE

Abstract

Among Chinese function words, prepositions of causes and purposes emerge as
signifcant grammatical units as they are used with high frequency and occur in various positions in a sentence. Within the scope of this article, frstly, we synthesize and analyse existing literature concerning prepositions in general, then prepositions of causes and purposes in particular in order to review different perspectives on this topic, and present our own arguments. Subsequently, we analyse several distinctive features of typical modern Chinese prepositions by approaching polysemous words and their cognitive bases, looking at the nuances of morphemes in prepositions of causes and purposes, presenting their linguistic features in diagrams, and discussing the causes and the purposes elements that follow the related prepositions.