A Study on the Position of Preposition-Objects Structures in Kongzijiayu

The position of preposition-object structures has changed significantly from ancient to modern Chinese. A comprehensive description and analysis of the positional relationship between preposition-object structures and the predicate components in Kongzijiayu (hereinafter, Jiayu) and comparisons with the Zuozhuan, Mozi, and Shiji can provide more proof in support of the key question of when the completion of Jiayu occurred and contribute to the accurate and in-depth interpretation of its text. We analyzed 15 prepositions in 1634 sentences in Jiayu, and the preposition-object structures in Jiayu occur mainly after the predicate components, accounting for 58.02%, which is very close to the prevalence in Mozi. The prepositions that can appear only before predicate components are Cong (从), Yin (因), Dang (当), Yong (用), Zhi (至), Hou (后) Dui (对) and Jiang (将), the prepositions that can appear only after predicate components are Hu (乎) and Zhu (诸), and the prepositions that can appear both before and after predicate components are Yu (于), Yi (以), Zi (自), Wei (为) and Zai (在). When prepositional-object structures introduce time, tools/methods/conditions/basis/etc., cause/purpose and indirect objects, these are usually located before the predicate components. When prepositional-object structures introduce objects, location or the content of instruction or speech, these structures usually come after the predicate components. Only when the predicate component is monosyllabic are the preposition-object structures usually after the predicate components, accounting for 77.52% of instances. When the predicate component is polysyllabic, the preposition-object structure usually occurs before the predicate component. The proportion of preposition-object structures before the predicate components in Jiayu is between that of the Mozi and the Shiji and very close to that of Mozi, which may be related to the time when it was written.