A distinctive-context criterion applied for an analysis of predicate verb / noun oppositions on the evidence of “Lunheng”, a Late Classical Chinese text from the I A. D.

The article analyzes syntactic variations of presumably noun and verbal lexemes functioning as predicates on the evidence of “Lunheng”, a Late Classical Chinese text from the I A. D. One of the basic criteria for differentiating the predicate position is syntactic distribution, the other being the distinction context (DCon) approach we have developed for this purpose. This approach relies on several DCon criteria (special text components whose location near the targeted lexeme allows determining its syntactic function within the context). Employing the DCon criteria we have parsed over twenty-five thousand instances of certain targeted lexeme uses. Their syntactic interpretation shows a critical difference in the total number of verb and noun uses in the predicate position (93,68 % and 29,72 % respectively). Our analysis also came up with a list of limitations on the compatibility of nouns and verbs with certain DCon groups. This may indirectly indicate that the system of lexical categories in Old Chinese cannot be characterized as exceptionally flexible. The meaning of the lexeme also plays an important role. In particular, it was found that the lexemes of some semantic classes (social roles, objects of nature, etc.) gradually lose their ability to be used in a predicate position and in modern Chinese as they do not occur in contexts that we have marked as predicate. Our statistical analysis indicates a possibility of occasional intra-category shift. DCon statistics provide a broad picture of the possible functions of nouns and verbs and reveal some critical differences in their functioning in the Old Chinese language. Such statistical analysis can be extended by analyses of other DCons with taking into consideration the historical processes of grammaticalization, homonymy, as well as the processes of sign transformation and replacement.