The Lexicalization of "Conglai"

In modern Chinese,Conglai,a temporal adverb,comes from the trans-layered structure Conglai in Old Chinese. Conglai generated transferred-reference since it was modified and limited by the nominalization significant word Suo,and it changed from a part of predicate to a part of substantive word. Semantically,it shifted from the spatial category to the temporal category. On the condition of close structure and semantic condensation,Conglai has become a temporal adverb. The lexicalized mechanism of Conglai has much to do with metaphor and transferred-reference.