Evolution of the Time Adverb "Mashang" in Modern Chinese Language

The evolution of the time adverb mashangfrom a phrase to a word,from a content word to a function word and eventually to an adverb of time,was completed between Song and Yuan dynasties.Since Ming and Qing dynasties,the word has been used extensively up to now.The writer of this article comes to the conclusion that the grammaticalization of mashang resulted from the combined actions of the positional change of the sentential structure,semantic change and linguistic culture.