Investigation into the Characteristics of Zeng Gong's Ancient Chinese Prose from the Use of Function Words——Comparison with Ouyang Xiu's Literary Style

So far, there are few studies on the characteristics of Zeng Gong's articles. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to give specific explanations on the characteristics of Zeng Gong's articles. Zeng Gong's articles are often described as "feminine". Tracing back to its source, Yao Nai compared Zeng Gong's articles with Ouyang Xiu's articles and described them as "feminine" in the Qing dynasty. That is to say, there must be some similarities between Zeng Gong's and Ouyang Xiu's articles. Therefore, when examining the characteristics of Zeng Gong's articles, it is crucial to examine the similarities between Zeng Gong's and Ouyang Xiu's articles. This paper points out that the similarity between Zeng Gong's and Ouyang Xiu's articles is exactly the use of function words in their articles. Since function words are not directly related to context, it can be said that, to some extent, the author's personality can be seen from the use of function words. Through the investigation in this paper, it is proved that Zeng Gong's use of function words is very similar to that of Ouyang Xiu. That is to say, Zeng Gong's and Ouyang Xiu's use of function words are similar to each other, so both of their articles have been called "feminine". The reason why Zeng Gong's articles are similar to Ouyang Xiu's articles is that when he was young, Zeng Gong began to read Ouyang Xiu's articles so well that he could recite almost every one of them, thus Zeng Gong unconsciously learned Ouyang Xiu's use of function words and applied it to his creation.