Abstract
The aim of this paper is twofold: to probe the conventionalized information structures, i.e., the clause-complexes, in Pre-Qin Chinese documents and to observe the historical changes of certain clause-complexes from Pre-Qin to Modern Chinese via comparison. The paper discloses that, in addition to phonology, syntax and semantics, the discourse units of clause-complexes undergo changes through time, which is a linguistic fact that has never been formally discussed up to this day. Two of the most prominent changes, which concern the construction of the topic-comment chain and the expression of logical relations, are demonstrated in this paper. The demonstrated examples not only reveal historical differences, but also show that the contents of Pre-Qin documents may be misinterpreted due to the neglect of linguistic principles.