This paper demonstrated how ‘Shǐ(使)’ has changed from a lexical verb in classical Chinese. ‘Shǐ(使)’ is a lexical verb in classical text, but it's not always easy to figure out all the connections among derivative meanings. An investigation into the semantic derivation of ‘Shǐ(使)’ will benefit the understanding of diachronic change of the Chinese language, help with the accurate understanding of the text. The paper claims that the original meaning of ‘Shǐ(使)’ is ‘to send’. The diverse semantic values such as ‘to command’, ‘to delegate’, ‘let’ and ‘to go out as ambassadors’ were derived from the original meaning ‘to send’, and the meanings of Noun ‘ambassador’, ‘government position’ and ‘mission’ were derived from the meanings of Verb ‘to command’, ‘to delegate’, ‘to order’ and ‘to go out as ambassadors’. On the basis of the derived meaning, ‘Shǐ(使)’ has been grammaticalized to function words such as Causative marker and Conjunctions. Thus grammaticalization processes show how ‘Shi(使)’ has undergone a change in its grammatical function.

본고는 고대 중국어에서 현대 중국어에 이르는 동안 ‘使’의 의미 변화 및 의미소의 분화 과정에 대해 알아보고자 한다. 자원(字源) 분석에서 출발하여 의미 변화의 출발점이 되는 ‘使’의 본래의미가 무엇인지 확인하고, 본래의미에서 기타 의미로 파생되는 원리를 추론하는 방식을 사용하였다. ‘使’는 ‘派遣’라는 본래의미로부터 ‘命令’, ‘出 使’, ‘役使’ 등의 의미가 파생되었고, 또한 ‘役使’ 의미에서 ‘使用’ 등의 의미가 파생되었으리라 추정되며, 이러한 파생의미를 기초로 ‘使’는 ‘致使’ 의미의 문법소, ‘假使’ 의 미의 連詞 등의 용법으로 발전되었다는 가능성을 살펴볼 수 있었다.