In ancient Chinese the verb "wen" denotes the meanings of heanng and smeU- ing,with the former as the main one. From Wei and Jin Dynasties,the meaning of hearing began to develop,and "wen" replaced "xiu" as the chief verb denoting the meaning of smelling. With the increase of the frequency of "tingde", the meaning of hearing of "wen" began to weaken. In modem Chinese," wen" means smeUing chiefly,but it also means hearing. When denoting smelling,there are some syntactic differences between "wen" and "xiu".Syntactically,the freque...