「歸去來」究竟該如何解釋？語文界始終沒有定論。本文從語法史研究的角度，分析「歸去來」一類的句，歸結出「來」具有指示說話者的特性及表示同座落的意涵。許多人以為「歸去來」的「來」相當於現代的「罷(吧)」，「來」被「罷」所取代。筆者認為後置詞「來」消亡的主因在於現代漢語使用另一前置的「來」，表達相同的語法意義。「歸去來」雖難用普通話直譯，卻相當於閩南語及客家話所說的「來去轉」或「轉來去」，而內蒙古晉語仍然保留「去來」的用法，可以拿來跟「歸去來」相印證。此外，蒙古語和獨龍話也有表示第一人稱意願的設計，可見這種用法並非漢語的專利。

How should the phrase gui qu lai be interpreted? To this day, scholars have been unable to reach a consensus on this questions. In this paper, we analyze sentences of the gui qu lai pattern from the perspective of historical grammar. This perspective leads us to take lai as referring to the speakers and indicating the same locus. Some scholars believe that the word lai in gui qu lai is equivalent to the term ba in the modern language and that lai has simply been replaced by ba. We believe that the main reason for the disappearance of the postpositional lai in the modern language is the adoption of the identical word lai as a preposition to fulfill the same grammatical function. While it is not possible to provide a direct translation of gui qu lai using Mandarin, it should be noted that this phrase is equivalent to the phrases lai qu zhuanand zhuan lai qu in the Southern Min and Hakka dialects. Likewise, this phrase can be juxtaposed with usage of the phrase qu lai that is preserved in the Jin dialects of Inner Mongolia. In addition, the fact that both Mongolian and Drun have what is referred to as the first person desiderative shows that this grammatical feature is not unique to Chinese.