Chinese Word Formation Theory

Author: Wan Xianchu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-09-01
Features: The transformation of single-character phonetic variation into words became a major trend in the late ancient period and early medieval period, leading to the derivation and differentiation of a large number of homonymous heterophones and accumulating a wealth of material on phonetic variation-based word formation. This not only holds significant value for the study of Chinese word formation but also plays an important role in research across multiple fields such as phonetics, semantics, and grammar of Chinese. The method of single-character phonetic variation word formation was the most productive and longest-lasting word-formation method in Chinese before the widespread use of disyllabic compound word formation. Its legacy continues to this day in modern standard Chinese and various dialects, exerting a profound influence on the history of Chinese language development. This book focuses on issues related to syntactic word formation. Adhering to the spirit of traditional linguistics, which emphasizes empirical evidence and textual research, it incorporates and applies new theories and methods from modern linguistics—particularly the quantitative and qualitative analysis of materials and data through corpus-based research. The book analyzes materials and data, deduces word-formation principles, explores patterns of word formation, and strives to bridge the gaps between ancient Chinese, modern Chinese, and dialects. It conducts a comprehensive examination of the overall picture of Chinese word formation, traces the diachronic development and evolutionary trends of Chinese word formation, and conducts in-depth discussions on the principles of optimizing word formation, the method of single-character phonetic variation word formation, and various aspects of disyllabic compound word formation.