Research On The Three-Syllable Words In Jinpingmei Cihua

The paper takes the Three-syllable words in Jinpingmei Cihua(we call it Cihua for short) which is a typical novel written by Early Modern Chinese as a research subject.We determined1074Three-syllable words in the novel, including717nouns,124verbs,174adjectives,33adverbs,12pronouns,13onomatopoetic words and1conjunction. Regard to the methods of the paper, one is the combination of quantitative analysis and qualitative research, the other is the comparison of synchronic and diachronic. Through the studies of the structure form, the Semantic features and the development of the Three-syllable words in Cihua, we try to show the panorama of the Three-syllable words and discover the evolution rules of these words.The preface of the paper introduced the studise of vocabularies in Cihua and the studies of Three-syllable words in Early Modern Chinese and Modern Chinese.We also narrated the significance of the article in this part.The first chapter determined the Three-syllable words according to some scholars’views and principles of dictionary editor to define words. The Three-syllable words we are studying include not only strict Three-syllable words defined by some scholars but also Three-fixed phrases defined by others. Additionally, we discussed the distinguishing features of these words’structure and pragmatics etc. The second and the third chapter mainly analysised the structural features of the Three-syllable nouns, verbs and adjectives in Cihua. We classified the words according to their structural forms and counted the number of words in each type seriously. Also we compared the statistical results with the studies of Three-syllable words in Modern Chinese. The fourth chapter, firstly, investigated the relationship between morpheme semantic and word semantic. We classified the relationship into two categories to research respectively. One is the specific relationship and the other is the abstract relationship. Then we analysised the inner form, the semantic field and the semantic level of these words. We also discussed the enlightenment on how to interpret words in dictionaries through the analysis of semantic. The fifth chapter investigated the development of the Three-syllable words, that’s the situation of these words in Modern Chinese, including both their form and meaning.Based on our analysis, we get conclusions as follows.The Three-syllable words in Cihua are made up of Single-morpheme words and compound words. The compound words which are made up of derivative words and Recombine-morpheme words are in the majority. The affix types of Three-syllable derivative words are less than that of the Two-syllable derivative words. Some affixs like "阿" nearly can’t form Three-syllable words. From the point of syllable form, the number of "2+1" syllable form is larger than the "1+2" in the Three-syllable nouns obviously. Most of the Three-syllable adjectives and verbs are"1+2" type. The"2+1" syllable type words are in the majority of the total Three-syllable words, this trend becomes more and more obvious from the Ancient Chinese to the Moder Chinese.As to the inner structural form of the Three-syllable words, the Modification-center structure dominates the nouns, the Verb-object structure dominates the verbs and the ABB-Style dominates the adjectives. The proportion of all the structure styles in Cihua is nearly the same with they are in Modern Chinese which reflects the tight relationship between the Early Modern Chinese and Moder Chinese. The styles of the bisyllable root of the Three-syllable words are various, and the Modification-center structure are in the majority. The inner form of the Three-syllable words in Cihua are manifold.The Three-syllable words formed many semantic fields in Cihua and most of them belong to the subordinate category in semantic level.The Three-syllable words which preserved in modern Chinese completely only account for a small part. Most of them have disappeared in standard Modern Chinese except some remained in dialects. The main reason is that the things which the Three-syllable words refered to had disappeared. Some words still keep the Three-syllable form but the meaning items have increased or decreased. And also some words’ meaning have changed absolutely. Some words’ meaning didn’t change but the form have changed. Most of the Form-changed Three-syllable words become bisyllables, some become Four-syllable forms, and others still keep the Three-syllable form but some morphemes have changed.