A Research Of Subject-predicate Compound Words In Contemporary Chinese

Subject-predicate compound word is one of the six basic types of Chinese compound word in contemporary Chinese vocabulary. However this type of words always draws quite little attention because its number is relatively small among all. There have been some former studies about subject-predicate compound words, mainly about its distribution and proportion in the whole Chinese vocabulary and its relationship with ancient Chinese subject-predicate phrase. In this thesis, we selected all the subject-predicate compound words in Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (the 6th edition) as our material. Subject-predicate compound words have existed for a very long period and have been used quite frequently, as a result, there must be some reason why this happened and therefore it’s significant to focus on this type of compound word and to study it, which may have an effect on the study of all types of compound word, even the whole contemporary Chinese vocabulary. In this thesis, we divided into four chapters to research this type of word.In the first chapter, we try to define the subject-predicate compound word. First of all, we try to figure out the so-called subject-predicate relationship, especially in the compound word system. Then we separately study on the subject-morpheme and the predicate-morpheme. To judge these morphemes, we depend on two standards, both form and meaning, because Chinese compound words have some particularity, which leads it difficult to comply with only one standard. At last we investigated several word groups with outstanding proportions, such as "self+predicate" group and human body parts group. It’s very important to distinguish all the subject-predicate compound word carefully because the small number of this kind of words, and every single example can play a significant role in the whole group.In the second chapter we investigate the two parts of a subject-predicate compound word—the subject-morpheme and the predicate-morpheme. The characteristics of subject-morpheme are noun and pronoun. Furthermore we divided these morphemes into different categories by their meaning. And there are three semantic features about subject-morpheme:inanimate, non-specified and non-agent. The characteristics of predicate-morpheme are verbal and adjective. The main semantic features of predicate-morpheme are the controllability and transience. Afterwards we analyze the non-transitivity of predicate-morpheme and explain some exceptions.The third chapter is about the semantic analysis of subject-predicate compound word. First, we found out six basic semantic types. Then we analyze the relationships between morpheme and subject-predicate compound word in contemporary Chinese--combinational relationship and merge relationship that has some different kinds of merge. Finally we expound the monosemic and a phenomenon that the category of some words is different from that of their predicate-morpheme, which we can call it category-change. Also we try to discover why this phenomenon happens and its effect of how some subject-predicate phrases turn into words.The forth chapter is about the derivative and development of subject-predicate compound word in contemporary Chinese. We study on the origin of subject-predicate compound words. In our opinion, some of them are from the ancient Chinese subject-predicate phrase, and some are made up in the contemporary period, with the rule of subject-predicate relationship. Then we study on the features and factors of derivative. About the factors, we conclude three of them--metaphor and metonymy, allusion and the effect of foreign languages.