Chinese Sex Words

Gender is an important category in language. There are genders in many languages in the world, which are categorized as masculine, feminine and neuter. Although there are some languages in which genders are not attributed to words in grammatical sense, people, in general sense, attribute a biological gender to each living things. Chinese is an isolating (or analytic) language, which entails that there is no inflection in the formation of Chinese words. As a result, there is no grammatical gender in Chinese. Consequently genders are represented lexically by gender words instead of inflection in other fusional or inflectional languages, which is an important way to represent the concept of gender in Chinese language.Gender words are defined as the word which refers to a specific sex or the word which is of phonemes referring to sexes. Based on the theory of categories in cognitive linguistics, gender words are categorized into three types:the prototypical gender word, the less typical gender word and the peripheral gender word. The prototypical gender word refers to the word with masculine or feminine as central distinctive features, such as"男","女","公","母","牡","牝","雌","雄",etc. The less typical gender word refers to the word with masculine or feminine as non-central distinctive features, such as"豭","豝","牯","牸","凤","凰",etc. The peripheral gender word refers to the word with masculine or feminine as peripheral distinctive features, such as"哥","姐","弟","妹","舅","姑",etc.Gender words used in different times in the history of Chinese language are of great difference, and gender words in Standard Mandarin Chinese also differ from that in various dialects. Besides, within various dialects there exist different gender words in use. Therefore, investigating the gender words in dialects is necessary in the current language enquiry. Discussions and studies on gender words are scattered in the literature, and till now no systematic study on gender words has been conducted yet. Consequently, to investigate Chinese gender words can help us to have new perspective on the lexical system of Chinese. Additionally, it provides significant research materials for studies of the history of Chinese lexical changes and studies of gender categories of Chinese. Apart from that, it offers rectification and supplementary materials for the existing problem of explanatory and illustrative works in compiling dictionaries.On the basis of carrying on a survey of transcription of classic works, oracle bone inscriptions, bamboo tablets and silk scripts, stone inscriptions, Buddhist scriptures in Chinese, and Dunhuang transcriptions, and other documents in various forms, the thesis investigates and explains the historical changes of prototypical gender words and less typical gender words with Chinese gender words as subjects and with combination of distribution of modern Chinese dialects. The thesis is to probe into the changing patterns of Chinese gender words throughout the history of Chinese language. Besides, a comparative study of genders words in Chinese, English and French is to be discussed.The thesis is composed of seven chapters. In chapter one introduction, the rationale of the current study is provided with a brief review on the study on Chinese common words and a thorough discussion on the relationship between Chinese gender words and common words. Research methods and significance, and materials of Old Chinese, Middle Chinese and Contemporary Chinese for investigation, are introduced in chapter one.Chapter two is a literature review on the studies of system of Chinese lexicon. An argumentation is also presented in this chapter that there exists a symmetric subsystem in the Chinese lexical system, with exemplification of the symmetric distribution of prototypical gender words, less typical gender words and periphery gender words in the Chinese lexicon.In chapter three, the thesis probes into the distribution of prototypical gender words and less typical gender words in the period of Old Chinese, Middle Chinese and Contemporary Chinese. The most frequently used gender words in the period of Old Chinese are"雌/雄","牝/牡","男/女"and in this period there exist a great number of less typical gender words, such as"羝","特","犅","豭","羖","麚","凤","牸","牂""羭","豝","麀",etc. Among these less typical gender words there exist in great numbers words in pairs, such as"翡/翠","凤/凰","乾/坤","麒/麟","内/外","臣/妾""阴/阳","鲸/鲵","儿/婴","虹/霓","棠/杜","羒/牂","麀/麚,etc. In the period of Middle Chinese,"雌/雄","牝/牡","男/女"are still the most frequently used gender words, and the use of"公/母"is gradually increasing. The frequency of using less typical gender words remains the same as that in the period of Old Chinese. In the period of Contemporary Chinese, the frequency of prototypical gender words "男/女" increases in great scale, while the prototypical gender words "牝/牡" generally disappear in the common lexicon and"雌/雄"is used in a very confined scale, i. e. in written Chinese. In addition, less typical gender words are used in a descending scale. For example, in Modern Chinese the less typical gender words referring to the gender of animals are only used in certain dialects. The investigation into the 41 dialects in seven dialect areas suggests that the usage of gender words referring to the gender of animals differs greatly among different dialects, which reflecting the fact the significant difference of number and types in inheriting gender words from the Old Chinese in different dialect areas.Chapter four is to exploring the composing capability of Chinese gender words from three aspects:(1) the grammatical classification of gender words; (2) the analysis on semantic relationships of phonemes of gender words; (3) the collocation of gender words with nouns. The following is the findings of the current study:as far as word class is concerned, Chinese gender words fall into two categories:noun and distinctive adjectives; as far as the location of gender words is concerned, gender words can be located both before and after the attributed words; as far as the phonemes of gender words are concerned, semantic repetition has the function of emphasizing and semantic contrast results in vacancy of gender words. It is also found that the less typical gender words are collated with subordination words, and prototypical gender words can be collated with nouns of animals and plants, and part of the non-living things. The findings reflect the analogical and symmetric cognition of human being in their construing of experience.In chapter five, the thesis explores the semantic development of gender words in history of Chinese language with illustration respectively on masculine, feminine, and neuter. There are many phenomena of semantic extension and shifting of gender words with denotation of sex remained. Besides, the phenomenon that specifying designation is developed into common designation is salient. The study also reveals the development of pair gender words, such as "雌/雄", "男/女", "内/外", etc. is in symmetric patterns in semantic field.Chapter six is a comparative study on gender words in Standard Mandarin Chinese, English, and French. In the case of Mandarin Chinese, there is only one pair of prototypical gender words used to refer human beings, i. e. "男/女", which is clearly differentiated from the usage of "公/母" and "雌/雄" with no mixing in usage. However, there are more than one pairs of prototypical gender words used to refer human beings in English, i. e. "man/woman", "male/female", "boy/girl". And these prototypical English gender words used to refer to human beings can be used to refer to the gender of animal. In the case of French, the grammatical gender of gender words is closely related to the biological gender of the referees. The biological gender can be signified by grammatical inflection. For example, different affixes are added to the same stem to refer to different biological genders. Furthermore, the biological gender of being feminine can also be signified by adding suffixes to a masculine word. Ariticles (1'adjectif possessif and 1'adjectif demonstratif) can differentiate biological genders as well as grammatical genders. There are comparatively a lot of less typical gender words in French, and these pairs of gender words do not share phonemes.In chapter seven, a conclusion of the developing patterns of historical changes of Chinese gender words is presented with further discussion on the symmetric distribution, non-symmetric distribution and vacancy of gender words in the developing process of gender words. It is found that the prototypical gender word originates mainly from less typical gender words with gradual replacement of certain less typical gender words. It is also reveal that common designation increases while specifying designation decreases. Furthermore, it is proved that pairs of gender words originate in a symmetric way with slight unbalanced distribution. The non-symmetric distribution of gender words is manifested in:(1) vacancy of gender words; (2) the phenomenon of one gender word is projected to many gender words; (3) the symmetry in form with semantic non-symmetry. It should be emphasized that there is no absolute boundary between symmetry and non-symmetry and one can be transformed into the other one. The reason of the symmetric distribution of gender words is the symmetric cognition of Chinese people. And the analogical mentality is responsible for the non-symmetric distribution and vacancy of gender words.