The Antisense Compound Words Formed The Evolution Of Cognitive Research

This paper studies on the opposite compounds, which consist of two one-syllable morphemes that have contrary or relative meanings. The formation and evolution of them are closely connected with the cognitive psychology of human beings, and their evolution fully reflects the impact of cognition. The author attempts to reveal the evolution mechanism, internal motivation and cognitive motivation of opposite compounds by researching their diachronic and synchronic conditions in order to benefit the development of Chinese vocabulary research.This paper has six chapters. Chapter one consists of five parts: "the significance of the research", "the definition of opposite compounds", "the research status of opposite compounds", "the related theories and their research status" and "the research scope and method". It discusses the value of this specialized research and the standards of distinguishing opposite compounds, and introduces the related research achievements and two important theories closely relating to our research: the theory of grammaticalization and the theory of cognitive linguistics. The 245 opposite compounds which we have researched on are all selected from Modern Chinese Dictionary (Fifth Edition) and have been studied comprehensively from the following perspectives: diachronic and synchronic investigation, individual and systematic inspection, literature and dialect research, qualitative and quantitative analysis, and description and explanation.Chapter two focuses on the opposite compounds constituted by noun-morpheme. In this chapter, we have specifically discussed the following five group opposite compounds: qianhou(前后), zuoyou(左右), shangxia(上下), zimei(姊妹) and jiemei(姐妹), shouzu(手足) and shoujiao(手脚), described their formation and evolution process based on literatures, analyzed and contrasted the competing relationship of the relative words and the alternation of their meaning, and revealed the cognitive motivation which promote the evolution of opposite compounds.Chapter three focuses on the opposite compounds constituted by verb-morpheme. In this chapter, we have specifically described the semantic evolution process of the following five group opposite compounds: qujiu(去就), maimai(买卖), huxi(呼吸), fuyang(俯仰), sisheng(死生), shengsi(生死) and sihuo(死活), and explained it by cognitive theories.Chapter four focuses on the opposite compounds constituted by adjective-morpheme. In this chapter, we have specifically probed the grammaticalization process of the following five group opposite compounds: haodai(好歹), duoshao(多少), changduan(长短), fanzheng(反正), gaoxia(高下) and gaodi(高低) to reveal the promoting effects of metonymy and metaphor on the evolution of opposite compounds.Chapter five focuses on the opposite compounds constituted by the same morphemes with different order. This chapter has two parts: "the description of profile" and "the analysis of individual example". We have investigated the sequence choice of the morphemes of opposite compounds and the diachronic alternation and synchronic condition of shizhong(始终) andzhongshi(终始).Chapter six focuses on the cognitive motivation of the formation and evolution of opposite compounds. Based on the analysis of corpus, we have drew a conclusion that cognitive experience, metonymy and metaphor are the important factors which impact and promote the formation and evolution of opposite compounds.