Lexicalization Of Disyllabic Phrases

The view that Chinese disyllabic words mainly come from lexicalization of phrases has been widely acknowledged in academic circles since it was proposed by scholars such as Wang Li and Zhang Shilu in mid 21st century. However, this conclusion is based on the observation of materials randomly collected and exhaustive study of materials in separated periods or of a certain book has never been conducted or stands hard to be conducted. As a result, to what extend and on what scale this conclusion has reflected the development of Chinese words still calls for further and more detailed study. Disyllablization of Chinese words started in the pre-Qin days and quickened its pace in the Eastern Han Dynasty when ancient Chinese language was transforming to medieval Chinese language. Taiping Jing, a Taoist classic, is written in this transitional period of Chinese language. This dissertation will study words and phrases frequently appear in Taiping Jing (the 100 words and phrases most frequently appear in this scripture for the time being) and explore the lexicaliztion process of disyllabic phrases that appear as disyllabic words in Taiping Jing and of the disyllabic phrases appear in this scripture. Based on this research, this dissertation attempts to objectively evaluate the role and influence of the lexicalization of disyllabic phrases in the development of Chinese language and then presents some of its motivation, mechanism and law that are largely ignored by the academic circles from the theoretical perspective.This dissertation consists of two major parts. The first and second chapters analyze 100 words and phrases most frequently appear in Taiping Jing. Based on whether the meanings of these examples are transparent in Taiping Jing, whether they have assumed set forms and whether they embody the grammatical function of words, these examples are divided into three categories: disyllabic words, disyllabic quasi-words and disyllabic phrases. These two chapters also verify the nature of these 100 examples by referring to the contemporary corpus of Taiping Jing such as Han Shu (History of the Han Dynasty, by Ban Gu ) , Lun Heng (By Wang chong) and Chinese translated Buddhist Scriptures in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Then these two chapters go on to classify all the examples in accordance with traditional syntactic structures and explore whether these examples are words and if they are, how they evolve into words. The third chapter presents theoretical explanation of the lexicalization of disyllabic phrases. It mainly compares the number of words and non-words, of words from lexicalization of phrases and those formed in accordance with syntax, and of quasi-words and typical words in different times, all of which will serve as a base for the evaluation of the status and role of lexicalization of phrases in the development of Chinese words.The study reveals that there are mainly two sources for Chinese disyllabic words: lexicalization of phrases and compounding, but words coming from lexicalization of phrases only account for a small part of the total. Take the 100 words most frequently appear in Taiping Jing for example, the disyllable words deriving from lexicalization of phrases make up 15 percent of the total and constitutes 25 percent of the structures that can be explained from the perspective of the five basic syntactic structure. 27 percent of the 100 words are disyllabic words formed through lexicalization of syntactic structure, cross-class structure, etc. These findings are widely divergent with the traditional view that the majority of disyllabic words evolve from phrases. What's more, many words that has been widely accepted as deriving from phrases, such as "妻子" and "月亮", are in fact compounds. Though there were cases of such linguistic units being used as phrases, these phrases were merely taking on the same forms as those of certain compounds by accident and these compounds do not actually evolve from these phrases. The theory of lexicalization can explain words formed in compliance with syntactic structures (such as "不及" , "不能" and "不足" ) and those formed through cross-class combination (such as "以为" , "所以" and "以来" ), but the view that disyllabic words mainly come from lexicalization of phrases exaggerates the role of lexicalization in the development of Chinese words. In their book Modern Chinese Language, Huang Borong and Liao Xudong comment: "In Chinese, compounds formed by the binding of roots and morphemes dominate." Though their opinion is based on a synchronic observation of modern Chinese language, it can still be applied to the evolving process of Chinese language. Disyllabic words mainly come from the direct binding of a root and a morpheme rather than lexicalization of phrases.This dissertation also studies the five basic types of phrases in terms of the possibility of lexicalization and finds that they differ a great deal in this regard. If the meanings of morphemes of phrases cannot integrate when they first appear, these phrases cannot become online words in accordance with morphology. At the same time, though these phrases are likely to be lexicalized, only a small number of them can evolve into words due to difficulty in semantic integration. Verb-object structure, structure of predication and verb-complement structure are predicative and highly declarative, but this "declarativeness" cannot be achieved without connection between the meanings of at least two morphemes. Therefore the morphemes of each of these three types of structures are highly denotative and the nature of phrase embedded in these structures is hard to disappear. As a result, phrases of these three structures seldom develop into words through morphology but tend to evolve into words through lexicalization. Among coordinate phrases, those composed of morphemes with opposite meanings that cannot bind directly to form words involve into words in accordance with morphology in most cases. A small number of phrases, the meaning of whose morphemes are related to each other, also become words through lexicalization. For example, special phrases such as quantifier phrases are likely to be lexicalized. But phrases composed of morphemes with similar meanings can become words with their morphemes binding together instead of through lexicalization the first time they appear. The majority of disyllabic subordinate structures are substantive and the first time they appear they are to express a concrete concept, so they should be regarded as compounds and they have not gone through the transformation of lexicalization. Among those that can be interpreted as attributive-head compounds, only a small number result from lexicalization. Adverbial-head phrases are predicative and only account for a small part of subordinate phrases. Some of adverbial-head phrases tend to be lexicalized. To sum up, all disyllabic words deriving from lexicalization has undergone certain hard choices. The underlying rule that disyllabic words are formed through the most convenient way determines the basic pattern of the increase and decrease of Chinese vocabulary. Most of Chinese disyllabic words are formed through morphology, especially compounding of two roots.