A Study On Word Formation By Sound Change In Chinese

The study of sound-change word formation has witnessed the development from semantic observation only to the combined observation of semantics and syntax and to the concentration on morphology. The traditional studies have laid more emphasis on the sound and meaning relation between words with the same morphology but different tones, and developed some initial notions like dynamic vs. static, agent vs. patient. Up to recent times, the awareness of language grammar paves the way for the further distinctions between inner verb and outer verb, active verb and passive verb, causative verb and intentional verb, etc. Semantically, the distinctions between in-wards vs. out-wards, and superiority vs. inferiority also receives great attention. Meanwhile, the observation on controllability and the state of act becomes a new approach to the study of word formation. Scholars either focus on semantics or on syntax or on the attempts to combine the two, and they have made a number of achievements in the description and classification of sound-change word formation. However, the opinions on the same word with different tones are divergent because of different analytical methods. For instance, han (&) has flat and falling tones respectively. The former tone means hold in mouth; while the latter refers to the object that is held in mouth (the written form can also be琀or唅). Han is an act performed by the living people. Of course the dead are unable to do so. Obviously, it is the living who cause the dead to do such an act of han. So the two tones are described and classified as living vs. dead, noble vs. humble, active vs. passive, automatic vs. causative, etc.This dissertation has done some tentative work on the consistent explanation on different analyses, and drew a more comprehensive conclusion and generalized some rules and regularities on sound-change word formation.Our linguistic data mainly come from Jing Dian Shi Wen, because this book, which is full of words formed by sound change. We also select some data from Huilin Yin Yi for the same reason. The data from this book are of colloquial features and experiencing the stage of decline of morphology. The investigation of markedness function of sounds can provide evidence for the types of sound-change word formation, the relation between sound level and syntactic-semantic level. The combination of these two proofs can help observe the production, development and decline of sound-change word formation.According to the previous studies we come to realize that it is difficult to obtain a comprehensive conclusion of the overall mechanism of sound-change word formation just on the basis of lexical meaning and grammatical function. Therefore, we attempt to choose a new perspective which applies theta-roles in generative grammar to analyze the sound-change word formation. Xu Liejiong&Shen Yang (1998) point out that theta-roles are the interface elements between syntax and semantics, and the study of theta-roles is the extension of the analysis of syntactic elements and also the abstraction of semantic elements. The application of theta-roles to sound-change word formation can help establish a syntactic-semantic tie and facilitate us to investigate sound-change word formation by way of morphology.The research method of this dissertation studies sound-change word formation with the help of the achievements of modern syntax and semantics. We attempts to testify and re-explain the widely-acknowledged study abroad and at home concerning phonology and morphology and their relation in ancient Chinese, and also closely combines morphological and syntactic-semantic studies to identify the sound-change word formation through the integration of arguments and observes the interaction between sound, meaning and sentence structure. As a result, this research reveals the consistence between a comparatively concise phonological means and a more complicated grammatical meaning, and tentatively establishes a morphological system in ancient Chinese from the perspective of argument theory.The whole research process and the initial conclusion are as follows:First, on the basis of the relevant studies on valence of verbs in ancient Chinese, we identify the theta-roles and classifies sound-change word formation at syntactic-semantic level into11types, i.e., causative, intentional, directional, passive, tolerant, objective, source/target, instrumental, measure, V/N transferred designation and state.Second, we make a comparative analysis of sound-change word formation of the above-mentioned11types, clarifying the interactive relations among sound, meaning and sentence structure.Third, according to the previous study in this dissertation, we disclose the essence of the sound-change word formation at syntactic-semantic level, that is, the integration of arguments, which has three types:argument addition, argument reduction and argument transformation. It suggests a new explanation for the morphological study of ancient Chinese:the derivative generated by sound change of source word from non-qushen or voiceless consonant to qushen or voiced consonant will either assign an argument, or reduce an argument, or transform its argument role so as to project some argument. According to the distribution, it is normal for qushen to cause marking assignment and argument projection and for voiced consonant to reduce argument, which reveals that the performance of qushen maintains syntactically and semantically consistent in a complicated and even contradictory process of sound-change word formation.In addition, the dissertation also discusses two relevant topics.(1) The chapter puts forward the word formation by transferred designation, generalizes two types of word formation, i.e., V/N and N/V, and summarizes the list of word formation by transferred designation. A concise explanation is presented by applying cognitive theory to the asymmetry between the ratio and the quantity of transferred designation. The ’implicit-to-explicit’rule in lexicology is also used to investigate the difference between two types of implicit meanings and explicit meanings. Essentially, V-N transfer word formation should be the model of’implicitness—explicitness—transferred designation’.(2) Considering the interaction between sound, word and meaning, the chapter analyzes the disappearance of sound-change word formation and investigates the compensation mechanism from the perspective of the diachronic change and substitution of lexis, the influence by the development from mono-syllable word to multi-syllable word, the emergency of new grammatical structure and rule and so on.