A Study Of The Lexical Semantic Asymmetry In Russian And Chinese

Lexical semantic asymmetry,which has been explored to a certain extent in linguistics,is an important field both in language study and research.However,in the previous studies,the lexis of Russian and Chinese is put on the basis of the same reference in the reality world,and the cultural associative meaning has been studied deeply.But the focus on the lexical semantic asymmetry caused during the process of word formation and word development is far from enough,so it is quite necessary to make a further and systematic study in this field.The lexical semantic asymmetry in Russian and Chinese refers to the non-reciprocity of lexical semantics the words in the two language contain.The reflection of lexical semantic symmetry in Russian and Chinese can be found both in static dictionary definitions and the dynamic corpora.In static dictionary definitions,the lexical semantic asymmetry in Russian and Chinese appears in the differences in the quantity of meanings,generative meanings and derived meanings.In dynamic corpora,the lexical semantic asymmetry reflects on the differences in quantity and meanings of the parallel lexis in the corresponding corpora.Lexical semantic meaning is the information formed in the process of word formation and word usage.From the perspective of philosophy,the words and the real world referred by the words have the corresponding and restraining relation.From the perspective of onomasiology,lexis is the way people nominate the reality world.The lexical semantics can neither be separated with people,who is the subject to nominate everything,nor with the reality world,which is the object of the nomination process.Besides,the lexical semantics also has close relation with the language,which is the media of the nomination process.These three factors constitute the basic elements of the lexical semantics.Among the three basic elements,reality world is the objective existence;human being is the measurement of the world;language is the symbol system created by human being.So the reality world that is expressed in language after being cognized by human mind is not the objective reality world any more,since human's mode of thinking and cognitive experience have been added to it.On the one hand,human's mode of thinking and cognitive experience are carried by language.On the other hand,once language is fixed,it restricts human's mode of thinking and cognitive experience.Language reflects linguistic activeness.The people in Russia and China have different mode of thinking and cognitive experience,and they created different linguistic symbol systems,so the lexical semantic asymmetry of the two languages appears.These asymmetrical features embody on the differences of nomination subjects,the language symbol by which the nomination is formed—the differences of word formation elements,and the language analogy by which the nomination process abide—the difference of hierarchical structure of the nomination process.With the instruction of the above theories,the thesis made a study of the lexical structures of Russian and Chinese from the three aspects:the subject who nominates the reality world,the language symbols on which the nomination process depends,and the layer structure formed in the nomination process.The differences in subject reflect human's initiative in the nomination process.The restrictive force of the nomination subject on the lexical semantics embodies as the following.(1)Difference in perspective:the objects and phenomenon in the world exist multi-dimensionally.It is human's decision to nominate them from a certain viewpoint.The people from the two different countries often see things in different viewpoints,which reflects in the different lexical semantic information.(2)The differences in cognitive metaphor of the nomination subjects.The differences in cognitive metaphor reflect both on the direct nomination process of the subjects and phenomenon and on the lexical construction of the objects and phenomenon.They are formed under the influence of cognitive experience and knowledge experience of the two peoples in the two nations.On the one hand,the nomination process from the nomination subjects embodies people's intellectuality.On the other hand,it embodies the influence of language to human being's mode of thinking.So,the language symbols,on which the nomination process depend,should be analyzed systematically.Lexical formative elements are the language media that Russian and Chinese people use in the nomination process.On the one hand,lexical formative elements reflect the two peoples' mode of thinking.On the other hand,they restrict the nomination process in both groups.There are notional morphemes and imaginary morphemes.There are more similarities than difference in notional morpheme,but there are more differences than the similarities in imaginary morphemes in both languages.The semantic differences of notional morphemes lie on the notional morpheme that express static meaning,dynamic meaning,quantity meaning and reference meaning.There are differences in the semantic separation scale and cultural associative meaning.The differences of imaginary morphemes in Russian and Chinese lie on the quantity of morphemes and the semantic function carried on by the imaginary morphemes.The differences in lexical formative elements reflect in the differences of generative meaning,derived meaning and collocation meaning of Russian and Chinese.The hierarchical structure of the lexical nomination is the language analogy mechanism formed in the nomination process of the reality world,which embodies human being's language analogy.The hierarchical structure in the lexical nomination includes basic nomination and specific nomination.Basic nomination is the most fundamental category of human experience.The specific nomination expresses the specific qualities that this word is different from other objects or phenomenon of its kind.It has the characteristics of evaluation,relevance,uniqueness and relativity.In Russian and Chinese,the difference in the hierarchical structure in the lexical nomination reflects the difference in the language analogy mechanism of the two languages.It is the difference in internal elements of different hierarchical characteristics,and it is also the difference of semantic coordination of the elements in the nomination process of the two languages.The difference in the hierarchical structure of lexical nomination causes the difference in semantic category of the two languages and the difference in the semantic protruding mode of the two languages.In the comparison study of lexical semantics in Russian and Chinese,the lexical semantic asymmetry of the two languages can be achieved by the following three aspects:(1)the differences in the subject of the nomination process,(2)the semantic characteristics of the lexical formative elements,(3)and the hierarchical structure of lexical nomination.The study of lexical semantic asymmetry in Russian and Chinese can adopt the following strategies:(1)Determine the semantic information that the lexis in the two languages contains.To determine the semantic information that the lexis in the two languages contains,the lexical motivation meaning can be gained by analyzing lexical formative elements;the lexical metaphor meaning can be gained through lexical motivation meaning;the lexical implication meaning can be gained through lexical hierarchical structure;the fragments of language world pictures that the lexis tries to express can be gained through the generative meaning,derived meaning and implicative meaning of the lexis.(2)Differentiate and analyze the synonyms and antonyms in the two languages.In the process of differentiating and analyzing,the lexis with the same root should be analyzed by the different semantics of lexical elements.The difference will be made clear by the analysis of the semantic characteristics of the lexical formative elements in Russian and Chinese.As to the lexis with similar meaning without sharing the same root,the difference can be analyzed by the nomination categories of the lexis.(3)Choose the lexis that has the most similar meaning in a certain context.To choose the corresponding words from the other language in Russian and Chinese,the lexical semantics should be determined in contextual situations.The communication can be achieved by choosing the words with the most similar meaning through comparing the semantic information of the lexis.