On Compound Measure Words In Modern Chinese

It's not until the 1950s that compound measure words aroused researchers'interest. Compared with the increasing number of researches on measure words, however, few researches, were undertaken on compound measure words in the past sixty years. As compound measure words have their own characteristics and own roles to play in Chinese language, they can't be left unstudied accordingly. Based on the existing literature, this thesis attempts to fill the gap by analyzing the Chinese modern language corpus with reference to research methods used for studying measure words. This thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter one introduces the significance, research value, research object and research methodology of present study by reviewing and analyzing the existing literature on compound measure words.Chapter two defines and classifies compound measure words. Firstly, according to the existing classifications of measure words, compound measure words should be subordinate to nominal measure words, nominal or verbal measure words respectively or measure words directly. In present study, compound measure words are considered as a sub-category of measure words. Secondly, compound measure words are clearly defined as the sub-category of measure words used to indicate compound measurement, which are made up of two or more single measure words. For instance "taitao"("台套"in Chinese) is comprised of single measure words "tai"("台"in Chinese) and "tao"("套"in Chinese). Finally, compound measure words are reclassified as three types according to how it is made up, i.e. X-Ci type (e.g"人次"in Chinese), Measurement type (e.g"千米小时"in Chinese) and "Taitao" type(e.g"件套"in Chinese).Chapter three discusses how compound measure words are formed. Based on the large number of measure words in modern Chinese, compound measure words are formed by simply stringing two single measure words together under the influence of Chinese disyllabic trend. Both nominal and verbal measure words can be stringed as compound measure words theoretically. Therefore, compound measure words are very productive.Chapter four describes the characteristics of compound measure words, compound measure words as an independent sub-category of measure words, are distinct themselves from others in grammar, semantics and pragmatics.In terms of grammar, with an analysis of the modern Chinese corpus, compound measure words are mainly used together with numerals as numeral phrases in syntactic structures, which can be the subject, predicate, object, attributive and complement of a sentence. In terms of semantics, the signified of compound measure words is investigated. X-ci type of compound measure words can signify anaphora, cataphora and semantic mutual referent; measurement type signifies a particular referent; Taitao type can signify a particular referent and other referents. In terms of pragmatics, compound measure words are precise in practice, ambiguous in measurements, implicit in connotations and concise in expressions. Hence, it can be regarded that compound measure words reflect the features of written language to certain extent.Chapter five concludes what have been studied in this thesis. Limitations and implications of present study are also discussed.