Identifying The Semantic Characteristics Of The New-born Attributive Words And Revealing The Principles Of Their Appearance And Development

It has been several decades years since the research of attributive words. However, majority people categorized them and study them from the view of syntax, putting emphasis on objective description, and paid less attention to their semanteme or cognition and to the new-born attributive words. Therefore, it will give us much inspiration if we reexamine the semanteme and cognition of attributive words, and put more focus on the new-born ones. Then, we'll know more about the special position of attributive words in the categorical system of Chinese words.The main grammatical characteristics of attributive words are that they can't follow "not" or "very"; they can't act as the predicate, the subject or the object; they can only act as the attribute. This article has analyzed these grammatical characteristics in semantic and cognitive way, and found out three semantic characteristics: the character of fixed quantity, the character of static state and the character of unfixed indication, disclosing the forming mechanism of attributive in the deeper layer of the language..In the latest twenty or thirty years, with the change of political and economic life, the number of attributive words increased quickly. This article has selected nearly two hundred attributive words which have been used more often in this period, identified their semantic characteristics and classified them into two categories: monosyllabic attributive words and disyllabic or polysyllabic attributive words. The latter can be devided into four classes: attributive words formed by abridged phrases, attributive words transformed from other parts of speech, attributive words formed by prefix or suffix, attributive words come from loanwords. This article has detailedly analyzed every type of attributive words from the view of syntax and semantics.Both the reasons from inside the language and outside the language have caused a great deal of attributive words to come about. This article has tried to find out the reasons that attributive words arise, mainly from outside the language. From the view of the relationship between the language and the world, the appearance of new things and the filling of some empty signs in the languge will bring some new-born attributive words; From the view of the relationship between the language and men's cognition, some attributive words come from the special interests which people take in some characteristics of things; From the view of the relationship tetween the language and the society, new social problems will promote new-born attributive words ; From the view of the relationship tetween the language and the foreign culture, there are some attributive words stem from loanwords. This article also pointed out that these outside facters didn't isolate themselves from each other, they joined together and influenced attributive words together.Because of the complexity of factors inside or outside the language, such as social or cultural factors and inside principles of the language, we can't concretely and accurately forecast which attributive words will appear in the future. However, attributive words aren't mysterious, and we can find out principles in their development. This article has used the theory of the visible and latent layers of the language, according attributive words which have appeared, to forecast the tendency that attributive words will appear. It also generalizes three principles of their development: symmetric and balanced principle; the principle of bipolar attributive words develop into tripolar ones; analogical principle.This article has stood at the philosophic point which is dynamic and integrated, and at the semantic and cognitive point, regarding attributive words as a dynamic and developing category, which exchange the energy with the world all the time. Not only the language system itself, but also the factors outside the language, such as society or culture, all will restrict the appearance and the develppment of attributive words. But their dynamic state doesn't mean...