"Noun+Verb" Compound Noun In English, Japanese And Chinese

Compounds and their corresponding phrase structures have similar aspects, and there is close relation between Morphology and Syntax. Taking the compound noun composed with "noun+verb" in English, Japanese and Chinese as the study object, I cite and consult the standpoint of Roeper and Siegel (1978), Lieber (1983), Grimshaw (1990), Kageyama (影山 1993), Chen ping (陈平 1994), Fu aiping(傅爱平 2004) etc. And explain the reason of the composing of "noun+verb" compound nouns, their productivity in the three languages, and the meaning of them as a whole.The thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter focuses on former studies and the introduction to the theses of the First Sister Principle brought by Roeper and Siegel (1978), Argument-linking Principle by Lieber (1983), Proto-type Argument Structure Theory by Grimshaw (1990), Internal argument compound by kageyama (影山 1993) etc. In the second chapter, basing on the theory of Kageyama (影山 1993), I try to analyze the "noun + verb" compound noun in which noun is Argument of the verb, and explain its productivity when internal argument or external argument is compounded with verb. In the third chapter, I try to analyze the compound noun when noun is used as adjunct of the verb by the statistics of compounds collected in dictionary and with the help of radar chart, consequently come to the productivity hierarchy. In the fourth chapter, I analyze and conclude the meaning of "noun +verb" compound nouns. The last chapter is the summary of the content of the thesis.The followings are the conclusions drawn from the thesis:I. The aspect of internal argument compoundThis theory applies to English, Chinese and Japanese, that is, it is easier for internal argument to be compounded with verb than external argument.II. The aspect of productivity(i) When noun is the Argument of verb, English, Japanese and Chinese all have (1)' s relation. (1) Theme> Agent/GoalWhen noun is used as verbs' Argument in the "noun + verb" compound noun of English, Chinese and Japanese, more than 65% of the total of compound nouns (the rest are compounds of adjunct compounded with verb) are the compound of theme and verb, (the percentage is the largest in various semantics compounded with verbs), but there are only a few cases in which Agent is compounded with verb. And so far, the compound of Goal and verb has not been found in Chinese and English. Only a few cases have been found in Japanese. There are two extreme phenomenon in the compound of Theme and Agent/Goal in the aspect of productivity. We consider it may have something to do with information distribution in the sentence and animacy problem. Firstly, from the information distribution in the sentence, we know Agent often plays the part of Subject while Theme usually plays the part of Object. Subject usually indicates the given information while Object the new information. The new information is easier to be compounded with verb in order to offer people new information while it is not necessary for the given information to be compounded again except for special cases. On the otherhand, the object restricts the verb's meaning. Predicate and object link closely in the aspect of meaning and Syntax structure. Secondly, in the aspect of animacy, we know that proto-Agent, proto-Goal refer to human being while proto-Theme usually refers to inanimate. Goal usually functions as the indirect object referring to human being in sentences. The ranking about animacy given by Comrie (1981) shows that the animacy of the human being ranks the first, the animate is the second and the inanimate is the last. From the compounds I studied, I found that Theme is compounded with verb most frequently, the noun of animal is the second and the noun of people the least That is, the higher the animacy is, the more difficult it is for the noun to be compounded with verb; the lower the animacy is, the easier it is for the noun to be compounded with verb.(ii) when noun functions as adjunct of verb, English, Japanese and Chinese all have a common tendency: the productivity of Instrument compounding with verb is higher than the others, such as Manner, Location, Time, as shown in (2).(2) Instrument Location/Time/Manner III. The aspect of meaning(1) No matter what noun is the argument or adjunct of the verb, the compound noun always has self-designation meaning, which applies to English (except the case of "N+V-er"), Japanese and Chinese.(2) While indicating transferred-designation, its meaning mainly refers to Agent, Product and Instrument (their verb parts are all volition verbs). And there are few cases of designating Time and Location.(3) Only in English does the compound nouns compounded with external argument, adjunct and verb designate Agent, probably because of the morphologic mark of "V-er" in English.(4) The compound nouns compounded with adjunct and verb generally are self-designation in Chinese and Japanese.